Vigor Yang speaker for first Midwest Distinguished Aerospace Lecture Series

Vigor Yang, professor of aerospace engineering and industrial and systems engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been selected as the speaker for the first Midwest Distinguished Aerospace Lecture Series. Yang will lecture at four locations across the Midwest. His first stop will be the University of Illinois on Monday, April 22 at 4 p.m. in the auditorium at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. NCSA is located at 1205 W. Clark St. in Urbana.

Yang’s presentation, “High-Fidelity Engineering Design Innovation for Aerospace Systems,” is free and open to the public. In his talk, Yang will address data-enabled design of aerospace systems. It is sponsored by the Department of Aerospace Engineering at U of I.

“The integration of data science with engineering science will allow architectures in which fully integrated modeling and simulations, data analytics, systems engineering, and design methodology can be exploited for the purposes of scientific discovery and the advancement of technology in complex systems,” Yang said.

Yang said he will discuss a new approach to the combustion dynamics in propulsion engines that involves design of experiments, high-fidelity simulation and experiment, reduced-order modeling, uncertainty quantification, machine learning, and testing and certification.

“The example is specific to a propulsion engine problem, but the general approach can be taken as a model,” Yang said. “Other complex systems, such as aero vehicles, could be addressed following a similar paradigm. A big obstacle is the relative insularity of academic and research fields, as well as the divide between scientists with domain expertise and data science. Looking forward, a huge opportunity exists for the community in bringing together researchers in the engineering, data science, and computer modeling areas to collaboratively develop large-scale design systems.”

After speaking at U of I on April 22, Yang will continue on the Midwest tour, speaking at Purdue University on Tuesday, April 23, Notre Dame on the 24^th, ending at the University of Michigan on Thursday, April 25.

Yang has published 10 comprehensive volumes and numerous technical papers on combustion, propulsion, and energetics.  He was the recipient of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Air-Breathing Propulsion Award in 2005, the Pendray Aerospace Literature Award in 2008, the Propellants and Combustion Award in 2009, and the von Kármán Lectureship in Astronautics Award in 2016. In 2014, Yang was awarded the Worcester Reed Warner Medal by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Joint U.S. Army, Navy, NASA, and Air Force Interagency Propulsion Committee. He served as editor-in-chief of the AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power from 2001 to 2009 and the JANNAF Journal of Propulsion and Energetics from 2009 to 2012. He is currently a co-editor of the Aerospace Book Series of the Cambridge University Press.  Among his many honors, Yang is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and an Academician of Academia Sinica, a fellow of the AIAA, ASME, Royal Aeronautical Society, and Combustion Institute, and was a vice president and a member of the executive committee of the AIAA from 2012 to 2015.