Besides academic activities, the Aerospace Engineering department and faculty are responsible for a substantial amount of research. Much of this work is conducted collaboratively with industry and government. The theoretical, computational, experimental, and applied research efforts fall generally into the following areas: Aerodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Aircraft Structures, Solid Mechanics, Composites, Materials, Flight Mechanics, Controls, Simulation and Astrodynamics.
Low-Speed Wind Tunnel Astronautics Lab General Aviation Flight Simulation Lab
HyperCAT (Hypersonics) Lab Small Aircraft Prototyping Lab
Featured Departmental Lab
Low-Speed Wind Tunnel
The 3-foot by 4-foot Low-Speed Wind Tunnel is an experimental facility in the Department of Aerospace Engineering within the College of Engineering at WSU. The wind tunnel is an atmospheric, open return, closed-throat, subsonic wind tunnel. There are two testing sections available, including:
- A 7-foot by 10-foot upstream test section.
- A 3-foot by 4-foot main test section, which is open to student class projects, senior capstone projects and undergraduate and graduate student research, as well as industry projects.
Featured Faculty Research Interests and Activities
Dr. Atri Dutta
Research interests include astrodynamics, control theory, mission design and optimization.
Specific topics include the following:
- Optimal orbital transfers using a novel description of spacecraft translational dynamics
- Maneuver planning for aerospace system
- Space situational awareness (maneuver detection, uncertainty propagation)
- Space mission analysis for geocentric (all-electric telecommunication satellites) and heliocentric (neutrino detector) missions
Dr. Klaus A. Hoffmann
PhD Coordinator and Marvin J. Gordon Distinguished Professor
Research interests include supersonic and hypersonic flows, aero-acoustics, computational fluid dynamics, magnetohydrodynamics and bio-fluids.
Current/recent research includes the following:
- Development and application of computer codes for Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS), including high speed turbulent flows (e.g., jet exhaust, Chevron design, heat transfer)
- Development and application of computer codes for Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), including boundary conditions and flow control
- Code development and application for Bio-fluids applications, including blood flow in arteries, heart valves, around knee and hip implants, and with pharmaceuticals
- Development of codes for parallel computing
- Noise prediction schemes for aircraft interior
- Computation of chemically reacting hypersonic flows
- Application of CFD to solar energy and wind energy developments
Dr. Suresh Keshavanarayana
Chair and M.S. Program Coordinator
Research interests include aircraft structures/solid mechanics/composites.
Current/recent research includes the following:
- In-plane Elasto-Plastic charaterization of composite materials
- Post-peak stress degradation measurement for composite materials
- Hyperelastic material modeling and characterization of elastomers and honeycomb cores.
- Generation of fatigue based severity factors for fastener joints
- Dynamic characterization of composite materials
- Scaling effects on the tensile strain rate sensitivity of composite materials
- Load signal modulation in dynamic tension and shear tests
- Evaluation of FE fastener modeling techniques for airframe crash simulations
- Process induced residual stresses around fastener holes in multi-directional laminates
- Cure monitoring using embedded sensors for composite repair applications
- Process induced residual stresses in repair patches bonded using heating pads
- Parasitic effects of embedded tubular sensors in laminated composites
Dr. Nadia Kianvashrad
Assistant Professor
Research interests include computational aerodynamics, hypersonic flows, computational shock wave laminar and turbulent boundary layer interactions, unsteady aerodynamics, non-equilibrium hypersonic flows, energy deposition for flow and flight control, higher-order methods for computational fluid dynamics, automated design optimization using computational fluid dynamics, reduced order modeling of high-speed flows, and theoretical fluid dynamics with particular emphasis on the solution of engineering problems.
Dr. Linda Kliment
Associate Professor & Director of NASA in Kansas
Research interests include applied aerodynamics and flight mechanics.
Current/recent research includes the following:
- Experimental investigation of wake vortex filaments. Dynamics and stability of the vortex are studied.
- Operational flight loads data is collected for a variety of aircraft. The usage information and flight loads are analyzed.
Dr. Roy Myose
Teaching interests include biofluid mechanics, astrodynamics, aerodynamics, propulsion, and engineering mechanics.
Current/recent research includes the following:
- Low-Reynolds number cascade aerodynamics
- Blood flow in aorto-coronary bypass CFD models
- Engineering education
Dr. James Steck
Research interests include aircraft flight controls, artificial neural networks, quantum computing, flight simulation, and acoustics.
Current/recent research includes the following:
- Integrated resilient adaptive aircraft control for general aviation
- Structural health monitoring of aircraft
- Health monitoring of wind turbines
- Lightning protection of composite aircraft
- Quantum neural computing and quantum learning
- EEG (brainwave) control of aircraft
Dr. Charles Yang
Research interests include solid mechanics, mechanics of materials, mechanics of advanced composite materials, and adhesively bonded joints.
Current/recent research includes the following:
- Bonded repair of composite airframe laminate and sandwich structures
- Characterization of adhesive properties for the development of progressive damage growth analysis
- Analysis of composite scarf-patch-repair
- Finite element analysis of structures