Mechanical and Civil Engineering Seminar

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Seminar Series

Title: Classification and Reconstruction of Fluid Flows from Limited Data

Abstract: The ability to reconstruct fluid flows and infer key parameters from limited measurements is essential for many engineering and scientific efforts. This talk presents classification and reconstruction efforts for shear flows characterized by a range of spatiotemporal scales. The reconstruction effort aims to generate time-resolved estimates of the velocity field in wall-bounded turbulent flows from non-time-resolved field measurements. Physics-based models are developed to generate forward- and backward-time predictions from the available data. These predictions are fused to generate accurate predictions at rates significantly higher than the Nyquist limit of the measurements. The classification effort attempts parameter estimation for stratified wakes from noisy point and field measurements. A library of flow features is established from prior data using modal analysis techniques. A stepwise regression technique is then used to sequentially identify features that best represent the measurements. The resulting sparse model enables flow reconstruction as well as estimation of Reynolds and Froude numbers for the object that created the wake.

Bio: Mitul Luhar is Associate Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California. Research in his group addresses turbulence control, environmental fluid mechanics, and fluid-structure interactions. This work combinates laboratory experiments and reduced complexity modeling. Mitul has received the NSF CAREER award and the AFOSR Young Investigator Program award. He is an alum of the Frontiers of Engineering program at the National Academy of Engineering and currently co-chairs the New Voices program at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Prior to joining USC, Mitul was a postdoctoral scholar in the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories at Caltech. He earned his PhD from MIT in 2012 and BA and MEng degrees from the University of Cambridge in 2007.

NOTE: At this time, in-person Mechanical and Civil Engineering Lectures are open to all Caltech students/staff/faculty/visitors.