Hall thrusters are a spacecraft propulsion device for orbit maintenance and north-south station keeping. One of the concerns about Hall thrusters is the sputtering of high energy ions which could result in the erosion of ...

Computational modeling research centers around developing ever better representations of physics. The objective of model reduction specialists is to take that high fidelity understanding and compress it into a Reduced Order ...

Although the applications considered in this thesis are of two-dimensional nature, generalization issues to three-dimensional are outlined for both spatial and temporal coupling algorithms. Finally, the proposed numerical ...

The current project was undertaken to evaluate the effects of electric arc plasma actuators on high-speed separated flows. Two underlying goals motivated these experiments. The first goal was to provide a flow control ...

Actuator and sensor placement for active control of high-Reynolds number flows is largely based on experience and trial-and-error because of the system’s large dimensionality and complexity. A novel strategy for estimating ...

Modern flight vehicles are fabricated from composite materials resulting in flexible structures that behave differently from the more traditional elastic metal structures. Composite materials offer a number of advantages ...

Independently articulated aerodynamic flaps on a blunt-body entry vehicle may provide a feasible alternative to current state-of-the-art bank-angle steering control while introducing additional benefits during entry, ...

Small satellites, such as CubeSats and SmallSats, are seeing increased use in Low Earth Orbit, particularly at altitudes with measurable aerodynamic effects. It is important to design these spacecraft, which often have ...

The high-speed flow in the wake of the propeller also known as propeller wash, or simply propwash, can severely affect the aerodynamic forces on a lifting surface. Steady-state computational results for a symmetric SD8020 ...