Come to the Seminar on Experiments and Simulation of Hypersonic Vehicle Structures!

Presenter: Dr. Stephen “Michael” Spottswood, Senior Aerospace Engineer, Structural Sciences Center, Aerospace Systems Directorate, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, WPAFB, OH.

When: 1:30 – 2:30pm, Friday Sept. 4, 2015

Where: Guggenheim Hall 204

Synopsis: The Structural Sciences Center (SSC) is a small research group within the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, focusing on the analysis, experimentation and development of hypersonic hot-structures.  Hypersonics is flight greater than Mach 5, where aerodynamic heating dominates.  There have been very few successful air-vehicles to fly at hypersonic speeds, and only one, the X-15, that has done so with a “hot-structures” design.  Hot-structures, unlike thermal protection system based vehicles e.g. the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter, carry flight/maneuver loads at extreme temperatures.  The analysis and design challenges are immense, proving to be a fertile, multi-discipline research area.