About

Dr. Christine M. Gilbert is an Associate Professor in the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech. She holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, earned in 2012, along with a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the same institution. Her research expertise includes fluid-structure interactions, hydrodynamics, ocean engineering, and naval architecture. Dr. Gilbert's work involves studying the interactions between fluids and structures, with applications in ocean wave mechanics and ship structural analysis. She has been a faculty member at Virginia Tech since 2016, progressing from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor in 2022. Her professional service includes memberships in the American Physical Society, American Society of Naval Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineering, and the Society of Women Engineers. Her contributions to the field have been recognized through awards such as the NSF Career Award in 2020 and the ONR Young Investigator Program Award in 2015. Dr. Gilbert is actively involved in teaching courses related to ocean wave mechanics, ship structural analysis, and thin-walled structures, and she directs research in hydroelasticity and fluid-structure interactions.

Research topics

• Marine engineering
• Engineering
• Geology
• Mathematics
• Mechanics
• Physics
• Structural engineering
• Geometry
• Aerospace engineering
• Oceanography
• Classical mechanics
• Acoustics

Selected publications

• Shape Change of a Flapping Plate using Fluidic Flexible Matrix Composite through Modeling and Experiments

  2024-01-04

  articleSenior author

  The purpose of this paper is to explore shape change of a plate undergoing oscillatory heave motions. The shape change will be achieved using a panel embedded with Fluidic Flexible Matrix Composite (F2MC) tubes for actuation. The active control of the plate is bio-inspired and is analyzed for propulsive characteristics. Classical Plate Theory and First-Order Shear Deformation Plate Theory will be used with a concentrated tip moment at the free edge to provide a means of modeling. The plate panel was constructed with Dragon Skin Silicone and embedded with two rows of five F2MC tubes which provide the means of shape actuation. Experimental results from actuating the panel in static conditions showed that F2MC tubes are an effective means of prescribing a repeatable shape change to a silicone panel. In comparing the static experimental results to the numerical models, it was found that the deflected plate shape could be most accurately predicted at lower pressures for upward deflection and higher pressures for downward deflections. This indicates a need for further comprehensive experimental analysis on the physics of the F2MC panel to obtain accurate results for larger deflections under an oscillatory motion. When tested in unsteady conditions in a heaving experiment (0.5 Hz to 2.3 Hz), the force measured at frequencies above 1.5 Hz were up to 3.6 times greater than those measured for frequencies below 1.5 Hz.

  PublisherDOI

• A Verification and Validation Study on a Loosely Two-Way Coupled Hydroelastic Model of Wedge Water Entry

  Journal of Ship Research · 2023-01-09 · 3 citations

  articleSenior author

  _ The interaction between the structural response and hydrodynamic loading (hydroelasticity) must be considered for design and operation purposes of high-speed planing craft made of composites that are prone to frequent water impact (slamming). A computational approach was proposed to study the hydroelastic slamming of a flexible wedge. The computational approach is a loose two-way coupling between a Wagner-based hydrodynamic solution and a linear finite element plate model. Verification and validation (V&V) was performed on this coupled model. It was found that the model overpredicts rigid-body/spray root kinematics by <15% and hydrodynamic loading/ structural response by <26%. Introduction One of the primary constraints on the operational envelope of high-speed craft is slamming (water impact). Slamming occurs between the hull body and the water surface when a portion/whole of the craft exits the water and then reenters at high-enough velocity (Lloyd 1989; Faltinsen 2005). The frequent water impacts, which work like “water hammers,” along with their induced acceleration pose great jeopardy on hull structures as well as crew and instrument on-board (Yamamoto et al. 1985; Ensign et al. 2000; Hirdaris et al. 2014). With the growing use of lightweight materials, the interaction between the structural deformation and the hydrodynamic loading (hydroelasticity) becomes more prevalent. The current design criteria of high-speed craft are based on empirical procedures with no regard to hydroelasticity due to the lack of understanding of this complex phenomenon (DNV 2013; ABS 2016). Therefore, a better comprehension of hydroelastic slamming is the first step to designing more high-performance craft (Fu et al. 2014; Judge et al. 2020).

