4/1/2015 Susan Mumm, Media Specialist
Written by Susan Mumm, Media Specialist
Panesi and Munafò, along with their collaborators, Dr. Richard Jaffe and Dr. Yen Liu at NASA Ames, were cited for contributions to modeling non-equilibrium hypersonic flows in the paper, “A Reduced-order Modeling Approach to Enable Kinetic Simulations of Non-equilibrium Hypersonic Flows.”
Earlier this year, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research selected Prof. Panesi for the Young Investigator Award. Improved modeling for non-equilibrium chemical reactions occurring during high-speed flight has become the defining theme for Panesi’s research program.
His research efforts are focused on developing new governing equations for chemically reacting flows. Vehicles traveling at very high speeds are subject to extraordinarily high temperatures, in the tens of thousands of degrees. Research efforts of Panesi’s group are focused on the characterization of detailed chemical kinetic processes to enable predictive models for peak heating, material selection and design of thermal protections systems capable of withstanding extreme environments.
The conference focuses on fundamentals in physical modeling, including radiative gas dynamics, gas-surface interactions; spectroscopic-measurement techniques; theoretical and computational spectroscopy; thermo-chemical-nonequilibrium flows; aerothermodynamics-electromagnetism coupling (MHD, etc); polarisable and magnetisable gases; quantum-chemistry applications in aerothermodynamics; thermodynamics statistical, irreversible and thermodynamic properties; multi-temperature gases and plasmas & transport properties (with/without electromagnetic field); and relaxation processes, chemical kinetics, thermal relaxation, state-to-state kinetics.