Microflow Control

Professor Goldstein and students are using the IBM Power4 system (Longhorn) for a project funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research that examines novel micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) actuators for turbulent boundary-layer control. The devices are tiny slots of various shapes, closely spaced, that can be placed on such surfaces as airplane wings or ship hulls to control turbulence in the flow over the surfaces. In particular, they are looking at systems that could be controlled by tiny jets of air. While such systems may have practical applications for drag reduction, they are also of fundamental interest in elucidating the physics of the flows involved.