Experimental Aerodynamics and Propulsion Lab
The research activities focus on both advancement / development of current/new flow diagnostics techniques, data-driven methods and on the experimental investigation of vortical features, heat transport and mixing in complex flows. The experimental activities are prevalently targeted to aerospace propulsion-related aspects such as swirling flows and turbomachinery cooling.
Research lines
Advanced flow diagnostics
We work on the development and improvement of measurement tools for turbulent and complex flows. Our contributions have been mostly in the field of PIV (planar, stereoscopic and volumetric) and IR thermography. Recent efforts include the application of data-driven methods to improve measurement spatial and temporal resolution and signal-to-noise ratio.
Data-driven fluid mechanics
We investigate on data-driven tools to analyze numerical and experimental data. The tools we employ are aimed at flow sensing, model order reduction and control. Current activities include the sensing of large-scale motions in turbulent boundary layers and the heat transfer enhancement with closed loop control.
Wall-bounded turbulence
Turbulent boundary layers (TBLs) are of paramount importance given their ubiquitous presence in many relevant fluid-flow problems such as the flow over wings, land and sea vehicles, turbines, compressors, etc. The focus of our research is on the coherent structures organization, modeling and manipulation in canonical (pipe flows, ZPG TBLs) and non-canonical conditions.
Convective heat transfer
Convective heat transfer is relevant in countless industrial applications (turbomachinery, manufacturing, food processing, etc.). We use optical methods and data-mining techniques to investigate the flow feataures which are more intensively active in convective heat transfer phenomena.
People
Stefano Discetti
Antonio Cuellar Martin
Patricia Garcia Caspueñas
Andrea Ianiro
Iacopo Tirelli
Marco Raiola
Junwei Chen
Rodrigo Castellanos
Luigi Marra
Firoozeh Foroozan
Luca Franceschelli
Active competitive research projects
NEXTFLOW: Next-generation flow diagnostics for control
ERC Starting Grant (PI: S. Discetti, UC3M), 2021-2025 [www]
PREDATOR-CM-UC3M: Prediction and control of turbulent flows with advanced statistical techniques
Madrid Community (PI: S. Discetti, A. Meilán-Vila, UC3M), 2022-2023 [www]
ACCREDITATION: Artificial-intelligence active flow control for reductIon of transport emissions
Spanish State Research Agency (PI: S. Discetti and A. Ianiro, UC3M), 2022-2024
JAMAICAM: Diagnóstico del ruido de chorro producido en aeronaves mediante cámaras acústicas masivas.
Spanish State Research Agency (PI: M. Raiola, L.A. Azpicueta)
ARTURO: Active control of turbulence for sustainable aircraft propulsion.
Spanish State Research Agency (PI: S. Discetti and A. Ianiro, UC3M), 2020-2024 [www]
Funding from industrial and academic partners
The research activities of EAP have been funded by the following industrial partners:
- Airbus Operations, S.L
- Compañía Española de Sistemas Aeronáuticos, S.A.
- TU Delft
- Empresarios Agrupados
- ATOS Spain
PhD theses
Design of aeroacoustic-quality jet facility and active flow control solution for noise reduction
Luca Franceschell (ongoing) Supervisors: S. Discetti, M.Raiola
Machine-learning-based flow control
Alberto Solera Rico (ongoing) Supervisors: S. Discetti, C. Sanmiguel Vila
Model Predictive Control applied to turbulent flow
Luigi Marra (ongoing) Supervisors: S. Discetti, A. Meilán-Vila
Closed-loop flow control in turbulent propulsion flows
Antonio Cuellar-Martín (ongoing) Supervisors: S. Discetti, A. Ianiro
Data-driven enhancement of optical measurement techniques
Iacopo Tirelli (ongoing) Supervisors: S. Discetti, A. Ianiro
Complete flow description from combination of incomplete measurements
Junwei Chen (ongoing) Supervisors: S. Discetti, M.Raiola
Detection and control of large-scale motions in wall-bounded turbulent flows
Firoozeh Foroozan. (ongoing) Supervisors: A. Ianiro, S. Discetti
Convective heat transfer control in turbulent boundary layers
Rodrigo Castellanos García de Blas. [pdf] (2022) Supervisors: S. Discetti, A. Ianiro
Sensing coherent structures from the wallÇ
Alejandro Güemes Jimenez (2021) [pdf] Supervisors: A. Ianiro, S. Discetti
Turbulent boundary layers with adverse pressure gradient
Carlos Sanmiguel Vila. (2019) [pdf] Supervisors: S. Discetti, A. Ianiro
Outstanding thesis award UC3M.
Currently Científico Titular at INTA
Empirical eigenfunctions: application in unsteady aerodynamics
Marco Raiola (2017) [pdf] Supervisors: A. Ianiro, S. Discetti
Currently Assistant Professor in the EAP group (UC3M)
Three-dimensional organization and heat transfer of jets with fractal generated turbulence
Gioacchino Cafiero (2016) [pdf] Supervisors: T. Astarita (Univ. of Naples), S. Discetti
Currently Assistant Professor at Politecnico di Torino (Italy)
Investigation of Synthetic Jets Heat Transfer and Flow Field
Carlo Salvatore Greco. Supervisors: G. Cardone (Univ. of Naples), A. Ianiro (2015) [pdf]
Currently Assistant Professor at University of Naples Federico II (Italy)
Open-source codes and repositories
[DATA] Pressure from data-driven estimation of velocity fields using snapshot PIV and fast probes [Zenodo]
[DATA] An end-to-end KNN-based PTV approach for high-resolution measurements and uncertainty quantification [Zenodo]
[CODE] Data-Enhanced Particle Tracking Velocimetry [GitHub]
[CODE] POD-based background removal for Particle Image Velocimetry [www]
[DATA] Very-large-scale motions measurement in pipe flows at high Reynolds numbers [TurBase]
[DATA] High-Dynamic-Range Measurements in Pipe Flows at High Reynolds Numbers [TurBase]
[DATA] Data-driven Course [Course]
Collaborations
Prof. Dr. Philipp Schlatter, Dr. Ramis Örlü, Dr. Ricardo Vinuesa, KTH, Department of Mechanics
Prof. Dr. Daniele Ragni, Aeroacoustics group, TU Delft
Prof. Dr. Javier Jimenez, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Prof. Dr. Tommaso Astarita, Prof. Dr. Gennaro Cardone, Dr. Carlo Salvatore Greco, Industrial Engineering Department, University of Naples Federico II
Prof. Dr. Alessandro Talamelli, Universitá Alma Mater Studiorum di Bologna
Dr. Miguel Mendez, von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics