The following UC Davis faculty are available to discuss
issues related to aircraft, rockets and spaceflight. If you
need help with topics not covered here, please contact Andy
Fell, News Service, (530) 752-4533, ahfell@ucdavis.edu.


AERODYNAMICS AND AIRCRAFT DESIGN -- Cornelis
"Case" van Dam, professor of mechanical and aeronautical
engineering at UC Davis, is an expert on the aerodynamics of
fixed- and rotary winged aircraft and wind turbines. He
teaches courses in aerodynamics and aircraft design and has
acted as a consultant to NASA, several aircraft companies and
sailing yacht designers. There are still gaps in our
understanding of air flow around objects, he says, which make
it hard to predict the maximum possible lift produced by a
particular wing design and work out how much weight a plane
can carry. One area of van Dam's research involves putting
controllable microtabs, a few millimeters in size, on the
trailing edges of wings. The microtabs lead to "amazing"
changes in the lift generated, van Dam says. Contact: Case
van Dam, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, (530) 752-
7741, cpvandam@ucdavis.edu,
http://flight.engr.ucdavis.edu/~cvandam/.


AERODYNAMICS OF SUPERSONIC AIRCRAFT -- "Faster,
bigger, and less fuel consumption" is the objective for
airplane construction, says UC Davis aerospace engineering
professor Mohamad Hafez. When airplanes fly at supersonic
speeds, they are flying faster than the surrounding air and
that creates shock waves and noise. The shock waves cause
drag and increase fuel consumption. Hafez uses computer
models to study air flows and shock waves in airplanes flying
at or above the speed of sound. He has worked on transonic,
sonic, and supersonic aerodynamic flow projects with Boeing
and NASA. Hafez is a fellow of the American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics. Contact: Mohamad Hafez,
Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, (530) 752-0212,
mhafez@ucdavis.edu.


VIRTUAL WIND TUNNELS -- Jean Jacques Chattot is professor of
mechanical and aeronautical engineering and director of the
Center for Computational Fluid Dynamics at UC Davis. He can
talk about the advantages of using computers to study
aerodynamic flows over aircraft. By using computer models to
replace some wind tunnel studies, aircraft designers can save
time and money, he says. For example, the aerodynamics of the
Boeing 777 were verified using computer models after the
original design was produced with traditional techniques.
Eventually, computer studies may entirely replace wind
tunnels, but there are a number of problems to overcome and
the physics of turbulent air flows is still not very well
understood, Chattot says. Contact: Jean-Jacques Chattot,
Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, (530) 752-0812,
jjchattot@ucdavis.edu.


FLYING BY WIRE -- Ron Hess, professor of mechanical and
aeronautical engineering at UC Davis, studies the "fly by
wire" control systems used on military aircraft and newer
commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 777. These electronic
systems have replaced mechanical controls based on rods and
pulleys because they are lighter and allow for more precise
control of the aircraft, Hess says. However, design errors
can lead to rare but potentially serious problems when the
system does not respond in the way the pilot expects. Hess
uses computer simulations to look at ways to improve control
system design in order to reduce possible pilot error. He
served on the National Research Council committee on aviation
safety and pilot control and has worked with both the U.S.
Air Force and the NASA Ames Research Center. Contact: Ron
Hess, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, (530) 752-
1513, rahess@ucdavis.edu.


JET ENGINE DESIGN -- Design and analysis of jet engines and
other turbomachinery are the research interests of Roger
Davis, professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering
at UC Davis. Davis uses sophisticated computer models to
simulate air and gas flows in jet engines, with the aim of
making engines more efficient. He has also studied similar
design problems for power station turbines, propellors, fans
and other rotating machinery. Davis worked for jet engine
manufacturer Pratt and Whitney and its parent company, United
Technologies, for almost 30 years before joining the UC Davis
faculty in January. Most recently, he worked at the United
Technologies Research Center in East Hartford, Conn. Contact:
Roger Davis, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, (530)
752-2264, davisrl@ucdavis.edu.


