Tom Schwartzentruber
Professor, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota
Friday, Nov. 3 | 10:40 a.m. | AERO 120
Abstract: Predicting what happens as a hypersonic vehicle flies through the atmosphere involves a lot of interesting physics. Strong shockwaves superheat air to thousands of degrees producing reactive atomic oxygen and nitrogen. The vehicle heat shield must simultaneously withstand high temperatures and intense surface chemistry.
This talk describes two milestone achievements. In the first half, I will describe a new simulation method that bridges quantum chemistry to macroscopic flow, leading to a new gas-phase chemistry model for CFD simulations. In the second half, I will explain how molecular beam gas-surface scattering experiments have led to a new air-carbon ablation model now being used by the hypersonics community.
Bio: Tom Schwartzentruber received his Bachelor’s degree in engineering science and his Master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Toronto. He then received his doctorate degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan. For his doctorate work he received the AIAA Orville and Wilbur Wright graduate award.
He joined the faculty in the Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics department at the University of Minnesota in 2008. Currently, his research group is involved in a number of projects spanning hypersonic nonequilibrium reacting flows, high-temperature gas-surface interactions, hybrid particle-continuum methods, and micro-scale flows.