University of Texas at Dallas
United States
Principal Investigator
Kianoosh Yousefi
Research Interests
The Flow Dynamics and Turbulence (FDT) lab, led by Dr. Kianoosh Yousefi, is part of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. It is an interdisciplinary research group dedicated to understanding the nature of turbulence and examining turbulent flow processes in different natural, industrial, and engineering environments using experimental, numerical, and theoretical approaches. Particularly, our research agenda is focused on studying turbulent air-sea interaction processes, including surface waves and the accompanying generation of turbulence, spray, bubbles, airflow separation, and breaking waves. Another strand of our research is devoted to studying the turbulence structure in hurricane boundary-layer flows and examining the impacts of wind-wave interaction processes on offshore wind turbines and on-shore structures. In general, our research field is of interest to engineering, applied mathematics, and oceanography scholars. The physics learned from our work directly impacts our understanding of air-sea couplings and ocean waves, which is crucial for weather and climate forecasting and has significant societal benefits, impacting many aspects of human life.
Proposed Hosting Period
March - July 2025
Exchange Language
English
Facilities/Resources
The FDT laboratory houses a large wind-wave tunnel facility designed for air-sea interaction and marine renewable energy studies. The tank of the facility is roughly 15 m long with a working test section of about 13.5 m long, 1 m wide, and 1.8 m high. The entire test section is constructed from clear, high-quality acrylic panels, with three central panels made of optical glass to ensure optimal conditions for optical-based measurements. The tank is equipped with a closed-loop wind tunnel capable of generating wind speeds up to 30 m/s. Further, the water tank is equipped with a programmable flap-type wavemaker, which allows for the generation of mechanical wave packets within the range of 0.8–1.5 Hz. Other experimental equipment included flow visualization instrumentation, including PIV, LIF, and a high-speed camera. We will also have access to a range of HPC clusters to run LES/DNS; we use our in-house developed fortran code and OpenFOAM heavily.