Air Force Research Lab renews Ohio State collaborative research
A research team led by The Ohio State University has received the 2019 Collaborative Center for Aeronautical Sciences (CCAS) award from the Air Force Research Laboratory Aerospace Systems Directorate (AFRL/RQ). The award effectively renews a successful collaboration initially established in 2013. Ohio State's partners include the University of Minnesota and Virginia Tech.
The CCAS will proactively build strategic, high-fidelity computational aerodynamics capabilities for the U.S. Air Force. A special emphasis will be placed on evolutionary and disruptive research in high-speed aerophysics, fine-scale turbulence and control, non-linear fluid-structural interactions and high-fidelity computational technologies.
Principal investigator of the virtual center is Professor Datta Gaitonde, who directs the High Fidelity Computational Multiphysics Lab in Ohio State’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
The CCAS will begin with an initial five-year effort funded at $3 million, with two subsequent two-year optional extensions for a total potential funding amount of $5.4 million.
Through close collaboration with AFRL/RQ, advanced mathematical techniques will be developed and incorporated into massively-parallelized software and subsequently transitioned for use by AFRL and its broad user base. The CCAS will deploy these tools for physics-based analyses to address emerging challenges in the highly unconventional aerospace vehicle design environment, where multiple non-traditional factors must be considered.
The center's efforts will help reduce the prohibitive expense and acquisition costs associated with ground and flight-testing. A particularly crucial objective of the CCAS is to nurture and develop the next generation of aerospace research professionals with proven scholarly accomplishments and possessing the advanced multi-disciplinary skills required for the future aerospace workforce. Students funded by CCAS will be provided internship opportunities at AFRL to foster deep and lasting direct relationships with engineers performing basic and applied research.
Gaitonde also led the prior collaboration, which developed and applied pioneering computational technologies for the design of Air Force systems.
with contributions from Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
