Danesh Tafti
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA·Engineering
Two engineering problems run through these projects. Remote islands and coastal communities pay several times more for electricity yet sit beside powerful ocean waves.
- Fields
Engineering
Earth & Environmental Science
Computer Science
- Topics
ocean wave energy
wave energy converter
renewable energy
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2029
What they work on
- Develop 3D assessment metrics covering technical feasibility, economic viability and socio-environmental acceptability to screen ocean wave energy converter concepts and down-select 2–3 leads for remote coastal communities.
- Co-design and optimize the leading wave energy converter concepts with engineers, social scientists and community end users, and validate them through community engagement and ocean tests.
- Reconstruct 3D bat wing kinematics from high-throughput recordings of bats flying through obstacles in Borneo using deep learning, and compute the resulting airflow with high-fidelity CFD on CPUs and GPUs.
- Predict six-degrees-of-freedom bat flight dynamics from aerodynamic and inertial forces, and use physics-guided deep learning to identify wing motions that cause maneuvers.
More about the research
Meanwhile, today's drones cannot easily navigate cluttered spaces the way bats can. The work combines fluid dynamics, computation and design to address both.
Why it matters
Islands and remote coastal communities, from Alaska and the Pacific to the Outer Banks and Florida Keys, could gain cheaper, storm-resilient renewable electricity from ocean waves. Design principles from bat flight could enable agile drones that work in cluttered natural and built environments for agriculture, environmental surveillance and humanitarian uses.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Collaborative Research: GCR: Engineering, SocioEconomic and Environmental Convergence of Ocean Wave Energy Research for Remote Coastal Communities
NSF · Sep 2024 – Aug 2029
Extracting Causal Relationships Between Wing Kinematics and Flight Maneuvers in Bats for Transforming Bioinspired Flapping Flight
NSF · Jul 2024 – Jun 2027
Closest labs
Rajat Mittal
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Engineering
Extend the Force Partitioning Method, which splits drag into vortex, viscous and shear contributions, to turbulent flow over smooth, transitionally rough, fully rough and patchy walls using direct numerical simulations.
Samik Bhattacharya
University of Central Florida, FL·Engineering
Measure how rapid pitch-up motions of the wing and tail change lift and drag on 3D-printed bird models near the ground, using a force sensor to capture instantaneous forces during simulated takeoff and landing.
Haifeng Zhang
University of North Texas, TX·Engineering
Design, fabricate and test a MEMS resonant sensor on a piezoelectric single-crystal wafer that measures pH, pressure and temperature together. The goal is sensitive pH readings that do not drift with depth-related changes.
The school
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: 35 labs on PI Pages, $657M a year on research, 496 research doctorates a year.
More about Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.