SyracuseCoE was pleased to host a presentation from Dr. Yiyang Sun, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS), for our October Research & Technology Forum. Dr. Sun’s presentation explored how the principles of aerodynamic fluid flow control can be applied across scales, from aircraft design to creating smarter, more sustainable cities.
Flow control is the process of manipulating airflow to produce a desired change in fluid flow behavior. In aerospace engineering, flow control is important for minimizing turbulence, reducing drag, and suppressing excess noise. Sun’s research on active flow control uses computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and high-fidelity simulations to model safer, quieter, and more efficient aerospace designs.
Dr. Sun notes that active flow control deliberately introduces small, well-designed disturbances to harness and reshape unsteady flows for improved performance. Her talk highlighted large eddy simulations performed with CharLES, a high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) platform, as well as platforms like CityFFD and OpenFOAM for fast, accurate modeling and simulation of urban microclimates.
Slides from this presentation are available below.
Note: Because many of the slides contain animations, the slide deck below is presented as a video file.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
- Yeung, M., Gaitonde, D. V., and Sun, Y., “Adaptive control of a supersonic dual-stream jet flow using online dynamic mode decomposition,” AIAA SciTech 2025 Forum, Orlando, Jan. 6-10, 2025 (AIAA paper 2025-1680). https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2025-1680
- Ahmad, H., Gaitonde, D. V., Qualters, M., Zigunov, F., Yeung, M., and Sun, Y., “On the active and passive control of compressible turbulent mixing layer over a finite thickness splitter plate,” AIAA SciTech 2025 Forum, Orlando, Jan. 6-10, 2025 (AIAA paper 2025-1679). https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2025-1679
- Islam, M. R., and Sun, Y., “Identification of cross-frequency interactions in compressible cavity flow using harmonic resolvent analysis,” J. Fluid Mech., Vol. 1000, A13, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2024.949
SPEAKER:
Yiyang Sun, Ph.D.
Dr. Yiyang Sun is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse University. She earned her Ph.D. from Florida State University (2017) and her B.S. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (2012).
Dr. Sun’s research bridges fundamental fluid dynamics and applied flow control, leveraging high-fidelity simulations, modal/non-modal analysis, and data-driven modeling to design quieter, more efficient aerodynamic systems. By uncovering the underlying physics of complex flows, such as nonlinear interactions and multiscale dynamics, her work advances physics-based control strategies with real-world applications in aerospace engineering.
Dr. Sun is a recipient of the 2024 Young Investigator Program Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and was honored with the Amelia Earhart Fellowship during her Ph.D. studies in 2016.