Fluid Structure Interaction 2011
6th Subrata Chakrabarti International Conference on Fluid Structure Interaction
9 - 11 May 2011
Orlando, USA
Overview
The Sixth International Conference on Fluid Structure Interaction has recently taken place at the University of Central Florida (UCF) organised by that Institution and the Wessex Institute of Technology (WIT) of the UK. The conference co-chairmen were Professor Alain Kassab of UCF, Professor Carlos A Brebbia of WIT, Professor Eduardo Divo of Daytona State University and Professor Santiago Hernandez of the University of A Coruña, Spain.
The conference series was started by Professor Subrata Chakrabarti of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Professor Carlos A Brebbia of WIT. The first of these took place in Halkidiki, Greece in 2001 and since then it has been reconvened every two years, in Cadiz (2003), A Coruña (2005), The New Forest, UK (2007) and Crete (2009).
The meeting was opened by Alain Kassab who welcomed the delegates in the name of the University of Central Florida. He explained that the University has grown considerably in the last few years and now has nearly 60,000 students. The School of Engineering, and in particular it’s Mechanical Engineering Department, have strong commitments to research and development of new ideas in conjunction with industry. This is one of the reasons why conferences such as Fluid Structure Interaction are actively supported.
Following these remarks Carlos spoke about the personality of Subrata Chakrabarti.
Professor Subrata Chakrabarti
Subrata K. Chakrabarti, the originator of these meetings, died in 2009, and it was decided to dedicate this conference to his memory.
Subrata was a world-renowned expert in design and analysis of offshore structures, namely offshore oil platforms. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineers, one of the highest professional distinctions in the US. He had a forty year career in the offshore platform industry, most of it at the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company in Plainfield, Illinois. His experimental techniques for understanding fluid-structure interaction for offshore structures soon became world standards. He was involved in the development of several offshore projects including Dubai storage tanks, Gulf of Mexico Submersible, Brazilian Mooring Towers, North Sea Production Platform and Gulf of Mexico Tension Leg Platform. He had performed research and experiments for the US Navy.
He was the author of more than six books on the various subjects of offshore structures, fluid-structure interaction, and design. Professor Chakrabarti was a staff member at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a number of other organizations. He had over 300 publications, lectured worldwide and served as an expert and consultant to the industry.
He was born Calcutta, India, and was a gold medalist in 1963 at the Jadavpur University, Calcutta during his bachelor’s degree and Mechanical engineering. He achieved his masters in Mechanical Engineering in 1965 and a Ph.D. with honors in Engineering Mathematics from the University of Colorado in 1968, having arrived in America in 1965 with eight dollars in his pocket.
Subrata was a frequent visitor to the Wessex Institute of Technology in the UK where he regularly offered two courses on Offshore Structures. He was the co-chairman of the International Conference on Fluid-Structure Interaction organized by WIT and was the author of a best-selling book on the topic, ‘Hydrodynamics of Offshore Structures’ published by WIT Press the academic publishers of the Institute.
Welcome Address by Professor Carlos Brebbia
Carlos then referred to the important of the conference programme for WIT, its principal objective being knowledge transfer across a wide range of disciplines. WIT organises approximately 25 international conferences per year in many different locations around the world, in addition to numerous courses and seminars in its New Forest campus.
WIT activities closely related to the conference series are the publication of books, monographs and international Journals in digital as well as paper format. All conference papers are archived in the WIT eLibrary (http://library.witpress.com) where most of them are available Open Access to the international scientific community. This work is carried out under the WIT Press imprint which also provides important journals covering a range of interdisciplinary fields.
WIT also has a strong commitment to industry, offering support through consulting activities and the development and maintenance of computer codes based on the boundary element method, one the ideas originating within the research group led by Professor Brebbia. The suite of such codes are collectively known under the name of BEASY (Boundary Element Analysis System). The code is used by a substantial number of offshore, naval, damage mechanics and other advanced applications.
