Nonlinear Dynamics of Fluid and Structural Systems

Fluid and structural systems and their possible interaction have a rich array of behavior being susceptible to instabilities and thus the generation of limit cycle oscillations and on occasion chaotic response. in this talk we will touch on several example including solar sails, high performance aircraft and aerodynamic decelerators from space into planetary atmospheres. Much of the talk will be devoted to the large and small scale oscillations that may appear in fluid flows and thus excite structural motion. The large scale motions include bu↵et in aircraft and non-synchronous vibration in jet engines, the classic case being the Von Karman vortex street. The small scale motions have as their most well known example the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. In all of the above cases a combination of theory, computation and experiment is used to understand the nonlinear dynamics of such systems.