Fluid-Structure Interaction

The problems of fluid-structure interaction are important in biology, medicine, offshore and polar engineering, naval fields, as well as in many industrial applications. The project is concerned with the deformations of an elastic body responding to hydrodynamic excitations and simultaneously the modification of these excitations owing to the body deformation. Such problems are coupled, which implies that the elastic deformations of the body depend on the hydrodynamic forces and vice versa. The hydrodynamic loads cannot be treated simply as external pre-calculated loads. Such problems are difficult to study both theoretically and numerically. In the problem of elastic body impact onto liquid free surface, for example, the region of contact between the liquid and the body surface is unknown and has to be determined as part of the solution. Both experiments and numerical calculations show that the hydrodynamic loads during a fluid-structure interaction are difficult to predict and measure. On the other hand, the stresses in the body induced by the interaction are rather stable and can be well predicted even by simplified mathematical models. There is still no explanation to this phenomenon. Elasticity plays an important role in cavitation and separation of the liquid surface from the surface of vibrating body. An elastic body vibrating at high frequency in a liquid may create a layer of bubbles around it and, in this way, may significantly reduce its interaction with the surrounding media. There are many other unusual phenomena associated with the fluid-structure interaction, which could not be observed in fluid dynamics or structural dynamics separately but only in the processes where the fluid and structure are put in contact and interact strongly one with another.

This project is open to any applicants (home, EU or Overseas) who have their own funding.

Any interested student is invited to contact Professor A. Korobkin ([Email Address Removed]) to discuss an application.

The minimum entry requirement is a 2:1 in mathematics.