Lian Duan, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received a Young Investigator Research Program Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to study how noise affects wind tunnel testing for hypersonic vehicles.
Using the world’s largest supercomputers, Duan studies the physics of noise generation in hypersonic wind tunnels and the effect of the tunnel noise on boundary layer transition. His work can help characterize the natural disturbance environment in hypersonic wind tunnels and improve the testing of high-speed space vehicles.