Carlos ended by thanking the delegates for attending the conference in the name of all co-chairmen and wishing them a successful meeting.
Invited Presentations
The conference programme included a series of invited presentations, as follows;
‘Some challenges to the aeroelastic analysis and design of long span bridges’
by Santiago Hernandez of the University of A Coruña, Spain
‘Recent developments on bridge flutter stability estimation accounting for errors in the aeroelastic loading’
Lucca Caracoglia, Northeastern University, USA
‘The effect of breaking wave induced currents on an offshore wind turbine foundation’
Ove Gudmestad, University of Scavanger, Norway
‘A meshless method solution approach for the transient poro-elastic levee problem’
Eduardo Divo, Daytona State College, USA
‘Three examples of flutter analysis of cable-stayed bridges’
Jose Jurado, University of A Coruña, Spain
Conference Sessions
The conference papers were classified into the following topics;
- Experimental studies and validation
- Response of structures, including fluid dynamics
- Hydrodynamic forces
- Offshore structures
- Long-span bridges
- Computational methods
'Bridge Aeroelasticity: Sensitivity Analysis and Optimal Design' Book Launch
This book brings together information that until now could only be partially found in technical magazines including the historical evolution and recent installation of long-span bridges. It discusses wind-induced phenomena as one of the main perils such structures have to withstand, specifically the instability known as flutter, and delivers in a comprehensive manner the most advanced methods to evaluate bridge safety under windflow. The book is the first to present the methodology for analysis the flutter speed of bridges both during and after construction. The authors have applied recent optimization technologies for improving bridge design in a way never before considered for this type of structure.
Professors Santiago Hernandez and Jose Jurado described the contents of the book and the author’s motivation. (The book is available from WIT Press, ISBN: 978-1-84564-056-9 eISBN: 978-1-84564-334-8).
At the end of the first day’s sessions, the delegates were invited to a buffet dinner to celebrate the book launch, which offered them the possibility of becoming acquainted with each other.
Technical Visits
A special technical visit took place at the end of the second day to the University of Central Florida. ‘Stormwater Management Academy’ which provides educational materials and research to advance the understanding and practice of stormwater management and to influence policy and procedures. The work carried out there comprises the protection and enhancement of valuable surface and groundwater supplies. It’s Director, Professor Manoj Chopra, explained to the delegates the type of work presently being carried out at his centre which included;
- Stormwater for non-potable use
Stormwater Management Academy - On site wastewater treatment
- Erosion and sediment control
- Greenroofs
- Water quality modelling
- Porous pavements
- Waste products and pollution control
- Watershed mass balance
The visit was followed by another to the Siemens Energy Centre where important work on heat transfer and fluid flow is being carried out, using up to date experimental equipment in a series of fluid channels. This work is of particular importance to the development of better turbines in the transonic and supersonic range.
Conference Banquet
The conference banquet took place in a well-known restaurant located on the waterfront in Cape Canaveral Port. This is a unique environment combining a marina for recreational yachts, fishing vessels, commercial shipping, large cruisers and the NASA fleet which is used for rocket boosters and other missions. The lights of the rocket launching pads could be seen across the water, reflecting the type of activities that has made Cape Canaveral a household name all over the world. The delegates were able to taste the fish dishes for which the restaurant is renowned, accompanied by excellent wines. The occasion was very friendly.
The conference will be reconvened in 2013 and a location and dates to be decided shortly.
Publication of Proceedings
The proceedings of Fluid Structure Interaction VI, 336pp (Print ISBN: 978-1-84564-512-0; Online ISSN: 1746-4498) are available from WIT Press priced at £145/US$232/€198. Orders can be placed on the WIT Press web site at www.witpress.com or by email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., telephone: +44 (0) 238 029 3223 or fax: +44 (0) 238 029 2853.
Papers from the conference will also be hosted online at the WIT eLibrary as Volume 115 of WIT Transactions on the Built Environment (Online ISSN: 1746-4498). For more details visit the WIT eLibrary at http://library.witpress.com
Wessex Institute