Project Grant 2335760

This $321,720 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to The Pennsylvania State University will fund a 3-year experimental research study to characterize the transition to turbulent flow in pulsatile pipe flows. The project aims to provide fundamental understanding of the pulsatile transitional flow regime and develop tools for estimating intermittency and transition progression. Key focus areas include investigating the effects of axial flow factors like pulsation frequency and waveform shape, as well as radial flow instabilities from pipe curvature or occlusions. The research will use advanced particle tracking velocimetry techniques to collect experimental data, which will be made publicly available to establish a repository of transitional and turbulent flow data. This work is expected to significantly advance knowledge in this poorly understood flow regime and enable future studies to quantify transitional flow effects across biomedical and other application areas.