BLAST Breakthroughs: What Really Happens Inside a Wind Tunnel

Topic: Ever wondered what really happens inside a wind tunnel? Join us for an engaging talk featuring Giacomo V. Iungo, Wind Tunnel Director, and Wasi Uddin Ahmed, Wind Tunnel Engineer from the University of Texas at Dallas, who will take us behind the scenes of BLAST, the Boundary Layer and Subsonic Wind Tunnel facility that powers some of the university's most innovative aerodynamic research. BLAST is a dual-section, closed-circuit wind tunnel capable of everything from whisper-smooth breezes to more than 100 mph winds. It's used to study how air flows around building, aircraft wings, wind turbines, sports equipment, and entire wind farms.

During this talk, our speakers will share:

• What makes BLAST unique
• How ultra-precise airflow measurements and visualization tools help uncover the secrets of aerodynamics
• Real research stories, including wind-farm wake experiments, aircraft lift tests with Gurney flaps and plasma actuators, and surprising insights from sports aerodynamics
• Why studying wind matters for energy, transportation, urban design, and the tech of tomorrow

Giacomo Valerio Iungo Bio: Giacomo Valerio Iungo graduated in 2003 with full honors in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Pisa, Italy, and in 2007 he obtained a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the same institution (in collaboration with the CSIR, Pretoria, Rep. South Africa). The contribution of his research activity was recognized by the special mention for the 2010 IAWE-ANIV prize as the best Italian junior researcher in wind engineering. In the period 2010-2014, he was a scientistat EPFL, where he performed wind energy research. In 2014, he was appointed as Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, then Associated Professor with Tenure in 2020. As principal investigator of the WindFluX laboratory, he is actively working in the wind energy domain to develop state-of-the-art facilities, such as a boundary layer wind tunnel and a mobile wind LiDAR station. His research interests lie in understanding the organization of turbulent coherent structures in the atmospheric boundary layer and developing data-driven models to simulate accurately the operations of wind turbines with relatively low computational costs. The research of Dr. Iungo has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, ARPA-E, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and several industrial partners. Dr. Iungo received an NSF CAREER award from the Fluid Dynamics program in 2020

Wasi Uddin Ahmed Bio: Wasi Uddin Ahmed is a wind-tunnel engineer at the University of Texas at Dallas (Boundary Layer and Subsonic Wind Tunnel). He completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at UT Dallas in 2024, following an Erasmus Mundus joint master’s concentrating on wind physics from the Technical University of Denmark and the University of Oldenburg in 2018. He has obtained his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. His PhD thesis included studies of wake dynamics of wind farms, porous-disk induction under wind shear, and active load control using Gurney flaps and plasma actuators.

Agenda:

• 8:30 AM - 9 AM: Networking
• 9 AM - 9:05 AM: Opening Remarks
• 9:05 AM - 9:45 AM: IQ Brew Presentation
• 9:45 AM - 10 AM: Q&A

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