Alfredo Pinelli is professor of Fluid Simulation at the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at City University London (CU). Since 1989 he has worked actively in the field of Direct and Large Eddy Simulations of turbulent flows, covering both physical and algorithmic aspects. Lately, he has widened his research interests to the simulation of fluid flows around complex geometries including fluid-structure interaction problems with particular emphasis on biomimetic flow control methodologies. All the mentioned subjects are covered by his publications record that includes about 70 peer reviewed papers and 60 international conferences. Alfredo Pinelli has participated in several National, European and International research projects.

Flow manipulation based on passive and localised fluid structure interactions

Surfaces covered by arrayed, slender, deformable, filamentous structures, anchored to a substrate and exposed to viscous flows are ubiquitous in nature, and increasingly seen in bio inspired technology. During this talk, two examples will be explored and discussed in details. The first one concerns the possibility of manipulating a bluff body wake using an array of elastic, slender filaments appended on its lee side. The second one, inspired by the feathers pop up frequently observed in maneuvering birds, will focus on the use of thin flexible flap-like membrane mounted on the suction side of aerofoils to palliate the effects of sudden changes of incidence angle. Finally, some preliminary results on the behavior of a turbulent flow developing over a flat plate covered by a dense elastic filamentous carpet where a self-similar solution at the interface may take place will be introduced and discussed.

Iso-surfaces of Q, colored with the distance from the mid-plane. Re_D=200 corresponding to the first three-dimensional bifurcation (i.e. A mode). Filaments on the lee side are spaced D/4 apart. Filaments natural frequency has been randomly chosen in the range of 0.2 to 5 f_s (Karman’s undisturbed shedding frequency).