Research Areas
Aerothermodynamics
Advanced simulation techniques provide a full vehicle platform for integration, design, and optimization
Hypersonic Environments
Advanced simulation techniques provide a full vehicle platform to assess performance and characteristics at hypersonic flight conditions
Thermochemistry
Reaction rates and cross section databases constructed from ab initio potential energy surfaces enable a state-based description of chemical reactions, energy level dynamics, transport, and radiation in strong non-equilibrium flows.
Thermal Protection Systems
Advanced experimental techniques and simulation tools provide a comprehensive framework for TPS design.
Gas-Surface Interactions
Advanced mesoscale models combine surface chemistry, transport mechanisms, and reaction-front tracking to characterize oxidation rates and survivability of advanced TPS materials.
Material Response
Advanced experimental techniques aim to elucidate complex coupled phenomena in porous and fibrous TPS materials, including radiative and conductive heat transfer, flow transport in the Knudsen regime, and diffusion under extreme conditions.
Machine Learning
Machine learning and neural networking techniques enable rapid identification of new physical insights and physical models in complex coupled systems.
Material Architectures & Fabrication
Novel fabrication techniques and manufacturing methods for high-temperature materials and material architectures enable tailorable TPS designs.
Fluid-Thermal-Structure Interaction
The dynamic interaction between a high-speed flow grazing thermo-mechanically compliant panels are studied using direct numerical simulation techniques to understand how they impact boundary layer transition, shock-boundary layer interaction, panel flutter, and panel snap-through.