Juan Avila Molina
Finding the Body of Minimal Resistance
The project seeks to discover bodies (within restricted classes) that minimise overall aerodynamic resistance in rarefied media. This will be done using computational and optimisation techniques as the general form of the resistance equation does not offer a viable way of computing analytically the integrals required. The following are the expected steps to be undertaken:
– A suitable Python code will be written to compute the resistance equation for general types of body obstacles
– The resistance of the different obstacle classes will be optimised numerically using computational techniques
– Code will be written to visualise the optimal solutions and flow dynamics
– Insight with regards to the problem of minimal resistance in Newtonian aerodynamics will be provided
Juan Avila Molina
UNSW
Juan Sebastian Avila is a fourth-year student, studying a double degree at the University of New South Wales, majoring in applied mathematics and mechanical engineering. His main interests in mathematics are in the areas of optimisation, dynamical systems, and chaos theory. He is also a self-taught beginner programmer who creates projects based on interesting image processing techniques and graphical methods. He strongly believes in the philosophy of aesthetics and its use in conveying the innate beauty of mathematics.
