News

November 14, 2023

Guillermo Paniagua's turbine modeling wins supercomputing award

A team led by Guillermo Paniagua was honored with the “Best HPC Collaboration” award in HPCwire’s 2023 Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards for its work developing novel engine components that will have implications for decarbonized power generation. The team used the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing (RCAC)’s Bell supercomputer to run simulations.

September 12, 2023

How Zucrow alum Loral O'Hara fulfilled her childhood space dreams

When Loral O'Hara talked with Zucrow professor William Anderson about graduate school, she had a cool confidence about her fate. Hiding her internal doubt and widely scattered interests, she said matter-of-factly that she would be an astronaut someday. That day has arrived. O'Hara will launch on the Soyuz MS-24 mission this Friday morning for a six-month stay on the International Space Station.

August 03, 2023

Jimmy Kenyon takes the reins of NASA's Glenn Research Center

When you watch a space launch, what you might not see is the thousands of people who work behind-the-scenes, sometimes for years, to make that mission a success. NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, is just such a place – where thousands of workers develop the power, propulsion, and communications technologies that enable the newest cutting-edge aircraft and spacecraft to succeed. Purdue alum James “Jimmy” Kenyon (MSE ’98) was recently appointed Director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center, and discusses how being a Boilermaker (including working with Sandy Fleeter at Zucrow Labs) has helped him support some of the best researchers in the world.

July 24, 2023

NASA podcast features Purdue-designed engine

A revolutionary rocket engine design was recently tested at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama: a Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE). It's a kind of rocket design that's only been theorized until modern advancements allowed for this once-only-imagined technology to become a reality. NASA's official podcast spoke with Stephen Heister, Raisbeck Engineering Distinguished Professor for Engineering and Technology Integration, on why this is such a big deal.

June 26, 2023

Adranos solid rocket company acquired by Anduril

In 2015, Brandon Terry was a postdoc at Zucrow Labs, working on an experimental solid rocket propellant. The company he started, Adranos Inc., has now been acquired by defense contractor Anduril Industries.

June 08, 2023

How Maurice Zucrow helped Purdue University shoot for the moon

Maurice J. Zucrow was a pioneer: Purdue's first ever Ph.D. recipient, first professor of jet propulsion, and founder of what is now the largest academic propulsion lab in the world. But there's a lot about Maurice Zucrow you don't know! It's detailed in a new book from Purdue Press called "The Rocket Lab: Maurice Zucrow, Purdue University, and America’s Race to Space."

June 06, 2023

New $41M Hypersonics and Applied Research Facility opens

Leaders from Purdue, federal government, and industry celebrated the opening of the Hypersonics and Applied Research Facility (HARF), a $41 million, 65,000-square-foot building at Zucrow Labs that is home to two cutting-edge wind tunnels – the only Mach 8 quiet wind tunnel in the world, and a hypersonic pulse (HYPULSE) reflected shock/expansion tunnel.

April 05, 2023

Supersonic water table enables rapid prototyping for turbines

Testing new designs for jet engine turbines is no easy task. Wind tunnels are large, complicated, and expensive; and building functional prototypes takes a long time. But Zucrow Labs researchers now have an alternative: a water table which simulates supersonic flow, enabling them to quickly test and iterate their designs.