CASEY HARWOOD EARNS NSF CAREER AWARD TO STUDY FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTIONS

career faculty. The five-year, $604,690 CAREER grant will support the project titled, “Understanding and Harnessing the Dynamics of Complex Fluid-Structure Interactions.”

Harwood, who joined the UI College of Engineering in 2017 and is also a researcher at IIHRHydroscience & Engineering, said the current experimental methods do not paint a complete picture of the potential hazards or the realizable benefits of fluid-structure interaction. When a structure is immersed in water, for example, the water can increase the effective mass of that structure by as much as 500%, but the way that additional mass is distributed – as well as the effects of bubbles, waves, or currents – are not captured by existing experimental methods. Vibration of structures also produces small motions in the surrounding fluid that Harwood hypothesizes can be used to make wings and propellers more resistant to stall or to reduce the drag of objects like tractor trailers or ship hulls.

As part of the grant, Harwood plans to conduct a series of experiments to attain a deeper and more actionable understanding of the mutual effects of flexible structures and fluids upon one another. The goal is to leverage the information for smarter, safer, and more efficient design, modeling, and monitoring and ultimately improved safety and performance. Harwood expects to involve graduate and undergraduate research assistants, with pipelines for paid assistantships, for-credit projects, and involvement with student outreach initiatives on and off campus. He also plans to initiate a project-based workshop for secondary school students in a rural and economically disadvantaged school district in Washington state.

Casey in and

Research and received his M.S.E. and Ph.D in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the University of Michigan and his B.S. also in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, from the Webb Institute in New York. At the University of Iowa, Dr. Harwood leads the Marine Science and Technology (MaST) lab, which performs research in experimental marine hydrodynamics. His current areas of focus include fluid-structure interactions, model-scale testing of marine vehicles, and surf-zone hydrodynamics.

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