CHANL members take on 2025 AIAA SciTech

Today

Eight members of CHANL traveled to Orlando to attend and present research at AIAA SciTech and Kennedy Space Center.

group picture

The Computational Hypersonics and Nonequilibrium Laboratory (CHANL) started off 2025 strong with a visit to Orlando, Florida for AIAA SciTech.

Research Presentations

Our group was involved with five presentations at SciTech.

Aero-Optics

Leif Nelson-Melby, an undergraduate researcher, presented a paper on designing an experiment to capture transitional structures in the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Notre Dame Mach-6 Quiet Tunnel:

  1. Numerical Study for Design of Experiment on Aero-Optical Effects of Crossflow Waves in Hypersonic Flow

This work is funded by the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory and is in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame.

slab delta flow

Mach 5.7 flow over a "slab-delta" shape.

Solid Fuel Ramjets

Dr. Gohar Khokhar and PhD student, Joshua McBeth, were involved with three solid fuel ramjet presentations:

  1. Investigation of Solid Fuel Ramjets Using Analytical Theory and Computational Fluid Dynamics
  2. Adaptive Combustion Regulation in High-Fidelity Computational Model of Solid Fuel Ramjet
  3. Learning-Based Thrust Regulation of Solid-Fuel Ramjet in Flight Conditions

 This work is funded by the Office of Naval Research and is in collaboration with UMBC.

SFRJ contour

SFRJ pressure contour.

Comparison of Thermophysics Models

Daniel Fraijo, an undergraduate researcher, was involved in a large collaborative effort where research groups submitted comparisons to test cases that were run with the direct molecular simulation method:

  1. Comparative Analysis of Thermophysics Models for the Simulations of Nonequilibrium Flow

This work was led by the Air Force Research Laboratory.

NASA Kennedy Space Center

Project Briefing

Avery White, a PhD student, gave a midterm briefing for her project funded by NASA (via a.i. Solutions) titled Uncertainty Analysis Methodology for External Flows. 

Avery at NASA

Avery in front of NASA Headquarters.

Group members also had a chance to tour Kennedy Space Center:

group photo at KSC

Group members at Kennedy Space Center.

and see a Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral:

Falcon 9

Space-X Falcon 9 launch.

AIAA Associate Fellow

While at SciTech, Prof. Kyle Hanquist was inducted as an AIAA Associate Fellow. Learn more about the 2025 Class of Associate Fellows here. 

Hanquist Associate Fellow

Prof. Hanquist at the Associate Fellow Induction Ceremony.

AIAA