Engineering students give technical presentations at colloquium

  • Published
  • By Deidre Ortiz
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. --  University students in the pilot workforce revitalization program at Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC) Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 in White Oak, Md., recently participated in their yearly formal review colloquium in a conference focusing on hypersonic technology, analysis and test.

Held at the Basic Research Innovation and Collaboration Center (BRICC) in Arlington, Va., the conference was part of a technical review for the University of Maryland and AEDC Hypersonic Workforce Revitalization Program, a program meant to demonstrate and pilot several innovative strategies to strengthen our testing workforce for a future in hypersonic testing and evaluation (T&E).

Members of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the Department of Defense's (DOD) Test Resource Management Center (TRMC), which help provide funding for the program, were also involved in the planning and hosting of the event.

Tunnel 9 Site Director Dan Marren stated the conference allows the engineering students, who are getting hands-on experience at the wind tunnels, the chance to present on their particular areas of study in front of a diverse group of technical and managerial peers.

"What a great opportunity for these future engineers," he said. "This provides them a setting in which to discuss their research activities with those already working in the field as well as their peers."

According to Marren, while at Tunnel 9 the university students are able to learn about unsteady shocks, turbulence characterization, simulation, modeling and validation. They also work in diagnostics such as temperature sensitive paint (TSP) and background-oriented Schlieren (BOS). He added that although the benefit to the students is alone worthwhile, the increase in technical maturity of AEDC's employees resulting from their participation, mentoring and research is the real value to the Air Force T&E enterprise and what we would like to advance in other places.

Eight students presented technical papers and five others presented on technical posters they created. The topics covered included: Focusing Schlieren Deflectometry Applied to Isolator Shock Train Propagation; Preliminary LES of Hypersonic Shock/Turbulent Boundary Layer Interactions; Development of PIV in Mach 2.7 Wind Tunnel at AEDC White Oak; Shock-Turbulence Interaction: Lessons from Linear Theory; Design of Flared Cylinder Sensor Layout Using DNS Analysis; Simulation of Dual-Mode Scramjet Combustor Under Various Mode Operation; Method of Characteristics Analysis of the Internal Flowfield in RDE; and Optimal Aero-Assisted Spacecraft Missions Using Hypersonic Waverider Aeroshells.