  PublisherDOI

• Virginia tech advanced towing carriage

  Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part M Journal of Engineering for the Maritime Environment · 2023-04-13 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Virginia Tech has recently acquired a new towing carriage and vertical planar motion mechanism. The new towing carriage replaces the original carriage that was installed in the 1960s. The original carriage had a maximum speed of roughly 3 m/s, and the new carriage has a maximum speed of 7 m/s with the current wavemaker installation. The towing tank facility is used for both teaching and research activities in ocean engineering. The vertical planar motion mechanism includes two linear actuators to change the pitching and heaving behavior of a surface or subsurface test article to model different phenomena such as slamming or porpoising of surface vessels and vertical plane maneuvers for subsurface vessels. The focus of this paper is on the determination of the specifications for the towing tank to meet both teaching and research needs and the early resistance experiments that have been conducted during initial shake-down of the new facility. The authors will discuss how preliminary resistance experiments compare to the USNA towing tank facility.

  PublisherDOI

• Effect of amplitudes and frequencies on Virtual Planar Motion Mechanism of AUVs: Part II 3DOF implementation, comparison with RANSE and field trials

  Ocean Engineering · 2023-11-05 · 6 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Water entry of a flexible wedge: How flexural rigidity influences spray root and pressure wave propagation

  Physical Review Fluids · 2023-09-20 · 9 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Wedge water entry serves as a key model to understand phenomena like high-speed craft slamming, seaplane landings, and diving aquatic birds. In this paper, wedge water entry experiments and simulations are used to examine how hydrodynamic loads, structural deflection, water contact lines, and rigid body motions are influenced by changes in the flexural rigidity of the wedge's bottom panels. Preliminary findings indicate that the nondimensionalized spray root position and velocity versus time collapse despite significant variations in the panel's flexural rigidity values (see figure for velocity curves). The study provides insights for future research and model improvements in water entry dynamics.

  PublisherDOI

• Control of a Flapping Plate Shape with Fluidic Flexible Matrix Composites

  AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum · 2023-01-19 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-0828.vid The subject of this paper is part of a larger project where plates subjected to oscillatory heave motion will undergo active reconfiguration, or controlled shape change, to better understand complex fluid structure interactions. The plates will be placed in water near a free surface interface. In this paper, Fluidic Flexible Matrix Composites (F2MC) are explored as an option for active reconfiguration. To assist in designing future panels, both Euler-Bernoulli beam and Timoshenko beam models were used to estimate the plate deflections due to shape change actuation. The F2MC loads were modeled as both a concentrated tip moment and a distributed moment for the Euler-Bernoulli model and as a distributed moment in the Timoshenko model. A plate panel was then constructed with Dragon Skin Silicone with embedded F2MC tubes to validate the models. It was found that the Euler-Bernoulli beam model better predicted the experimental results when the F2MC forces were modeled as concentrated tip moments in both air and under water. Oscar Johansson is a senior undergraduate student studying Ocean Engineering in the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is set to graduate with a B.S. in Ocean Engineering in 2023. Oscar will then continue his studies in the Fall of 2023 towards a Master's degree in Ocean Engineering. He currently serves as the Head of Design for the Human Powered Submarine Team at Virginia Tech. Oscar also worked at Newport News Shipbuilding where he worked on future aircraft carrier concept designs. He is a student member of AIAA. Blake Armstrong is an undergraduate researcher in the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Blake is currently enrolled at Virginia Tech studying Aerospace Engineering, with an expected graduation in 2024. He is currently employed with The Boeing Company, in the Accelerated Leadership Program, and is working on the 787 Dreamliner family. Prior to his current position, Blake worked at Mathnasium (2019-2021) as a Math Instructor. Christine Gilbert is an associate professor in the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Dr. Gilbert received her PhD from the University of Maryland in Mechanical Engineering in 2012. Prior to her appointment at Virginia Tech, Dr. Gilbert has worked at the U.S. Naval Academy (assistant research professor, 2012 to 2014) and the University of New Orleans (tenure track assistant professor, 2014 to 2016). Dr Gilbert has received both the ONR Young Investigator Award (YIP, 2015) and the NSF CAREER award (2020). She is a member of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics and AIAA.

