Further information
Professor Denis Doorly
Professor Denis J Doorly, Professor of Fluid Mechanics, Department of Aeronautics, presents his inaugural lecture.
In the Chair: Professor J Michael R Graham, Senior Research Investigator, Department of Aeronautics.
Vote of Thanks: Professor Frank T Smith, Goldsmid Professor of Applied Mathematics, University College London.
Attendance at this lecture is free with registration in advance. Please email events@imperial.ac.uk to register.
A pre lecture tea will take place from 16.45 in the Senior Common Room, Level 2, Sherfield Building.
Abstract: Sometimes I wonder how my interests transitioned from jet engines via arteries to the nose. Fluid mechanics is to blame (or thank?) for having entrained me and sent me eddying between topics. In this lecture I will recount some of the fun, frustration and facts found in studying flows and how they respond to the attempts of humans or Nature to direct them. Using an assortment of experiments, computations and theory, I have struggled with unruly fluid mechanic phenomena such as shocks and stagnations, not to mention the shear layered duplicity of vorticity. Fluid motion not only has an infinite capacity to entertain us, but is generated by every breath we take. As we strive to understand fluids and sometimes to control them, we can learn much by looking within ourselves. Imaging allows this and the talk ends with a glimpse of the intricate relations between flow, geometry and physiological function.
Biography: Professor Denis Doorly holds a Chair in Fluid Mechanics in the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College. After completing his undergraduate studies in engineering science at Trinity College Dublin, he investigated how the wakes shed by a row of guide vanes affect boundary layer transition and the heat transfer to turbine blades for his DPhil at Oxford University. After a period working on theoretical models of transition in the Mathematics Departments at Imperial and then University College, he returned to Imperial to join the Aeronautics department twenty years ago. Close proximity to the former Physiological Flow Studies unit stimulated his research interests in biomedical fluid mechanics. His main contributions have been in this field, where his best known research papers are concerned with elucidating the essential fluid mechanics of flows in large arteries and airways.