The AIAA New England Section is organizing an expert webinar session by Dr. Venkat Narayanaswamy on recent developments in high-speed propulsion. The goal of the webinar is to introduce the audience to basic design and analysis principles of ramjet and scramjet engines. Starting with a broad introduction of the typical block architecture of a ram/scramjet engine, the first part of the lecture will discuss some of the critical parameters that engineers will seek to optimize during the design and operation of the engines. This will be followed by a deep dive into the sub- system analysis of a typical ram/scram engine to understand the different challenges and bottlenecks posed by each component. The second part of the lecture will survey some of the latest developments in engine designs, focusing on the recent advances in various components, and the opportunities and challenges with these advancements. The final part of the lecture will survey some of the recent programs that aid accelerating the technology maturation from lab scale research to production.
Speaker bio:
Dr. Venkat Narayanaswamy is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at North Carolina State University, where he has served as a faculty since 2012. He directs a lab that focuses on supersonic and hypersonic propulsion and aerothermodynamics and employs several cutting-edge tools for his research. Dr. Venkat Narayanaswamy received his doctoral degree from The University of Texas at Austin specializing in shock boundary interaction physics and plasma-based flow
control. Subsequently, he pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at The University of Texas at Austin and RWTH Aachen, Germany, before joining NCSU. Dr. Narayanaswamy has authored over 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conferences in high-speed propulsion. He has been recognized with numerous research awards and honors including the US Fulbright Fellowship (2022), AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award (2016), and Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship (2016). He is also an alumnus of National Academy of Engineering’s Frontiers of Engineering, Class of 2020. He was elected the Associate Fellow of AIAA in 2023.