Introduction

View the Center's annual report for 2002.

The University of Notre Dame has a long tradition of achievement in experimental fluid dynamics and aerodynamics that dates back to 1882, with the development of one of the earliest wind tunnels in the United States. Since 1943, contributions to aircraft technology from Notre Dame's Aerospace Engineering Laboratory have been recognized world wide through its development of low-turbulence, subsonic, transonic and supersonic, smoke-visualization wind tunnels. These unique wind tunnels continue to support new research, and form the nucleus to the other new facilities.

As an outgrowth of this long tradition, the Center for Flow Physics and Control was officially formed in July, 2001. Research funding comes from a broad number of government agencies, including all branches of the Department of Defense (Army, Air Force and Navy); DARPA; and NASA Langley, Ames, Glenn and Dryden Research Centers. A general theme of research that bridges this group involves flow diagnostics, prediction and control. This has led to a combination of basic research aimed at verifying or developing theories for fluid dynamic behavior, and the application of theory towards controlling flows. This has involved a multitude of flow fields including laminar and turbulent boundary layers, jets, shear layers and wakes at incompressible and compressible Mach numbers. The applications have included transition control, drag reduction, mixing, flow-induced vibration and acoustics. In addition to experiments, there has been a long tradition of theoretical and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and modeling of complex flows. The combination of these elements in a single site is a particular strength of the group.

The facilities in the Center are primarily located in the Hessert Center for Aerospace Research. This is a modern 40,000 square-foot building that includes laboratories, computer facilities, fully staffed machine and electronics shops, faculty and student offices, and conference and meeting rooms.

The research facilities include numerous high-quality subsonic, transonic and supersonic wind tunnels, as well as specialty facilities such as a high-speed heated anechoic jet facility, an anechoic open-jet wind tunnel, and an atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel. Specialized laboratories focus on particle dynamics, optical measurements, digital time-series acquisition and image processing, and computational fluid dynamics.

The missions of the Center are:
1. To provide an organization for larger multi-disciplinary research teams that can be competitive in securing larger external Center grants. Since many of the large government research programs require collaboration with Industry, part of the Center's mission will be to establish a group of Industry Partners. The Center would hold at least one meeting per year with the Industry Partners to showcase ongoing research efforts, and discuss new research directions and funding opportunities. The Center would produce and distribute research reports, and an annual report.

2. To provide support to foster the diverse efforts of individual PIs in order to maintain a broad base of research over as large a number of agencies as possible. The purpose of this is to allow flexibility to pursue new or developing research areas, and to develop future prospects for larger collaborative efforts. The Center will act to coordinate the use of facilities and staff for these efforts. Part of the Center budget would also be allocated to provide "seed" money to individuals to develop new promising research as an initial step in acquiring external funding.

In order to meet this mission, the Center would make use of experiments, computations and theory in all phases. It would seek interactions among researchers within Notre Dame in a variety of disciplines including fluid dynamics, control theory, materials, electronics and computer engineering, and signal processing. It will also aggressively seek industry advisors who can provide intellectual feedback and industrial teaming.

The Center involves faculty in five departments: Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (AME), Electrical Engineering (EE), Civil Engineering and Geological Science (CE & GS), Computer Science and Engineering
(CS & E), and Physics.

The research in the Center is broken into five areas:
Aero-optics
Aero-aoustics
Fluid-structure Interactions
Multiphase Flows
Flow Control

The Center structure starts with the groups which are active in the five research areas. Each of these has a group leader(s) which make up an internal Steering Committee for the Center.

There are two external advisory groups. The first is an External Advisory Committee which is made up of individuals working in the area of Fluid Dynamics from government laboratories and academia. The second group consists of representatives of the Industry Partners.

The Industry Partners are companies which have a formal working relationship with the Center. The model follows that of National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry/University Centers whereby we are seeking a minimum of six Industry Partners, who collectively contribute $300,000 per year, or $50,000 per Partner.

Achieving a NSF Engineering Research Center status presents a number of opportunities including funding for Exploratory Research Projects, Industry/University Research Fellowships, and Supplemental Programs.