AME Seminar: Helen L. Reed

Abstract: This talk provides an overview of the computational boundary-layer stability research conducted by the author in collaboration with her colleagues and students and related to hypersonic applications. The overarching approach has been one of verification and validation, including working closely with experimentalists to achieve closure between theory and experiment. She and her team have worked to identify relevant instability mechanisms in complex three-dimensional configurations, including the straight-yawed cone, elliptic cone, and finned cone. Particular emphasis will be on recent results related to the aerothermodynamics associated with a generic model of a hypersonic straight slender cone with a highly swept fin, featuring highly swept shock/boundary-layer interactions and corner flows associated with the intersection of the fin and the body. Detailed basic state and advanced stability analyses and results will be discussed. Included will be an evaluation of the effects of the fin-geometry parameter space.

This work is supported by the Office of Naval Research under ONR grant N00014-19-1-2500 with Program Manager Eric Marineau. The authors are grateful to Pointwise, NASA for providing DPLR, and the Texas A&M High-Performance Research Computing and the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

Bio: Helen Reed, Ph.D., P.E. holds the titles of Regents Professor Emerita as of 1 Sept 2022, and Senior Professor in Aerospace Engineering as of 1 Feb 2023 at Texas A&M. She joined Texas A&M in 2004, served as Department Head (2004-08), and founded and directs both the Computational Stability & Transition Laboratory and the AggieSat Lab Small Satellite Program. She was named University Distinguished Professor (in perpetuity, since 2020), Regents Professor (in perpetuity, since 2013), Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence (in perpetuity, since 2013), and the recipient of the Edward “Pete” Aldridge `60 Professorship in Aerospace Engineering (2014-22). She is presently co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer for Chandah Space Technologies dba Guardian Space Technology Solutions. She was named a Fellow of AIAA, APS, and ASME. She was the recipient of the 2018 AIAA/NAE 3rd Yvonne C. Brill Lectureship in Aerospace Engineering, the 2018 AIAA Fluid Dynamics Award, the 2016 ASME Kate Gleason Award, the 2007 AIAA/ASEE J. Leland Atwood Award, and the 2014 Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award from the State of Texas; and she was inducted into both the Academy of Engineering Excellence and the Academy of Aerospace & Ocean Engineering Excellence at Virginia Tech (her alma mater). Presently she is a member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, the NASA Advisory Council Aeronautics Committee, the NATO/STO AVT 346 Technical Team: “Predicting Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition on Complex Geometries”, the National Academies’ Intelligence Science and Technology Experts Group, the AIAA/ASME/SAE/VFS Daniel Guggenheim Medal Board of Award, and the AIAA Executive Nominating Committee. She also serves on the Virginia Tech Aerospace & Ocean Engineering Advisory Board.