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

Research Interests

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

Curators' Distinguished Professor

Research Interests

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

Research Interests

Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Aircraft Design Optimization; Electric Drones

Daoru (Frank) Han

Associate Professor

Research Interests

Plasma aerospace applications; Space propulsion; Plasma-material interactions; Plasma physics and rarefied gas dynamics; High-performance computing

Serhat Hosder

James A. Drallmeier Centennial Professor

Research Interests

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

Research Interests

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

Research Interests

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

Research Interests

High-speed experimental aerodynamics, hypersonic and high-enthalpy flows, compressible turbulence, supersonic vortex dynamics, laser-based flow diagnostics, ground facilities development.