David Willis is an Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies and Professor in the Francis College of Engineering's Mechanical Engineering Department, as well as Wind Turbine Research Group, HEROES all at UMass Lowell.

David J. Willis

Associate Professor

College
Francis College of Engineering
Department
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Phone
(978) 934-3101
Office
Dandeneau Hall, Room 217
Email
david_willis@uml.edu

Expertise

Computational and Experimental Aerodynamics, Renewable Energy, Engineering Education

Research Interests

Computational and Experimental Aerodynamics: Development and application of effective multi-fidelity computational aerodynamics modeling tools, biologically inspired flight, energy conversion, fabric permeability, fluid-structure interactions.

Renewable Energy: Wind energy conversion, hydrogen storage.

Engineering Education: STEM Education, Motivation, Adult Development

Education

  • Ph.D: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, (2006), Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • SM: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, (2003), Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • BEng: Aerospace, (2000), Carleton University - Ottawa, Canada

Selected Publications

  • D.J.Willis, J.Peraire and J.K.White,A Combined pFFT-Multipole Tree Code, Unsteady Panel Method with Vortex Particle Wakes, International Journal of Numerical Methods in Fluids, Vol. 53, Number 8, Pages 1399-1422, March 2007.
  • H. Salehipour, and D.J. Willis, A coupled kinematics-energetics model for predicting energy efficient flapping flight, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Volume 318, Pages 173-196, February 2013.
  • D.J. Willis, Using Enriched Basis Functions for Automatically Handling Wake-Body Intersections in Source-Doublet Potential Panel Methods, Submitted to the Journal of Aircraft, August 2013.
  • F. Azhar, K. Tite, S.P. Johnston, C.J.Hansen, S. Shina, A. Schiano, and D.J.Willis, Hands-On MADE 4 ME: Deploying, using, developing and evaluating desktop computer numerical control (CNC) systems in the engineering classroom, presented at the 2016 ASEE National Conference, New Orleans, LA, June 2016.
  • N. Rondeau, K. J. Desabrais, G. Barlow , J. Luna, E. Morrison, D. J. Willis, Parachute Fabric Permeability under Short vs. Long Term Humidity Conditioning Effects in a Controlled Lab Environment, Paper presented at the 24th AIAA ADS Conference, Denver, CO, June 2017.
  • D. J. Willis, M. I. Anwar, R. Gowda, F. H. Manar, A. R. Jones, An Unsteady Doublet Lattice Method for Studying LEV Development on Low-Re Wings with Leading Edge Compliance with Experimental Comparison, AIAA 2018-0312, Presented at the 56th SCITECH conference, Orlando, FL.
  • Traylor, C., Inalpolat, M., Willis, D. J., & Persson, P. O. (2023). Aeroacoustics-Based Structural Health Monitoring of Airfoils with Surface Damage and Domain Coupling. AIAA Journal, 61(11), 5187-5190.
  • Barry, C. P., Olson, B. G., Willis, D. J., Bergeron, K., Charrette, C., Noetscher, G. M., & Sherwood, J. A. (2024). The experimental characterization of the torsional and transverse stiffnesses of a braided parachute suspension line. Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics.

Selected Contracts, Fellowships, Grants and Sponsored Research

  • ENG-ED 4.0: Educating the Next Generation of Engineers to Drive the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Davis Educational Foundation.
  • Collaborative Research: Leading Edge Vortex Evolution on Compliant Biologically-Inspired Wings, National Science Foundation (PI: A. Jones, University of Maryland).
  • Team UML-WIND 2016 (Collegiate Wind Competition), National Renewable Energy Lab (selected as 1 of 14 national teams in 2016).
  • 2015 Wind Energy Research Workshop, National Science Foundation.
  • Hands-on MADE 4 ME (Hands-on Machining, Analysis and Design Experiences for Mechanical Engineering), National Science Foundation.