Abstract: In recent years, a promising approach to the control of wall bounded as well as free shear flows, using synthetic jet (oscillatory jet with zero-net-mass-flux) and pulsed jet actuators, has received a great deal of attention. A variety of impressive flow control results have been achieved experimentally by many researchers including the vectoring of conventional propulsive jets, modification of aerodynamic characteristics of bluff bodies, control of lift and drag of airfoils, thrust augmentation in ejectors, reduction of skin-friction in a boundary layer flow, enhanced mixing in circular jets, control of external as well as internal flow separation and of cavity oscillations. More recently, attempts have been made to numerically simulate many of these flow fields primarily by employing the Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (URANS) equations with a turbulence model and in a limited few cases by Large Eddy Simulation LES) and Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS). In this paper, the results of simulations for six different flow fields dealing with thrust-vectoring of a propulsive jet, control of separation on a backward facing step, control of cavity oscillations, thrust augmentation of an ejector, transonic drag reduction of an airfoil, and drag reduction of a truck shaped body using active flow control are described. These simulations have been performed using the URANS equations in conjunction with either one- or a two-equation turbulence model. The simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of active flow control techniques in flow modification to achieve the desired outcome of drag reduction and separation control in many industrial applications.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Professor Ramesh Agarwal is the William Palm Professor of Engineering and the director of Aerospace Engineering Program and Aerospace Research and Education Center at Washington University in St. Louis. From 1994 to 2001, he was the Sam Bloomfield Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University in Kansas. From 1978 to 1994, he worked in various scientific and managerial positions at McDonnell Douglas Research Laboratories in St. Louis. He became the Program Director and McDonnell Douglas Fellow in 1990. Dr. Agarwal received Ph.D in Aeronautical Sciences from Stanford University in 1975, M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1969 and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India in 1968. Over a period of 35 years, Professor Agarwal has worked in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), nanotechnology and renewable energy systems. He is the author and coauthor of over 300 publications and serves on the editorial board of fifteen journals. He has given many plenary, keynote and invited lectures at various national and international conferences worldwide. Professor Agarwal continues to serve on many professional, government, and industrial advisory committees. Dr. Agarwal is a Fellow of fifteen societies - American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), American Physical Society (APS), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), American Academy of Mechanics (AAM), Institute of Physics, Energy Institute, Institute of Engineering and Technology, Academy of Science of St. Louis, and World Innovation Foundation (WIF). He has served as a distinguished lecturer of AIAA (1996-1999), ASME (1994-1997), IEEE (1994-2011), and ACM (2011). He has received many honors and awards for his research contributions including the ASME Fluids Engineering Award (2001), ASME Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award (2006), Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Award (2007), AIAA Aerodynamics Award (2008), AIAA/SAE William Littlewood Lecture Award (2009), James B. Eads Award of the Academy of Science of St. Louis (2009), SAE Clarence Kelly Johnson Award (2010), SAE Franklin W. Kolk Progress in Air Transportation Award (2010), ASME Edwin Church Medal (2011), and AIAA Thermophysics Award (2011).