USING COMPOSITE MATERIALS IN AIRCRAFT -- Lawrence
Rehfield, professor of mechanical and aeronautical
engineering at UC Davis, is an expert on composite materials
and their use in aircraft such as the Airbus A-300 and Boeing
777. Rehfield has 28 years of experience with composites,
including appointments with the U.S. Air Force and NASA. He
teaches courses on composites and aircraft construction at UC
Davis. Although relatively new in civilian aircraft,
composite tails have been used in military aircraft since
1969, without safety problems, Rehfield says. The new
generation of civilian aircraft will have more parts made of
composites, including the tail and wings. If failure of the
composite tail is found to have been a contributing factor to
the crash of American Airlines flight 587, federal
authorities may need to investigate how commercial airlines
inspect and maintain composite components and set new
guidelines, he says. Contact: Lawrence Rehfield, Mechanical
and Aeronautical Engineering, (530) 752-8100,
lwrehfield@ucdavis.edu.


REUSABLE SPACECRAFT -- Plans for a cheaper, reusable
spacecraft launched from a large cargo plane are being
developed by Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, professor of mechanical
and aeronautical engineering at UC Davis. The spacecraft,
called SwiftLaunch, would carry up to three people or a small
payload into orbit. It would be carried to its launch height
inside a cargo plane such as a C-5 "Galaxy" and pulled out of
the rear cargo door by parachutes. Once clear of the carrier
plane, the rocket engine would fire to carry the vehicle into
orbit. The proposal is currently being reviewed by NASA and
the U.S. Air Force. Contact: Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, Mechanical
and Aeronautical Engineering, (530) 752-0862,
nsarigulklijn@ucdavis.edu.


ROBOTS AND SPACE EXPLORATION -- Sanjay Joshi, assistant
professor of mechanical engineering at UC Davis, studies
robots and control systems for space missions. Robots, or
autonomous systems, can replace humans for dangerous tasks
such as space exploration, he says. These robots can carry
out repetitive tasks, learn new tasks and fix their own
breakdowns and other problems. Before joining UC Davis in
2001, Joshi was at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he
worked on projects including the Deep Space 1 space probe and
development of robot "work crews" for Mars exploration. Deep
Space 1, launched to test a range of new technologies,
accomplished a fly-by of asteroid Braille in July 1999. It
was then repaired in flight, 150 million miles from Earth, to
go on to comet Borrelly. Contact: Sanjay Joshi, Mechanical
and Aeronautical Engineering, (530) 754-9662,
maejoshi@ucdavis.edu, http://mae.ucdavis.edu/~joshi/.


DYNAMIC STABILITY OF ROCKET SYSTEMS -- Fidelis Eke,
associate professor of mechanical and aeronautical
engineering at UC Davis, studies the dynamics of rockets and
spacecraft and how they can be controlled in flight. At
launch, the combined rocket and spacecraft is very large, but
as fuel is burned during flight the mass of the vehicle
continually changes and shifts. Eke analyzes how these
factors affect the movement of rockets, finding out "what to
be careful of and what to avoid" in designing rocket systems.
Eke has worked with spacecraft systems for the past 10 years,
predominantly with NASA. Contact: Fidelis Eke, Mechanical and
Aeronautical Engineering, (530) 752-2309, foeke@ucdavis.edu.


TRAINING SPACE ENGINEERS -- Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, a professor
of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, coordinates the
UC Davis SpaceEd graduate program in space engineering.
Funded by a grant from the California Space Authority,
SpaceEd aims to increase the number of qualified space
engineers to meet the needs of the growing space industry,
Sarigul-Klijn says. While the traditional aircraft industry
has declined in California, there are a number of companies
in fields such as rocket engines and satellite construction
that have difficulty finding qualified young engineers. For
example, NASA has more engineers over 60 than under 30.
Sarigul-Klijn, who is a qualified pilot, also teaches
undergraduate level courses in rocket engineering, in which
students build and launch their own rockets. Contact: Nesrin
Sarigul-Klijn, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, (530)
752-0862, nsarigulklijn@ucdavis.edu.