Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association ISSUE 23, DECEMBER 2017 in This Issue

Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association ISSUE 23, DECEMBER 2017 In This Issue:

From the Editors ...... 1 Announcement of next VKI Alumni Dinner ...... 13

Full Biography of A Review of "The Flight Claims of Gustave White- Professor Jean G. Ginoux ...... 2 head" by John D. Anderson, Jr ...... 13

Changes in the Organization The role of VKI: teaching and practice of re- of the VKI ...... 6 search, creating international networks, ... or emigration agency? ...... 14 Farewell speech to Carlo Benocci ...... 7 VKI Student trip to the Bourget Air Show ...... 16 Understanding Formula 1, a book by Mauro Forghieri and Marco Giachi ...... 8 Interview with Tom Weisel, VKI DC 1986 ...... 18

VKI Alumni dinner at the ISABE 2017 Manchester VKI Alumni Association Research Travel Grants . 21 Conference ...... 9 AMES is a temple for aerodynamicists ...... 21 VKI Alumni dinner at the ASME Turbo Expo 2017 Conference in Charlotte ...... 11 Boltzmann computations in Texas, New Mexico and Montana ...... 23 VKI Alumni Dinner at the EUCASS 2017 Confer- ence in Milan ...... 12 Obituaries ...... 24

From the Editors as usual and composed the NL22 technical layout again very nicely. Mario Carbonaro is so kind to take over Mehmet’s technical layout for this newsletter. We appreciate very much Mehmet’s excellent work on the technical layout up to NL22 and Mario’s willingness to care for the technical layout of newsletter 23. Kent changed jobs and now works in the turbomachinery ﬁeld [ re- itznorthamerica.com ]. That is the reason why we have to wait a little bit for another report on the work of by HANS-PETER DICKMANN, DC 1987 Theodore von Kármán. We also appreciate very much AND EDITOR,EUROPE and thank Claus, Mario and Mickey for their continuous AND JOHN WENDT,FORMER DIRECTOROFTHE VKI support with newsletter contributions and their support AND EDITOR,NORTH AMERICA with contacts for contributions by others.

or six years (2011 to 2016) we delivered three Marco Giachi (DC 1987) is so kind to act as Co-Editor newsletters to you per year. In 2017 there will be Europe from now on. Many of you will know his CV from Fonly two and we ask for your understanding and the interview with him in NL10. Marco is still working hope to return to three issues in 2018 already. What hap- for General Electric (recently BHGE, a GE company) in pened? Florence, Italy. In his spare time he wrote a book to- Due to their workloads, Mehmet, Kent and Hans- gether with Mauro Forghieri, former technical director Peter could not reserve the usual amount of time for at Ferrari’s Formula 1 team. Marco kindly gives us a working on newsletters. Although Mehmet has founded small introduction to this book in the present newsletter. a start-up [ toyon.be ] in Brussels in spring, he helped All the best for the year 2018! 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

Full Biography of at the same ULB as full-time assistant of Professor Emile Allard, who was teaching basic and applied fluid dynam- Professor Jean G. Ginoux ics at the universities of Brussels and of Liège (where his assistant was Jean Smolderen), and who had been in- strumental in the post-war renovation of the Aerotech- nical Lab of the Belgian Civil Aeronautics Administra- tion located in Rhode-Saint-Genèse, including repair of the Eiffel tunnel and construction of two new large facilities, the Low Speed Escher Wyss tunnel (now L-1) and the Ackeret-type supersonic tunnel S-1. In 1949 Pro- by BY MARIO CARBONARO, DC 1968, fessor Allard invited Jean Ginoux to spend a couple of VKIHONORARY DIRECTORAND PROFESSOR days per week in the renovated laboratories of Rhode- Saint-Genèse, to become acquainted with the new su- rofessor Jean J. Ginoux, former Director of the personic tunnel and the measuring equipment provided von Karman Institute and Honorary Member of with it. This activity was carried out in the context of Pthe VKI Board of Directors, passed away on Thurs- the CNERA (Centre National d’Etudes et de Recherches day 2 March 2017. Professor Jean J. Ginoux was and Aéronautiques), created in Belgium in 1950 to central- will remain a central figure in the history of the VKI. ize aeronautical research in the laboratories of Rhode- He was the last of the VKI members that were present Saint-Genèse, and to offer to Belgian universities and at the founding of the institute in 1956, when Professor aeronautical industries expertise and use of scientific Theodore von Kármán himself entrusted him and Pro- equipment. This is how Jean Ginoux became involved fessors Paul Colin and Jean Smolderen with the task with the commissioning of the Supersonic Tunnel S-1, of developing the academic programmes of the TCEA newly installed in 1949 in what would become the VKI (Training Centre for Experimental Aerodynamics, re- premises. named as von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics at the death of its founder in 1963).

