You don't have to be enrolled at GT-AE to be swept up by our mission. 

In the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving break, the School of Aerospace Engineering has hosted talks by no fewer than 12 experts, researchers, and leaders in the field of aerospace engineering.

 Dr. Dewey H. Hodges, the AHS 2014 Nikolsky Lecturer, will give his talk on Friday, Nov. 21 in Guggenheim 442. Light refreshments at noon. Lecture at 1 p.m.

We often provide refreshments at these talks, but the real treat is the discussion these speakers spark. 

Check out the line-up below -- complete with links to the speakers' presentation notes and abstracts.

And if you haven't already attended one of these free, public  talks, make some time for the ones that remain.

On Friday, November 21, our very own Dr. Dewey H. Hodges will deliver the prestigious Alexander Nikolsky Distinguished Lecture, entitled "Unified Approach for Accurate and Efficient Modeling of Composite Rotor Blade Dynamics." Find out more.

Also on Friday, Georgia Tech alumnus James R. Johnson, the chief engineer behind Lockheed Martin's C-130 aircraft, will headline a Career Night Seminar, hosted by the School of Aerospace Engineering Student Advisory Council (SAESAC).

 Lockheed Martin's James Johnson will talk to students about career options Friday at 3 p.m.

If you want a peak at the future of aerospace engineering, you are invited to Friday's AE Brown Bag Lunch series -- the last one of the year --  featuring research presentations by two top-notch graduate students. Tyler Anderson will present "The Development of a Low-Cost Platform for Reentry Measurement and Payload Recovery" and Matthew Miller will present "EVA Decision Support for Astronauts."

On Thursday morning, November 20, the School will host a presentation by ETH Zurich professor Dr. Andres F. Arrieta. His talk, "Novel Functionalities by Designing Structural Nonlinearity" will explore the design of multi-stable elements embedded within larger systems to augment and create novel behavior.

On Thursday night, the Georgia Tech Chapter of AHS and the GT Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence will present Dr. William Lewis, who will give an

 Dr. William Lewis will give his talk on Thursday at 6:30 pm in the Clary Theatre. A 5:30 reception is also open to the public.

update on the "Army Aviation-led Joint Multi-Role Rotorcraft (JMR) Technology Demonstration Program and Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Program. That talk will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Clary Theatre.

Nov. 10-14: Guest speakers every day

Last week, the line-up of speakers was no less impressive. If you missed the speakers, take a moment to check out the links to their presentations, below.

Nov. 11 Dr. Margaret Wooldridge, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan, gave a talk, "Flavor Matters: The Compositional Effects of Fuels."

Nov. 12  Dr. Mark Rosekind, member of the Nataional Transportation Safety Board, gave a talk on improving air safety.

Nov. 13 Syracuse University faculty Dr. Ben Akih-Kumgeh presented "Toward Improved Understanding and Prediction of Forced and Auto-ignition of Transportation Fuels"

Nov. 14 GT-AE graduate students Nathaniel Prestridge and Anthony Gray headlined the Brown Bag Lunch Series.

Nov. 10 Dr. Kathryn Weiss, cognitive engineer for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), gave a talk, "Mars 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0: The Evolution of Flight Software on the Red Planet." Presentation notes for this exclusive talk were not released for public consumption.

 

 

 

About the 2014 Alexander A. Nikolsky Lecture 

Endowed by the American Helicopter Society, the Nikolsky lecture is a much-coveted career honor -- one that Dewey Hodges shares with four other AE faculty: Charles Crawford, Robin Gray, Daniel Schrage, and Bob Loewy.

"I don't think that there are too many universities that have had this many Nikolsky lecturers," said Hodges who has given the talk at nine locales -- including Beijing Chinia and Soeul, South Korea - since receiving the honor in May 2014.

"And, for me, it was one of the most memorable experiences of my [45-year] career."

 

 

 

 

Hodges' talk looks at how to achieve accuracy comparable to that of 3D finite element analysis but with a significant savings in computational effort. 

"The vehicle for this approach is a mathematical technique called the variational asymptotic method (VAM). I will summarize the modeling approach and presents some of the key equations of the resulting models."

 

Examples illustrating the accuracy and efficiency of the approach will be presented.

When his year-long Nikolsky lectureship ends, Hodges hopes to follow-up on relationships he built up with new colleagues in South Korea--- possibly leading to some collaborative research on the High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) aircraft, an area he specializes in.

  Dr. Margaret Wooldridge is seen here with AE Chair Dr. Vigor Yang and AE Prof. Ben Zinn after delivering her lecture, "Flavor Matters: The Compositional Effects of Fuels." Check out thisslideshow of the other speakers from the week of Nov. 10.