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MEAM Seminar: “Taking Advantage of Coherent Vortex Wakes: Formation Flight and High Density Tidal Energy Harvesting”
September 30, 2025 at 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
Wake flows – the fluid mechanical “debris” shed behind an aerodynamic body – are often characterized by unsteady, turbulent, low-momentum fluid. Usually these wakes are to be avoided, but in several situations the wake can exhibit an organized structure consisting of well-defined high energy vortices. Examples of these coherent, or structured, wakes include trailing vortex flows behind animals in flight or swimming fish as well as the vortices shed behind wings pitching to high angles of attack. In this talk I will illustrate several examples of structured wakes in both natural and engineered systems, drawing from several projects from our lab including measurements of enhanced renewable energy harvesting using arrays of oscillating flow turbines, and energy savings experienced by birds flying in small flocks.
Kenneth Breuer
Professor of Engineering, Director of the Center for Fluid Mechanics, Co-Director of the Mechanics of Undersea Science and Engineering Center, Brown University
Kenny Breuer received his Sc.B. from Brown University in Mechanical Engineering (1982) and his Ph.D. from MIT in Aeronautics and Astronautics (1988). He is currently Professor of Engineering, and Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology at Brown University. He is a fellow of the APS and ASME, and an Associate Fellow of AIAA.
Over his career, Professor Breuer’s research interests have spanned a broad range of diverse topics in experimental fluid dynamics including unsteady flows, animal flight and biological locomotion, bio-inspired fluid mechanics, flow control and microscale biophysics He has also been active in fluid dynamics education and outreach including as co-author of Multmedia Fluid Mechanics and The Gallery of Fluid Motion (both published by Cambridge Univ. Press).