Humoristic drawing by Jean Smolderen, showing Jean Ginoux ﬁghting with "Supersonic mushrooms" during the First graduation of class 1956-1957. At the centre of the commissioning of S-1 wind tunnel (Ref. VKI History, by picture, Professors Ginoux, Colin and Smolderen Jean J. Ginoux, 2006)

Professor at the creation of the TCEA, Jean J. Ginoux In 1955-56 he had the opportunity of spending one was appointed Associate Director of the VKI in 1973 and year at Princeton University in the USA, working with Director in 1976 until his retirement in 1990, serving Professor Seymour Bogdonoff. He received his doctoral as Director for the longest duration in the history of the degree from the ULB in March 1956 when returning to VKI, 14 years. He became then a member of the VKI Gen- Belgium, and became Associate Professor in 1954 at the eral Assembly, and was also nominated Honorary mem- same University, then Professor in 1956 and Full Profes- ber of the Board of Directors in recognition of his con- sor in 1968 and also Director of the Institute of Aeronau- tributions to the von Karman Institute. Born in Ixelles tics of the ULB, fully agreeing during all his life with the (Brussels area) on 21 June 1925, Jean Ginoux obtained University’s philosophical principles of the "Libre Exa- from the Free University of Brussels (ULB) a mechani- men". At his retirement in 1990 he became Full Emer- cal/electrical engineering degree in 1947, then an aero- itus Professor of the ULB. Thus during all his career, nautical engineering degree in 1948. He was then hired he shared his time between the University and the VKI, Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 2 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association which allowed him to attract to the VKI numerous ULB cross-hatched ablation. I remember that he was an ex- graduates. In 2006, at the occasion of the 50th anniver- tremely meticulous experimentalist, with very careful sary of the foundation of the Institute, he wrote a com- instrument calibrations, and an almost maniacal chasing prehensive book on the history of the VKI, available at of all air leaks, which are well known to be the cause of our library. invalidation of measurements in the low pressure environment of supersonic and hypersonic tunnels.

Jean Ginoux, in the VKI canteen, with Stella Sauvan, Jean Ginoux at the occasion of the visit to TCEA of King Jean-Marie Buchlin and Mario Carbonaro, in March Baudouin of Belgium in 1962, with director Laurence 2015 at the occasion of a workshop on the future of Sterne on the right and industrial engineer Felix Thiry in Turbomachinery, organized in honour of Professor André the background Jaumotte for his 95th birthday In the early 70’s, together with Professors Paul The stay in Princeton of Jean Ginoux during 1955- Colin and John Wendt, he initiated the regrouping 1956 was extremely profitable for our Institute. While of various VKI labs (low-speed, supersonic, hyper- in Princeton he had been involved in a basic research sonic, hypervelocity and low density) into the Aero- study financed by the US Air Force on the separation nautics/Aerospace Department and the General and En- and reattachment of supersonic turbulent boundary lay- vironmental Fluid Dynamics Department (GE dept.), ers. On his return to Belgium he took this opportunity which he first headed, and which was renamed Envi- to extend his work to the laminar case because of the ronmental and Applied Fluid Dynamics Department (EA low Reynolds numbers that existed in the supersonic dept.) some years later. tunnel S-1 of the VKI, then TCEA. Thus he initiated in 1958 the successful series of our Technical Notes, as he wrote the very first technical note of the TCEA, entitled "Experimental Evidence of Three-Dimensional Perturba- tions in the Reattachment of a Two-Dimensional Bound- ary Layer at Mach 2.05", also supported by the Air Re- search and Development Command of the US Air Force. He also performed research in the first hypersonic tunnel of the VKI, H-1, after the tunnel (whose test section was originally designed and tested in Germany at Peen- emünde by Siegfried Erdmann in 1944, as detailed in the book "the Peenemünde Wind Tunnels, a Memoir", by Peter Wegener) was transferred to the VKI through the initiative of Robert Korkegi, a former VKI Technical Jean Ginoux showing in 1968 the supersonic wind tunnel Director, after several moves (from Peenemünde to Ko- to Prince Albert de Liège, who will become King of gel in the Bavarian Alps, then to the US Naval Ordnance Belgium in 1993 Labs in Washington DC at the end of WWII). In the early 70’s he also supervised the design and installation at the He was well known in the international scientific VKI of a second hypersonic tunnel, H-3, with superior scene, being a full member of the Fluid Dynamics Panel performance. In these two hypersonic tunnels, Jean Gi- (FDP) of AGARD, the precursor of NATO’s Research and noux conducted and supervised important research, no- Technology Organization (RTO), now renamed the Sci- tably on shock-boundary layer interactions, hypersonic ence and Technology Organization (STO). He also was heating and its reduction by transpiration cooling, and a member (and Chairman, 1974-1976) of the Executive Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 3 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