  PublisherDOI

• Flow Visualization, Hydrodynamics, and Structural Response of a Flexible Wedge in Water Entry Experiments

  Journal of Ship Research · 2022 · 8 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Marine engineering
  • Geology
  • Engineering

  _ In this article, a free-falling flexible wedge into calm water is experimentally studied to understand the relationship between the spray root, peak pressure, and structural response. High-speed cameras are employed to record the spray root propagation, whereas hydrodynamic loading is measured with an array of pressure transducers. Stereoscopic-Digital Image Correlation (S-DIC) is used to measure deflection on the bottom of the wedge during the impact. Experiments are conducted from different drop heights to study the effect of impact velocity. Results are interpreted in light of an experimental data set of a rigid wedge of comparable dimensions. The comparison between the rigid and flexible wedges shows that due to fluid-structure interaction, the evolution of the spray root on a flexible wedge is slightly delayed compared to the rigid one. Introduction Nowadays, high-speed planing craft are widely used in commercial, recreational, and naval applications. As the growth in utilization of these vessels is observed, naval architects strive to improve the overall performance while the safety metrics are adequately maintained. One of the major concerns that challenges both the performance and structural strength of small high-speed craft is hull slamming. Once the vessel is subject to incoming waves, the hull repeatedly becomes airborne and then impacts the water surface. These slams cause operators to reduce the speed, and the maneuverability of the vessel is also influenced. Additionally, slamming can lead to the serious injury of sailors in rough sea conditions. Severe motion of the vessel because of the impact may also adversely affect the operability of equipment on board, meaning that autonomous vessels are still vulnerable to these types of loading events. As a result, it is crucial to study and understand the slamming in high-speed craft in order to mitigate its negative effects.

  PublisherDOI

• Computational analysis of bubble–structure interactions in near-field underwater explosion

  International Journal of Solids and Structures · 2022 · 30 citations

  • Marine engineering
  • Mechanics
  • Aerospace engineering
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Numerical simulation data of bubble-structure interactions in near-field underwater explosion

  Data in Brief · 2022-06-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  The simulation data presented in this paper describes the interaction between a thin-walled aluminum cylinder and a gas bubble in a near-field underwater explosion. The simulation is performed using the AERO-F/S solvers. The finite element AERO-S solver is used to simulate the structural dynamics of the cylinder, including its yielding and collapse. The AERO-F solver is used to simulate the fluid dynamics of the explosion bubble, the surrounding liquid water, and the air inside the cylinder. The two solvers are coupled using an embedded boundary method and the FInite Volume method with Exact two-material Riemann problems (FIVER). The data presented in this paper corresponds to a representative case with initial pressure p0=12.5MPa inside the bubble (cf. [1]). Simulation data include structural stress and deformation, fluid velocity, pressure and bubble dynamics. The input files and the workflow to perform this simulation are also provided. With the information provided in this paper, researchers can repeat this simulation, and use it as a starting point to study related problems involving cavitation bubbles, underwater explosion, and fluid-structure interaction in general.

  PublisherDOI

• Classification of Slamming Events in Irregular Waves Measured through Tow Tank Experiments

  2021-10-18

  articleSenior author

  Slamming events are the source of critical design loads for small, high-speed craft. Categorization of slamming events can prove useful by identifying cases of interest for more in-depth analysis, such as high-fidelity modeling and experiments. Inspired by developments in facial recognition techniques, a quantitative method is proposed to sort slamming events using various experimental measurements. A singular value decomposition method on a matrix assembled of vectors of time-histories of rigid body motions recorded in free-to-heave-and-pitch tow tank experiments on a planing hull. While some of the categories identified in this work show distinct features in slamming accelerations consistent with previously identified categories, other categories have also been identified. These results can be used when evaluating ride quality, and design loads, and performing more in-depth studies on specific slamming categories.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• M. Javad Javaherian

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  10 shared

• Zhongshu Ren

  7 shared

• John Gilbert

  Virginia Tech

  3 shared

• Wentao Ma

  Virginia Tech

  2 shared

• Xuning Zhao

  Virginia Tech

  2 shared

• Kevin G. Wang

  2 shared

• Michael Philen

  Virginia Tech

  2 shared

• Oscar Johansson

  Virginia Tech

  2 shared

Labs

• Towing Tank Hydroelasticity LabPI

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy, Mechanical Engineering

  University of Maryland

  2012

• Master of Science, Mechanical Engineering

  University of Maryland

  2011

• Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering

  University of Maryland

  2006

Awards & honors

• NSF, Career, 2020
• ONR, Young Investigator Program Award, 2015