Chang Liu
University of Connecticut, CT·Engineering·Early-career
Many fluid flows in engineering change over time: air around an aircraft speeding up for takeoff, water pumped through an electronics cooling loop, or flow near a wall that moves back and forth to cut drag. These time-varying flows affect drag, heat removal and reliability.
- Fields
Engineering
Mathematics & Statistics
Physics
- Topics
fluid dynamics
fluid mechanics
shear flows
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2031
What they work on
- Develop nonlinear stability analysis based on Lyapunov theory for channel flows with periodic, non-periodic and unknown time dependence, where methods based on linearization or steady flow fail.
- Build input-output analysis and feedback control frameworks that capture how time-varying wall-bounded shear flows amplify disturbances and how they can be steered.
- Apply the frameworks to drag reduction by wall oscillations and to the transition to turbulence in accelerating and decelerating channels relevant to aircraft takeoff and landing.
- Design the time-dependence of inflow velocity in liquid cooling of electronics to improve cooling efficiency, using the new nonlinear control tools.
More about the research
Yet most analysis methods assume the flow is steady or changes only slowly, so they can miss sudden transient and nonlinear effects. This project proposes new mathematical tools to predict and control such flows.
Why it matters
Better prediction of time-varying flows could support safer aircraft operation during takeoff and landing and improve the fuel efficiency of transport vehicles through drag reduction. Designing the timing of coolant flow could also improve cooling efficiency in electronic devices and data centers, which would help manufacturers of vehicles and electronics hardware.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jane Bae
California Institute of Technology, CA·Engineering·Early-career
Analyze high-resolution flow data to determine how the directionality (anisotropy) of unresolved small-scale turbulent motion behaves in attached and separating flows near walls.
Bryan Schmidt
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Engineering
Design lattices of phononic subsurfaces, engineered material units placed under a surface, and use stability theory and direct numerical simulations to test whether they suppress turbulence-causing disturbances downstream and from varying directions.
Ivan Bermejo-Moreno
University of Southern California, CA·Engineering·Early-career
Characterize how compression waves amplify the length and time scales of separated turbulent flow over thin flexible panels, using high-fidelity coupled fluid-structure simulations.
The school
University of Connecticut: 31 labs on PI Pages, $434M a year on research, 360 research doctorates a year.
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