Committee and of the Scientific Council of the Interna- mented that besides his rigorous attitude, he was also tional Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer, ICHMT. He very creative and unconventional. She remembers that was also a Board member of the "Fonds Alfred Renard" once he told her: "Patricia, among all other things, you established in memory of a Belgian aeronautics pioneer. should not forget to get married". Stella Sauvan, who Jean Ginoux was also an extremely wise financial was the Director’s Assistant from 1977 to 2012 ( in fact administrator, with a careful and strict management of she worked with five VKI Directors: Jean Smolderen, the VKI budget and instrumentation investments made Jean Ginoux, John Wendt, me and Jean Muylaert ) also with excess funds at the end of each financial year. I praises his rigour, strictness, accuracy and appreciated remember long discussions: why do you need such an his open-mindedness and his ability to trust his close col- instrument, don’t use the money for buying a lot of laborators when entrusting them with tasks and leaving small items, concentrate on the important instruments, them at the same time a lot of freedom to execute them. and at mid-September came the big surprise "we have an amount of money available; you and Michel Rieth- muller should choose an expensive and necessary spec- trum analyser". As Director, he took the decisions that seemed logical to him, and enforced them with great authority, but also with common sense. I remember that during the great heat wave in Belgium during the summer of 1976, he called me into his office (I was at that time dealing with research on heating, ventilating and air conditioning) to tell me "Mario, I want you to select and have installed an air conditioner in my office", and when I reminded him that I was leaving the next day for holidays, he replied that I could leave for holidays if he had his air conditioner. Finally, we agreed that I could leave the next day provided he could sign the purchase order beforehand ... and I managed to have the calcula- tion, the selection, the price quotation and the purchase Jean Ginoux with King Albert of Belgium, at the occasion order ready for the following day (I must reckon that 22 of the VKI 50th anniversary in 2006 years later, when occupying the director’s office, I also benefited from that long-suffering air conditioner, which As an experienced chess player, he was carefully still was in working condition). On another occasion, he analysing the consequences of each one of his moves, had decided that I should spend one year in the US in or decisions, trying to anticipate future moves. Once he 1982, working as research associate for the Lockheed In- told me that during nights when he had difficulties in ternational Research Institute in Marietta, Georgia, and sleeping, he was imagining all sorts of problems or is- then be shifted from the EA dept. to the AR dept. For sev- sues that could happen at the VKI, and would search eral personal reasons, at the time I did not like the idea, for solutions: these could be problems that would never but he told me "Mario, it is your decision, but if you do happen, but if they did, he had the solution ready. The not go, I will not fire you, but progress in your career at VKI Alumni who had the privilege of attending his lec- the VKI is finished". Reluctantly I agreed, to find out af- tures will remember him as an exceptionally skilled and terwards that it had been a wonderful and enriching ex- rigorous teacher, with a clear and regular style in writ- perience, both from scientific and personal aspects, that ing equations and sentences on the blackboard, progres- completely changed my career, thus he was right in en- sively erasing some intermediate passages, but leaving forcing his decision. Furthermore, being at the VKI since the important points of the lecture, so that at the end its creation, and having worked so hard for it, he consid- of the lecture one could see on the board a perfect ré- ered the VKI as "his baby", and when John Wendt, then sumé of what had been demonstrated. Also, at any time myself, became directors, he continued watching what during his lectures, one could see on the board the pre- John and I were doing, giving advice (strong advice in vious important conclusions together with the ongoing my case I must say) ... and also sometimes unsolicited demonstrations. His course notes were carefully hand- advice. Personally I must say that I learned a lot from written and looked like a very pleasant calligraphy ex- him: he always was insisting on the need to be rigor- ercise. He fully mastered the course material, and I re- ous, rational and accurate in everything one does, says member that during my DC year, 1967-1968, he taught or writes. Patricia Corieri, who had him as a teacher at the 60-hour course on Laminar Boundary Layers dur- the ULB, appreciated him immensely for his impecca- ing four hours in the morning, with a short interruption ble teaching clarity and care in preparing his lectures. around mid-morning to have the traditional coffee break She worked a lot with him as his assistant at ULB, was with the students. I am also quoting here a comment then hired as a research engineer at the VKI and com- from Michel Riethmuller, who pointed out to me that as Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 4 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association