Research

Design of naval platforms might be the most interdisciplinary engineering task today. Naval architects need to understand, balance and make trades on the characteristics of Navy platforms to guarantee strong, stable, seaworthy and effective vessels. The disciplines involved in naval architecture include propulsion, platform dynamics, hydrodynamics, hydromechanics, fluid dynamics, acoustics, radio frequency, information technology, and weights/stability. Therefore, the naval research and development enterprise needs personnel that are broadly educated. CoNEP research leverages small multi-disciplinary teams within key institutions in Washington, DC. This approach will rely on local organizations to create talent pipelines. CoNEP is addressing the long-standing needs for data from the naval engineering community and a new approach to a traditional problem of turbulent flow control over gaps.

Laminar flow around a streamwise gap.  Gap is 1/6 of boundary layer thicknesses.  The gap is 1.6 mm x 4.8 mm.

Particle Tracking visualization. Flow is from right to left.

 Molecular Tagging visualization. Note, here the flow is from left to right.

Small cavity in a turbulent channel flow.  Cavity is triangular: 50 wall unit long, 50 wall unit deep (~500 µm) in friction Reynolds number of 1,000. 

Fluorescent dye is injected in the viscous sublayer 10 mm (1,000 wall units) upstream of the cavity.

We are leveraging a multi-disciplinary team with expertise in the following fields:

1. Experimental fluid dynamics
2. Computational fluid dynamics
3. Additive manufacturing
4. Chemistry
5. Sensing
6. Machine learning