Hypersonic Reentry Coursework
I took Reentry Aerodynamics with Dr. Nandeesh Hiremath (my research advisor) in Winter 2024. I loved the course, mostly since it literally bridged the gap between what I had been learning in my orbital mechanics courses and the gas dynamics, heat transfer, and spacecraft/rocket propulsion courses (nobody talks about the upper atmosphere in aeronautical classes; and we don’t talk about sub-100 km flight dynamics in orbits). The summary paper of my work and findings over the quarter is available for download below.
AERO 407 – Reentry Aerodynamics. Near planet environments. Transition from orbital to aero-dynamic motion. Aerodynamic heating and effects on design.
Reentry Aerodynamics – Summary Paper includes:
- Free-return trajectory to the moon from a 320 km parking orbit
- Reentry velocity and flight profile with and without deployable heat shield; ground footprint
- Chemical equilibrium calculator (own script)
- Reentry molecular excitation modes at extreme Mach values
- CFD models of s/c (modeled as a sphere) over subsonic, transonic, and supersonic stead and unsteady flow regimes (pressure and velocity contours)
Reentry Aerodynamics (AERO 407)
Undergraduate Research
During my research in the Applied Experimental Fluids research group at Cal Poly, I worked with Dr. Nandeesh Hiremath on a novel research topic that explores the concept of a high-altitude autonomous flight system that can capture infrared images of hypersonic reentry objects. This work may allow future researchers to develop optical imaging assets that can help characterize various aspects of hypersonic flow dynamics that are not possible to recreate in ground-based testing systems.
Along with smaller local presentations, I’ve officially presented this research at the American Meteorological Society (2022), AIAA Region VI Student Paper Conference (2022), Cal Poly Summer Undergraduate Research Program (2022), SoCal Gas STEM Competition (2022), STEM-NET in Washington, DC (2023), AAAS Annual Meeting (2023), and the IEEE Aerospace Conference (2024).
Published Works
See more details on the published works here.