a Professor and Head of department, Jean Ginoux was doned such activity after a tragic accident in August an exceptional teacher in helping his young collabora- 1956, during a climb with his friend Frans de Coster of tors to become real researchers and renowned scientists a mountain named "La Meije" in the French Alps, not far in fluid dynamics. For the new young members of the from the town of Briançon. During the climb they met VKI faculty, he was also a very good example to initiate two other alpinists, an Austrian couple, who asked to them in the art of teaching. Professor Ginoux was also join them and share their ropes. When they reached the a very good launcher of young researchers since he was Meije mountain top, a storm arrived, and they started confident in them and let them develop new techniques the descent. although they were at the very beginning of their careers in research. Turbomachinery was not really close to his heart but on one occasion Jean Ginoux took a very important decision in favour of the Turbomachinery department. Dur- ing the academic year 1985 there had been long discussions as to the replacement of the existing old VKI computer by a new system, and Jean Ginoux by the end of the financial year had reserved six million BEF for it, but no agreement on the best choice was reached by that time. At the same time Claus Sieverding had worked on plans for the design of a new large short duration compression tube facility for testing full scale high pressure transonic turbine stages for aircraft engines, capitaliz- ing on the experience gained since the late 1970’s with short-duration compression tube facilities for heat transfer measurements in straight turbine cascades. The major element of the new facility was a large driver tube of 8m length and 1.6m diameter, costing just about six million BEF. With the offer for the manufacturing of the tube and a letter of intent by a big French aero-engine company for future testing in his hands, Claus Sieverd- ing went to the Director, who recognized the potential of this facility and was happy to have a good opportunity to spend the reserve funds before the end of the Insti- tute’s fiscal year in September. The facility, named CT-3, went into operation in 1989 and has continued to play a major worldwide role in the field of unsteady aerother- mal turbine research. On the personal side, Jean Ginoux had numerous interests: chess playing (during the last year of his retirement he played chess over the internet with people all around the world), classical music (especially Chopin, in the piano interpretations of Arthur Ru- binstein), every sort of home-improvement work (often also heavy work) and playing "pétanque" at the Saint- Jean and Monique Ginoux and their passion for Eloi celebrations at the VKI, or volleyball in the sports mountain climbing in the 50’s. (courtesy of Christine centre during the lunch break, to quote just a few. In Ginoux) particular concerning volleyball, he had introduced its practice in Belgium in 1945, with the formation of a However, the man fell, entraining his wife. Jean Gi- volleyball team. In 1948 he even initiated a short ac- noux says in his memoirs that he saw the head of the tivity in speleology with some friends and colleagues of man hit a rock close to him and "explode like an egg". the ULB, exploring and mapping caves in the vicinity Then, without the abseiling rope which had gone with of the Meuse river, and resulting in the discovery of a the two Austrians, Jean Ginoux and his friend continued new cave at the "Mont de Godinne" in Belgium. Upon to descend, but the latter also fell and remained inani- the suggestion of Professor André Jaumotte of the ULB, mate. Jean Ginoux, alone and without rope, continued this activity led him to another activity, this time in the descending on the glacier with the only help of his ice open air, of mountain climbing, which deserves special axe. However, it was already night, and he decided to mention: it is as members of the Alpine Club of France let himself skid on the glacier, but was able to stop at that he and his wife Monique met. However, they aban- the very edge of a crevasse, and after the whole night Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 5 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association spent there, half-frozen, was the only survivor to reach their daughter Christine in Arlon, in the Luxemburg re- a refuge. Monique, who was pregnant with their first gion of Belgium. He leaves his wife Monique, their four child, Christine, and thankfully had not participated in children, Christine, Isabelle, Paul and Marc, as well as the climb, had seen the storm on the mountain and was their grandchildren and one great grandchild. anxiously waiting for the climbers to return. The Ginoux family lived in a nice villa in Uccle, in the Brussels re- Prepared by Mario Carbonaro, gion, where I remember having seen on one wall a large with contributions from John Wendt, fresco, representing horse riders from the Middle Ages Claus Sieverding, Michel Riethmuller, in a wooded environment; Jean Ginoux had painted it Gérard Degrez, Patricia Corieri, himself directly on the wall, using a slide projector to Stella Sauvan and Christine Ginoux. create the source image, an artwork by the Florentine painter Paolo Uccello (1397-1475), of the Italian Renais- sance. Changes in the Organization of the VKI

