Dominik Schillinger Receives 2017 NSF Career Award
Dominik Schillinger received an NSF CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, the NSF’s most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholar through outstanding research and excellent education. NSF CAREER awards support promising and talented researchers in building a foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research.
Schillinger’s research interests are in computational mechanics, where he works on the development of novel discretization techniques for the analysis of multiphysics systems that overcome limitations of today’s standard numerical tools. Main applications driving his work are the computational design and optimization of aerodynamic structures (for example, turbine blades) and the integration of computer simulations and biomedical imaging, with the goal of enabling new patient-specific treatments (for example, for bone osteoporosis).
The NSF awarded Schillinger $500,000 over five years to support his research project “Bridging Geometric Design and Aerodynamic Simulation of Turbomachinery: An Integrative Design-Through-Analysis Framework Enabled by Embedded Domain Methods.” The research objective of this CAREER proposal is to remove barriers in the process of creating rapid design-through-analysis workflows for turbomachines by developing new computational methodologies that enable seamless integration and automation. The research approach integrates parametric geometry modeling with novel embedded domain finite element methods for computational aerodynamics and fluid-structure interaction.
Due to the ubiquitous deployment of turbomachines as a key enabling technology, improved design-through-analysis methods that facilitate their simulation-based optimization are a key prerequisite for improving energy efficiency and sustainability in the United States. The project also includes a summer camp and internship opportunities for high school students, partly organized at Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL), which will strengthen STEM outreach activities at UMN.