Bio

Research Interests

   –  Flow induced vibrations & noise
   –  Aeroacoustics
   –  Turbulent flows

Specific Research Activities

While I was working as a group leader in the Research Laboratory of Sulzer Technology Corporation (Switzerland), my research work dealt primarily with industrial problems involving fluid-structural-sound interaction mechanisms and means of their active/passive control in a wide range of products. My current research interests at McMaster remain essentially interdisciplinary, covering the fields of unsteady flows, aeroacoustics, active flow control and flow-sound-structure interaction.

Fluid flows in many engineering applications are inherently unstable. These instabilities can be strongly enhanced if they interact with wall movements resulting from structural vibrations, or sound waves generated by acoustic resonances. The outcome of such interaction is often strong pressure pulsations, dangerous vibrations and/or intolerable noise levels. These have negative effects on the efficiency, the safety and the environment of many industrial processes. However, flow instabilities can also produce very beneficial effects such as enhanced mixing, thermal diffusion and heat transfer. Thus, it is very desirable to develop active and passive control methods to stabilize the flow, in order to eliminate harmful effects, or to destabilize the flow to promote beneficial changes. This requires good understanding of the basic interaction mechanisms between unstable flows, structural movements and sound waves.