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Aerodynamics

Aerodynamics and aerodynamic heating arguably present the prime technical challenge imposed by hypersonic flight. They define many of the research focus areas including the vehicle shape, thermal protection, material selection, airframe structure, propulsion, and flight control. Key elements governing aerodynamic heating are the prediction and control of laminar- turbulent transition, turbulence physics, thermo-chemical relaxation, shock-boundary-layer interactions, and fluid-structure interactions.  

Members of the Hypersonic Systems Initiative have been involved in supersonic and hypersonic aerodynamics since the early 1990s. A primary focus at the University has been on the prediction and control of turbulence transition. Facilities include the AFOSR-UND Large Quiet Mach 6 Tunnel, a variable hypersonic Mach number Arc Heated Jet facility, a Mach 5.5 high-temperature open-jet facility with a long run time for  high temperature material and heat mitigation experiments, and a Navy Large Mach 10 Quiet Tunnel to be completed in 2022. A closely coupled companion to experiments are numerical simulations of transitional and fully turbulent boundary layer flows over complex geometries that includes real gas effects and chemistry.

The AFOSR-UND Large Quiet Mach 6 Tunnel is capable of length Reynolds numbers needed to achieve natural turbulent transition on models. In partnership with Purdue University, Notre Dame researchers are developing two additional large quiet hypersonic wind tunnels with design Mach numbers of 8 at Purdue, and 10 at Notre Dame.

Affiliated Faculty

  • Robert Chlebek

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Aero. Facilities Management

  • Thomas Corke

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Hypersonics Technical Lead, Hypersonic Aerodynamics, Turbulent Transition

  • Stanislav Gordeyev

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: High-speed Flows/Aero-Optics

  • Aleksandar Jemcov

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Computational Fluid Dynamics

  • Thomas Juliano

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Hypersonic Aerodynamics

  • Sergey Leonov

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Gas Dynamics/Plasma

  • Jonathan MacArt

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Computational Fluid Dynamics, Combustion

  • Eric Matlis

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Hypersonic Flows/Plasma/Sensors

  • Karel Matouš

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Computational Physics, Aero-Materials

  • Joseph Powers

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Computational Fluid Dynamics, Combustion, V&V

  • Hirotaka Sakaue

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Temperature/Pressure Sensitive Coatings

  • Daniele Schiavazzi

    Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics
    Expertise: Mathematics/ Hypersonic Aero., Surface Ablation

  • Flint Thomas

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Unsteady Flows/Turbulence

  • Meng Wang

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
    Expertise: Computational Fluid Dynamics/Turbulence Modeling