Aerospace Science and Engineering

Aerospace Science research areas include:

Fluid Dynamics/Aerodynamics

Research Areas: Experimental, Numerical, and Theoretical fluid mechanics; Advanced Aerodynamic Flow Control techniques, Passive and Active; Aerodynamics of low, moderate and high Reynolds number flows; Manned and unmanned aerial vehicle aerodynamics; Acoustics and vibrations; Compressible flows; Wind energy; Fly-by-feel aerial vehicles, bio-inspired systems.
Participating faculty: Michael Amitay, Farhan GandhiJason Hicken, Amir HirsaFotis KopsaftopoulosOnkar Sahni and Lucy Zhang.

Advanced Structures/Materials

Research Areas: Active Structures, Morphing Structures, Cellular Structures, Structures with integrated damping capability, Energy absorption capability; Advanced materials including piezoelectric materials, shape memory alloys and polymers, electrorheological and magnetrorheological fluids, nano-materials; Advanced composites, bio-composites; Advanced structural analysis methods, Nonlinear aeroelasticity, nonlinear multi-body dynamics; and Computational Structural Dynamics; Structural health monitoring, self-sensing self-diagnostic structures, multifunctional materials and structures.
Participating faculty: Farhan Gandhi, Fudong Han, Jason Hicken, Fotis KopsaftopoulosNikhil Koratkar, Emily Liu, and Daniel Walczyk.

Optimization

Research Areas: Multidisciplinary design optimization; Aerodynamic shape optimization; trajectory optimization; Optimization under uncertainty; Inverse problems and model reduction
Participating faculty: Farhan GandhiJason Hicken, and Onkar Sahni .

Space

Research Areas: Astrodynamics; Spacecraft navigation and orbit determination; Image-based planetary science; Space robotics; Large flexible spacecraft dynamics and control; Space vehicle control
Participating faculty: Kurt AndersonAmir Hirsa and Shanbin Shi.

Combustion/Propulsion

Research Areas: Fuel chemistry; Optical diagnostics; Solid propellants; Spray combustion; Nano-energetics; Swirl-Stabilized combustion; Transonic combustion.
Participating faculty: Matthew Oehlschlaeger.