Controlling vortex motion and chaotic advection

Effects of time-dependent forcing on the flow induced by a single vortex in a corner are studied. The objective of forcing is to maximize flux across the separating streamline in the flow while keeping the position of the vortex bounded within a prescribed domain. Concepts of chaotic advection and control theory are used to achieve this goal. Transformation into flat coordinates is employed to prove controllability using various actuation methods. Flat coordinates also alleviate the search for the optimal (flux-maximizing) vortex trajectory. A feedback law is designed to stabilize this trajectory. Mixing in the optimized flow is studied.