Aerospace Research
The faculty of the Aerospace Engineering program are active in exciting research areas relevant to current atmospheric flight and spaceflight disciplines. These areas include hypersonic flows and technologies, planetary entry/descent/landing of spacecraft, active flow control, unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), composite materials, smart structures, nanocomposites, plasma aerospace applications, space propulsion, small satellite technology development, and spacecraft orbit and mission design. Students assist faculty with their research programs, including working in laboratories, conducting computer simulations, and developing new theories that all advance the state-of-the-art in the aerospace community.
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Interested in discussing the research we are working on or learning more? Please contact:
K. Chandrashekhara
Curators' Distinguished Professor
573-341-4587 | chandra@mst.edu |
188 Toomey Hall
Composite Materials and Structures, Additive Manufacturing of Polymer Composites and Metal Cellular Structures, High Temperature Composites, Smart Structures, Bio-composites, Composite Manufacturing, Experimental Characterization, Finite Element Analysis, and Process Modeling.
Lokeswarappa Dharani
Chancellor’s Professor
573-341-6504 | dharani@mst.edu |
333 Toomey Hall
Aircraft structures, fracture mechanics, fatigue and failure analysis; micromechanics; composite materials and structures; process modeling of ceramic matrix composites; friction and wear of composites; and fracture of laminated glazing.
Xiaosong Du
Assistant Professor
573-341-6008 | xiaosongdu@mst.edu |
337 Toomey Hall
Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Aircraft Design Optimization; Electric Drones
Daoru (Frank) Han
Associate Professor
573-341-4337 | handao@mst.edu |
131 Toomey Hall
Plasma aerospace applications; Space propulsion; Plasma-material interactions; Plasma physics and rarefied gas dynamics; High-performance computing
Serhat Hosder
James A. Drallmeier Centennial Professor
573-341-7239 | hosders@mst.edu |
182 Toomey Hall
Computational aerodynamics/aerothermodynamics, hypersonic flows and technologies, uncertainty quantification, planetary entry/descent/landing of spacecraft, computational fluid dynamics, aerodynamic shape optimization, robust design, numerical methods.
Henry Pernicka
Curators' Distinguished Teaching Professor
573-341-6749 | pernicka@mst.edu |
331 Toomey Hall
Astrodynamics, orbital mechanics, spacecraft design, spacecraft mission design, satellite attitude dynamics, nonlinear analysis, dynamics and control, optimization.
David Riggins
Curator's Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus
573-341-6684 | rigginsd@mst.edu |
184 Toomey Hall
Fluid dynamics, computational fluid dynamics, hypersonic propulsion systems, computational analysis of jet mixing, flow losses and mixing enhancement in combustors, aircraft gas turbine ramjet propulsion systems, and scramjet performance.
Davide Viganò
Assistant Professor
573-341-4958 | dvigano@mst.edu |
290B Toomey Hall
High-speed experimental aerodynamics, hypersonic and high-enthalpy flows, compressible turbulence, supersonic vortex dynamics, laser-based flow diagnostics, ground facilities development.
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