by GAELE WINTERS,VKIDIRECTOR

ince a couple of years, the VKI has been facing financial problems. Due to a drastic decrease in the Sfunding of the Federal government to the institute Fresco by Jean Ginoux based on the Paolo Uccello and the participation in high-risk research projects, clos- painting "Caccia notturna" (Hunt at night, 1470, ing the yearly budget in equilibrium was no longer pos- courtesy of Christine Ginoux) sible. Against this background, the new appointed Chair- He also had a country residence in Oteppe, bought man of the Board of Directors, Jean-Jacques Dordain, after abandoning his and Monique’s mountain climbing with the support of the Federal government commis- activity, where he did himself heavy construction work, sioned in April 2016 an audit confirming the financial and where he and his family spent most of their holi- difficulties. Upon decision of the Board of Directors in days, and also where he used to invite his collaborators. November 2017, a Group of Experts was created for making a detailed assessment of possible options for restoring the sustainability of the VKI and proposing the best option by March 2017. At the same time, Mr. Gaele Winters, former ESA Director, was appointed as interim- manager for supporting the VKI in the necessary trans- formation process. One of the conclusions of the experts group is that the VKI should seek connection to the regional entities in Belgium all by maintaining its links with the funding provided by the NATO Member States. As international center of excellence on the crossroad between education and research, the lack of connection to the regional instruments in Belgium for supporting innova- tion, research and education is a structural handicap in the current situation. Therefore, discussions have been Jean and Monique Ginoux, when leaving their villa in initiated at the regional level (both in Flanders and at Uccle for the retirement home (courtesy of Christine Walloon side) to work out a structural solution at Bel- Ginoux, with reserved rights, Laurence Bodson, gian level. professional photographer, daughter of Christine) Because these discussions take time and in order to During the last two years, he and his wife moved to ensure the continuity of the current activities, the Fed- a retirement home in Attert, close to the residence of eral government decided to grant a loan of 5 Me to the Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 6 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

