Seminar on From Jet Engines to Vocal Cords – The synergy of aerospace, voice, sleep, and cardiovascular research

Aerospace engineering experimental and computational tools have tremendous potential to contribute to better understanding and improve outcomes in medicine. Several projects will be discussed to illustrate the application of these classical engineering tools to clinical medicine. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predicted potential rupture locations in aortas that were distorted due to genetic disease. Physical and virtual models of the airway were used to perform virtual surgeries to alleviate airway collapse during sleep (aka, sleep apnea), identify the critical locations in the airway that needs treatment, and guided surgeons in performing successful operations. For over half a century, the mechanics of vocal fold vibration and voice production was theorized to be based on their elasticity. Treatment of severe injuries to the folds was limited because of the difficulty of replicating that elasticity. Based on aerodynamic principles of flow separation and flow-induced aeroacoustics, a new mechanism for the vibration of the folds was discovered.  This led to a new surgical treatment that enabled a patient who could not speak for 35 years to speak again.

Ephraim (Effie) Gutmark is a Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Cincinnati (UC) and an Ohio Regents Eminent Scholar. He has a secondary appointment as a Professor of Otolaryngology at the UC Medical Center.  He is an Affiliated Professor of Mechanics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and an Einstein Fellow at TU Berlin, Germany. His research interests include: combustion and detonations, aeroacoustics, fluid dynamics, propulsion, biomedical fluid dynamics and heat transfer.
He is an Editor of the journal Flow, Turbulence, and Combustion. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), the recipient of the 2013 ASME Fluids Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Hanin International Aerospace Award 2018. He published 250 papers in refereed archival journals (H-index=46), 554 conference papers, and is a co-inventor of 70 US and International patents.