I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering Department at The University of Michigan. I work on hydrofoil design methods. Hydrofoils have many marine applications such as the keel of a sailboat, rudders on ships, or the blades of a propeller or hydrokinetic turbine. Their proper design is crucial to the overall function of the marine platform.
I am developing mixed fidelity optimization methods for hydrofoils. This means combining different computational models (like lifting line and viscous computational fluid dynamics) in an overarching multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) procedure. The multidisciplinary aspect comes from considering multiple engineering disciplines, like the structural mechanics, and the coupled effect on the hydrodynamic performance. You can follow my research here.