VKI. The loan is conditioned to the fulfillment of impor- COMPAC which was absorbed by HP). This machine had tant modifications in the composition of the Board of 256 kByte of RAM and a disk of 67 MByte. Before that Directors and at the level of the VKI organization. time VKI had some even older - and smaller - computers. Today, the VKI is on track with the payment of its social security obligations and the kick-off of the new academic year has been ensured. In parallel, the management is working on securing the structural financing of the institute for the following years and the imple- mentation of the reorganization. The targeted date for the new VKI organization is 1 January 2018. A vacancy notice for the recruitment of a new CEO has also been published on the VKI website and is widely spread in specialized media. The objective is to recruit the best candidate by the end of the year with a starting date beginning of 2018. Mr. Winters will take care of an appropriate transition to the new CEO. Finally, it is important to mention that the NATO Council will meet at the VKI in October 2017. The institute is the only topic on the agenda of this meeting of all NATO Ambassadors. The main objective of the meet- Professor Carlo Benocci ing is to attract more NATO Members States to the In- Then Carlo started his work in the VKI PhD pro- stitute’s funding scheme. A guided tour of the facilities gramme in 1978 as a pioneer in one of the biggest will also be organized on this occasion. research programmes undertaken at that time at VKI, namely the Post Accident Heat Removal in the Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor located in the nuclear center in Farewell speech to Carlo Benocci Mol. So you see the present collaboration on the Myrrha Liquid Metal Reactor was not the first collaboration with the nuclear center in Mol! He got his PhD in 1981 at the ULB (with Prof. Jean Ginoux as promotor) in a record time of only 3 years - maybe some lessons are to be learned here by other PhD candidates at VKI ... Then he started his academic professional career immediately at the VKI as Research Assistant in 1981, Assistant Profes- sor in 1982, Associate Professor in 1987 and Professor by HERMAN DECONINCK, in 1993. During all these years he developed and con- DEANOFTHE VKIFACULTY solidated his expertise in numerical methods and turbulence modelling. He rapidly focused on the new promis- ear Carlo, dear colleagues, dear former col- ing area of Large Eddy Simulation which came up in the leagues, dear friends of Carlo and the VKI, we are 1980’s and he was in the first generation of scientists Dhere to honour Carlo Benocci for his long career contributing to this new field. For example in 1987 he at the VKI. I have to say a life-long career because VKI spent the summer at Stanford University in the group has been the only employer of Carlo during the whole of Kim and Moin who were at that moment the front of his career. I think this is rather exceptional today. So runners in LES. let me give a brief sketch of his career at VKI. Carlo This clearly demonstrates how he was at the fore- Benocci got his Degree in Aircraft Engineering at the front of this new blossoming research topic. In this con- University of Pisa, Italy in 1976 - this sounds familiar, text he started a very well attended cycle on Turbu- we still receive today fresh students from Pisa ... Then he lence Courses in the context of the VKI Lectures Series joined the VKI in October 1976 and finished the Diploma still continuing today, both introductory and advanced, Course in 1977 receiving the von Karman prize for the for which the most famous specialists came to lecture best performing student of his year. His project was al- at VKI, among them Moin, Ferziger, Lesieur, Leschziner ready then on the subject of numerical simulation. You among many others. Carlo was not only a theoretician should not compare the computers of that time with but always focused on applications such as pollutant dis- what we have today. We are speaking of hard disks of persal (transport of a scalar in the jargon), atmospheric a few megabytes and Random Access Memory of a few boundary layer flows and complex industrial flows. For kilobytes. For example, in 1978 VKI obtained one of the example, in the area of atmospheric boundary layer sim- first generation minicomputers, namely a legendary VAX ulation, he proposed some techniques which have be- 11/780 from DEC (a very famous company absorbed by come standard practice today. Then, as we all know, Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 7 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association an event occurred in September 1992 which had a dra- Understanding Formula 1, a book by matic impact on Carlo’s life. Despite his health problems Carlo continued his activities with enormous persever- Mauro Forghieri and Marco Giachi ance. We all admire him for this. Carlo continued to contribute to the teaching and scientific work at VKI. His teaching activities have been focused on Methodol- ogy of Applied Fluid Dynamics, Mechanics of Turbulence and Numerical Simulation of Industrial Problems. As a teacher we know Carlo as a severe but very correct and honest evaluator of the projects in the project evalua- by MARCO GIACHI, DC 1987 tion teams. I very much appreciate his unbiased view, always honest, sometimes a bit straight to the man or woman presenting his or her work but always very correct. Also on the scientific side Carlo has not remained idle. In the last 10 years alone he co-authored 10 journal papers and 16 Conference papers of course in collaboration with other colleagues and PhD candidates at VKI. He also continued his work as a scientist by being a world renowned reviewer in Computer and Fluids Sci- ence journals.

