9/3/2019 Debra Levey Larson
Written by Debra Levey Larson
Three doctoral students in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently received fellowships.
Paliwoda’s proposed project is on developing, simulating, and testing a plasma array to form a tunable microwave metamaterial. Metamaterials have artificial material properties that control electromagnetic waves. This plasma array is expected to form tunable high-power microwave antennas, waveguides, microwave generators, and other components needed to create tunable directed energy beams.
Lyne’s proposed work is on a multimode microthruster that can switch between high-efficiency electrospray and high-thrust monopropellant modes using the same fuel and thruster hardware. The thruster is designed for small satellite propulsion, and has the potential to greatly expand the types of missions that small satellites can carry out.
Associate Professor Joshua Rovey is adviser to both Paliwoda and Lyne.
Fellows’ research project concerns the identification and analysis of fluid-structure interactions present in turbochargers operating in UAVs via the use of computational fluid dynamics techniques. In particular, his work aims to identify the mechanisms behind blade deformation and failure in order to inform improved turbocharger designs.