Jian-xun Wang, assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, has received the Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) award from the Office of Naval Research for his project “Physics-Preserved Neural Differentiable Computing for Predictive Modeling of Rough-Wall Turbulence.”
The award, one of the oldest and most selective early-career honors, is presented to young faculty pursuing creative foundational research in science and engineering.
Accurately predicting the hydrodynamic properties of turbulent flows as they pass over the hulls of ships and submarines is of great practical interest to the naval industry and engineering.
By leveraging graphics processing unit (GPU) parallel computing, multi-resolution data, differentiable programming, and classic numerical techniques, Wang will create AI-assisted computational tools to generate faster, more accurate predictive simulation of turbulent flows over complex geometries.
“The aim of this project is to improve predictive modeling tools in hydrodynamics,” said Wang. “It will also advance our knowledge base in wall roughness turbulence physics and support the design of future ships and submarines with high efficiency, maneuverability, and low-noise, in real-world operating scenarios.”
Wang received his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2017. He served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, before joining the Notre Dame College of Engineering in 2018. In 2021, he received a NSF CAREER Award to support his work in data-augmented cardiovascular modeling.
— Karla Cruise, College of Engineering