With these remarks, I conclude my short presentation of Carlo’s career at VKI. As to his personal life I am not privileged to know much. One thing I do know, and several of us know, is that Carlo is passionate about the subject of history including the creation and destruction of states, military history and so on. And those of us "Understanding FORMULA 1, the secrets of its evolution who have talked with him about these subjects know from the ’60s up to now", book by Mauro Forghieri that also there Carlo is not doing half-way work; I think (Ferrari Technical Director from 1961 to 1984) and we can without exaggeration say that he is also an ex- Marco Giachi (Aerodynamicist, 86-87 VKI DC student) pert in this field. Of course he is reading a lot on history edited by Daniele Buzzonetti and therefore we thought that we should give him as a little present some history related books. The question was then which books and so Carlo being the expert we will let him make the choice. So the little present we offer to him in the name of VKI is a check for buying books on history-related subjects, which is now going to be given to him by Dominique. Dear Carlo, in the name of all the VKI staff we wish you all the best for the next years with less stress, less obligations and more time for your family and following your passions including but also beyond fluid dynamics. Of course we all hope you will be still around at VKI for some time, sharing your very valuable experience and know-how both in teaching and science. "Pressure in the ’60s (without CFD): Test result of the Ferrari 312 (1969) in the Pininfarina wind tunnel in Turin. "No significant lifting forces" was written in the final report [pg. 43 of the book]

f you want to understand how things developed from the "slender bodies" of the ’60s to the current "vortic- Iity car", that’s the right book. A mixture of CFD simulation combined with Forghieri’s memories and docu- ments to show, to explain, to make aerodynamics and his history in Formula 1 understandable for everybody. The first book written by two engineers without equations and numbers: only "high speed/low speed", "high Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 8 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association pressure/low pressure", "red and blue". That’s what is industrialized city of the UK. During the conference in- needed for a basic understanding of the past and the troduction speech, Manchester Lord Mayor Cllr Eddy present. Newman reminded us that the Manchester people working in the industrialisation age were compared to bees. That is why the worker bee is the symbol of the city. From the aircraft propulsion point of view Manch- ester is also a milestone as the historic meeting between Sir Henry Royce and the Honourable Charles Rolls took place in the Manchester Midland Hotel in 1904. Al- though the meeting led to an agreement on the production of motor cars in the name of Rolls-Royce, later on the name found its presence in aircraft piston engines and evolved to being one of the largest jet engine manufacturers. On the second day of the conference during the dinner at Victoria warehouse, Prof. Ric Parker, the IS- ABE president and former Rolls-Royce CTO, told us that the motor car factory moved from Manchester to Derby because the council of Derby offered cheap electricity. It is quite interesting to know that the decision of moving the factory also seemed to change the destiny of these two cities. The ISABE produces conferences on propulsion every two years travelling around the world. As an example of the conference journey, in 2013 it was held in Busan, Korea, in 2015 in Phoenix, USA and this year in Manchester. The conference will travel east again and will be held in Canberra, Australia in 2019. Many VKI graduates have been involved in the society and the conferences. Prof. Frans Breugelmans (DC 1963) is now the longest serving member of the society and retired from Pressure nowadays: red (high pressure to "push") is good the ISABE administrative secretary role a few years ago. on top surface, blue (low pressure to "suck") is mandatory He served in this role more than 30 years since 1975. For on bottom surface [pg. 166 of the book] the moment Prof. Francesco Martelli (DC 1977) is the national representative of Italy and Prof. Kostas Math- ioudakis (DC 1981) is the national representative of Greece. In this conference the ISABE agreed with the VKI Alumni dinner at the ISABE 2017 Aeronautical Journal for a conference special issue. Af- ter an early full manuscript submission, ten of the IS- Manchester Conference ABE papers were selected to be published in the special issue. The delegates received the printed journal as Vol- ume 121 Number 1242 in their conference packs. So I remind the institute members to have their full papers ready by mid-2018 if they want to see their printed journals in Canberra. On Monday morning Dr. Jean-François Brouckaert by IBRAHIM ERYILMAZ, RM 2014 (DC 1995) gave his keynote speech on European research in aeronautics under the Clean Sky Joint Under- he bi-annual International Society of Air Breath- taking. This was a great pleasure for me to see and listen ing Engines (ISABE) Conference was held in to my VKI supervisor a few years after my research mas- TManchester, United Kingdom during 3-8 Septem- ter. Besides the flagships of the Clean Sky program such ber 2017. This was the 23rd ISABE conference and was as the flight test of the laminar wing by Airbus or the hosted by Rolls-Royce and co-hosted by Cranfield Uni- ground tests of the Open Rotor by Safran, an interest- versity with the support of Manchester City Council. The ing part of the presentation was also the flight test of conference ended with nice memorable moments. a diesel engine powered small helicopter, the Airbus EC If you visit Manchester you will see the picture of a 120. Traditionally this helicopter is powered by a Tur- humble worker bee everywhere. During the industrial bomeca Arrius. However under the Clean Sky program, revolution in the 19th century, Manchester was the first a diesel demonstrator was built running on a high com- Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 9 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association pression reciprocating engine using kerosene. So this is an important contribution of the turbocharged piston engine to the green propulsion.

