Closed-loop Lagrangian separation control in a bluff body shear flow model

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We show how the location of Lagrangian coherent structures, such as unstable manifolds of Lagrangian separation points, can be controlled via feedback control in two-dimensional shear flows. Such control can be used, for instance, to guide fuel transport into designated regions of the flame in a combustor. Motivated by this example, we consider an unsteady vortex model for flow past a bluff body, and create unstable manifolds in this model at prescribed locations by applying control along the boundary. We find that oscillating the newly created unstable manifolds in 1:1 resonance with the von Kármán vortex shedding frequency enhances mixing in the wake significantly.