Roshan Thomas Eapen

Space Situational Awareness is aimed at providing timely and accurate information of the space environment to facilitate a safe mission execution. Over the years, with the ever increasing population of man-made space debris, in-orbit explosions and collisions and potential impacts of Near Earth Objects, it has become imperative to modify the traditional approach to a more predictive, tactical and precise rendition. A first step is to properly understand the orbit and the attitude motion of such space objects. This research is aimed at studying the coupled translational and rotational dynamics of High Area-to-Mass Ratio objects in geostationary space. These objects are extremely sensitive to perturbations caused by non-conservative forces. The objects are simulated by including the gravity of a non-spherical Earth, Luni-Solar perturbations and solar radiation pressure (SRP) and by including the influence on the Earth's shadow and self-shadowing effects on these forces. A high fidelity model such as the one described above is computationally demanding. This research aims at developing a method of comparable fidelity to average the short term SRP experienced by the space object thereby decreasing computation times and providing the satellite operators with longer warning times to avoid a potential collision.

Mitchell Woolever

Prompt Global Strike is a United States military initiative to develop a system capable of enacting a conventional precision strike anywhere on Earth within one hour. Hypersonic vehicles with supersonic combustion ramjet engines (scramjets) are a top contender for such a system. Current scramjet vehicle configurations incorporate an inlet with a geometry designed in such a way that the engine only produces thrust efficiently when the oblique shock wave propagates off the tip of the vehicle fore-body at a specific angle. For this reason, scramjet vehicles will only operate across very limited altitude and Mach conditions. This constrains possible trajectories and inhibits the system’s ability to precisely deliver ordinance to a target. This presentation will discuss an investigation into the feasibility and effectiveness of upstream fuel injection as a less complex alternative to variable geometry inlets for scramjet inlet flow control. Analysis is conducted by applying 2D CFD to a scaled-up NASA hypersonic inlet model across multiple altitudes, Mach numbers, and injected fuel mass flow rates. The variables of interest are the fore-body oblique shock wave angle and O/F at the isolator inlet. It is expected that upstream fuel injection will widen the boundary layer, thereby increasing oblique shock angle.

What is the Research Symposium Series?

The Research Symposium Series is a department-sponsored forum for graduate students and advanced-level undergraduates to present their research to a general audience.

The Research Symposium Series is designed to: 

• Facilitate the exchange of ideas and knowledge among faculty and graduate students.
• Provide opportunities for students to develop their technical presentation skills.
• Promote the research activities of the department to undergraduates and other interested individuals.

2017 Prizes

• $500, $300, $200 for best three presentations
• $150 for best undergraduate presentation
• $150 for best abstract

Questions about the Research Symposium Series may be directed to:
aaerss@ecn.purdue.edu
https://engineering.purdue.edu/AAE/Academics/StudentOrgs/aaerss
*Winners in the presentation category cannot compete in that category the following year. The same applies for winners in the abstract category.