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Michael

Michael "Miki" Amitay

Director, Center for Flow Physics and Control & James L. Decker ’45 Endowed Chair Professor in Aerospace Engineering | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Troy, NY, UNITED STATES

Specializes in developing active flow control techniques with applications in aeronautical and mechanical systems

Spotlight

Areas of Expertise (7)

Active and Passive Flow Control

Experimental Aerodynamics

Aeronautical Systems

Active Flow Control Techniques

3-D Flow Physics

Mechanical Systems

Experimental Fluid Dynamics

Biography

Professor Amitay's research interests are in developing active flow control techniques with applications in aeronautical/mechanical systems. He conducts state-of-the-art experiments to understand the flow physics of 3-D flow fields and the interaction of flow control actuators with these flows.

Media

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Videos:

Harnessing the Wind with Jets of Air

Audio/Podcasts:

Education (1)

Israel Institute of Technology, Technion: D.Sc. 1994

Media Appearances (3)

Harnessing the Wind with Jets of Air

WMHT  tv

2019-08-06

Demand for wind energy is growing globally. In this episode of Innovation Hall, we visited RPI's Center for Flow Physics and Control, where we checked out some research underway there that uses small jets of air to reduce turbulence around wind turbine blades. The idea is that this will make them more efficient and less prone to breaking, which means harnessing more energy from the wind.

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Miki Amitay, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – Expanding Wind Energy

NPR  radio

2019-05-08

On Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Week: Should wind turbines breathe like our lungs do? Miki Amitay, professor in the department of mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering, discusses this question.

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RPI Professor Develops Aerodynamic Technology for Businesses

Spectrum News  tv

2019-04-10

A professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is one of the world’s leading minds in aerospace engineering. Technology PRI Professor Miki Amitay developed has been adopted by various businesses.

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Articles (3)

Identification and Mitigation of T-S Waves Using Localized Dynamic Surface Modification

Physics of Fluids

Michael Amitay, Burak A. Tuna, and Haley Dell’Orso

2016 The control of transition from a laminar to a turbulent flow over a flat plate using localized dynamic surface modifications was explored experimentally in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s subsonic wind tunnel. Dynamic surface modification, via a pair of Piezoelectrically Driven Oscillating Surface (PDOS) actuators, was used to excite and control the T-S wave over a flat plate. Creating an upstream, localized small disturbance at the most amplified frequency of fact = 250 Hz led to phase-locking the T-S wave...

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Influence of the bluff body shear layers on the wake of a square prism in a turbulent flow

Physical Review Fluids

Lander, D.C., Letchford, C.W., Amitay, M., and Kopp, G.A.

2016 Despite a substantial body of literature dealing with the effects of free-stream turbulence (FST) on two-dimensional square prism, there remain some open questions regarding the influence of the bluff body shear layer development in a highly perturbed environment and the resulting impact on bluff body flow characteristics. Accordingly, flows with ambient and enhanced FST were studied at ReD = 50,000 using long-duration time-resolved particle image velocimetry (PIV). The data indicate a narrowing and lengthening of the mean wake and an accompanying rise in base pressure...

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Synthetic jets

Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics

Ari Glezer and Michael Amitay

2002 The evolution of a synthetic (zero-net mass flux) jet and the flow mechanisms of its interaction with a cross flow are reviewed. An isolated synthetic jet is produced by the interactions of a train of vortices that are typically formed by alternating momentary ejection and suction of fluid across an orifice such that the net mass flux is zero. A unique feature of these jets is that they are formed entirely from the working fluid of the flow system in which they are deployed and, thus, can transfer linear momentum to the flow system without net mass injection across the flow boundary...

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