Yogi Patel

School: Illinois Institute of Technology

Major: Engineering

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-38ey-tx75

Yogi Patel graduated with a Bachelors and Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in May 2020. He was a board member of the ASME organization on campus and served as a member of the ASME National Student Advisory Panel. His research utilizes a system configuration called an “Inverted Pendulum” for energy generation using flow-induced vibrations. While the aerofoil is pivoted at the trailing edge and placed in a moving fluid, it tries to stabilize in the direction of fluid flow and starts making oscillations. By placing a controller on the fixed end, the frequency and amplitude of the oscillations can be controlled. The research concludes that simple low-frequency input strategies can extract energy that is much higher than the input energy. Apart from energy application, the research shows that the combination of the open and closed-loop stabilization technique makes it possible to control all angles of disturbance. Yogi’s research won the prestigious Illinois NASA Space Grant in Summer 2019, the Armour R&D Research Award in Spring 2020, and the Popular Vote Award while placing 1st at the Spring R&D Virtual Expo held at Illinois Tech. Yogi is going to join the PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in upcoming Fall 2020. His PhD research is going to focus on understanding the transitional flow behaviour of different aerofoil designs and developing a power-optimized and wake-optimized rotor used in helicopters.

Inverted Pendulum Aerofoil in a flow-field

Abstract

This project explores the dynamics of an unstable system which is a fluid dynamic equivalent to an inverted pendulum. We consider an aerofoil that can freely pitch about its trailing edge. The system was modelled using Theodorsen’s theory of unsteady aerodynamics. A controller is designed based on this model, which allows for the unstable system to be stabilized through heaving motion at the trailing edge. These controllers are tested on high fidelity numerical simulations to validate the viability of this approach. The feedback control was combined with an open-loop strategy to achieve a swing-up and stabilization manoeuvre. Along with stabilizing the system, we additionally explore extracting energy from the flow, where we find that simple low-frequency input strategies can extract energy that is twice than the input energy.