Professor of Mechanical Engineering Ivana Milanovic co-authored two companion research articles published in the August 2026 issue of the Journal of Fluids Engineering, the flagship journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
The companion papers, ‘Unsteady Wake Dynamics Behind a Sphere: A Numerical Investigation’ and ‘Experimental Flow Visualization Around a Sphere,’ present complementary computational and experimental investigations of the complex unsteady wake that develops behind a sphere. Published consecutively in the same issue, the articles integrate high-fidelity numerical simulation with state-of-the-art volumetric flow visualization to provide complementary perspectives on the same fluid mechanics phenomenon.
The research demonstrates how modern computational fluid dynamics and advanced experimental measurement techniques complement one another in revealing complex flow physics. Together, the studies show how numerical simulation and volumetric particle tracking can both visualize and quantify three-dimensional turbulent flow structures, advancing the understanding of unsteady flows relevant to a wide range of engineering applications.
The publications are the result of an international collaboration among researchers from the University of Hartford, Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Bavaria, Germany), and LaVision GmbH (Göttingen, Germany), and contribute to ongoing advances in computational fluid dynamics, experimental fluid mechanics, and flow visualization.