Department of Aerospace Engineering · UIUC

ImmersionLab

Immersing computation, dynamics, geometry, and architected structures into fluid flows

We immerse —

structures with bio-inspired and engineered architecture into flows, to find coupled behavior nobody predicted and turn it into design and control;
geometry and dynamics into computation, to handle interfaces modularly and fast, and to identify behavioral regimes and patterns of behavior for flows whose standard decompositions break down;
automatic differentiation and modern hardware into simulation, so sensitivities, stability and optimization are first-class rather than bolted on, and faithful to nonlinear coupling;
ourselves into the relationships we build with one another and the work we do.

Who We Are

Advancing Computational Fluid Dynamics

Welcome! We are passionate about emergent flow-structure interaction — systems where natural or engineered heterogeneity, architecture, and shape leads to new coupled behaviors that do not exist when studying flow interacting with conventional structures.

We bring creativity, curiosity, and strong engagement across biology, structural mechanics, and fluid mechanics communities, to identify what coupled behaviors to investigate and target what engineering breakthroughs may be unlockable. We quantify the coupled behaviors with high-accuracy tools that we develop, maintain, and provide open access to (with accessible accompanying documentation!). We are passionate about designing these tools to be fast, rigorously derivable, and as modular as possible for use across platforms and different flow and structure solvers.

All tools we develop are done to take advantage of the latest advances in GPU capabilities and automatic differentiation-enabled gradient information, to enable faster computation and advanced analysis to uncover the deepest mysteries of these beautiful systems we study.

We are part of the Department of Aerospace Engineering within the Grainger College of Engineering and welcome collaboration across engineering, biology, and applied mathematics.

What We Study

Research Arcs

Our work spans emergent flow-structure interaction, computational frameworks for flow-interface problems, and the geometric and dynamic foundations of flow simulation.

Emergent Flow-Structure Interaction

Pairing architected structures with the scales, directionality, and state changes of the underlying flow to unlock passive, adaptive flow control and sensing.

Learn more →