Alumni dinner. From left to right: Kostas Mathioudakis (DC 1981); Frans Breugelmans (DC 1963); Valeria Andreoli (RM 2015); David Gonzalez Cuadrado (RM Jean-François Brouckaert (DC 1995) giving the keynote 2014); Ibrahim Eryilmaz (RM 2014); Jorge Saavedra speech on Clean Sky programmes Garcia (RM 2014)

On Wednesday evening a group of VKI graduates met at a nice Turkish restaurant called Topkapi Palace. Prof. Mathioudakis and Prof. Breugelmans were all familiar with the restaurant menu and it became my task to fa- miliarize David, Jorge and Valeria with the food. As the juniors, it was our pleasure to meet with the two former graduates and listen to them. Prof. Breugelmans told us his story of years ago. He wanted to be a train driver at first but then changed his mind to become an aircraft pilot. However he ended up with the institute due to an eye issue. On the other hand he was able to test almost all types of compressor airfoils used in those aircraft engines throughout his career. He has never given up as he told us how he built his glider at the institute in the place where the hypersonic wind tunnel Long- Awards evening. From left to right: Natalie Smith; Ric shot stands today. He also bought his airplane with his Parker; Nicole Key (DC 2003) pension bonus in California. He is a brave pilot who even flew with a polished cracked wing to the machine shop some miles away from the airport. Actually this was the second alumni dinner because one day before we, the juniors, met at the Italian Restaurant Don Gio- vanni. The pizzas were big and from my side it was tasty. The strange thing was that the Purdue group offered to take me to McDonald’s after the dinner. They said this is usual if you live in the US for a long time. Thursday evening was the banquet and the conference awards were given. Prof. Breugelmans received an ISABE Award "for his outstanding contributions to the field of Air Breathing Engines" from Prof. Ric Parker. Prof. Nicole Key (DC 2003) and Dr. Natalie Smith won the ISABE Best Paper Award (Valensi Award) with their Awards evening. From left to right: Ric Parker; Frans ISABE 2015 Phoenix paper "Effects of blade row interac- Breugelmans (DC 1963) tions on unsteady stator surface pressures in an embedded compressor stage". The paper is on their research at The delegates participating in the conference saw a Purdue University. group of people wearing turquoise Cranfield T-shirts. Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 10 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

These people were the MSc and the PhD students of hear from Eric Ducharme, General Manager Advanced the Propulsion Engineering Centre at Cranfield and Technology Operation GE, about the reduction of the were supporting the conference organization. They had number of combustor parts from the 800s to about 20 shown great effort during the conference and were using additive manufacturing. Of course, all these were called "Guardian Angels" by Prof. Pericles Pilidis, the the aircraft and engine level examples and lots of en- ISABE vice-president and Head of the Propulsion Engi- abling technologies at the component level were cov- neering Centre at Cranfield. They deserve a great thank ered in the technical sessions. However this is not the you. An interesting side of the conference were the um- end of the story. All the big players agree that the evolu- brellas in the conference pack. This gift was a perfect tion of the high bypass ratio turbofans have come to an choice in the rainy weather of Manchester. During the end. In a few five years’ time we will see the examples week only a few hours of sunny weather were seen. of ultra-high bypass ratio turbofans and the open rotors. Among the two types of umbrellas, the standard size was These will enter our world with their integration chal- given to the delegates and the large size was given to the lenges to the aircraft due to their extreme diameters. keynote speakers. Prof. Pilidis gave us a favour and the The revolution will begin with electrified propulsion as a Propulsion Engineering Centre team also received the dozen aircraft and propulsion architectures were shown large umbrellas. Thanks to little Kubilay, he helped me with the challenge of integrating the propulsion system to demonstrate those. He is extremely happy when we with the aircraft. As mentioned by Nateri Madavan, As- use the large one as a family pack. sociate Project Manager for Technology at NASA, integration is the name of the game. There is still plenty of time for these integrated vehicles to enter our life which will be just before my retirement. The good news is my generation will be the prime mover to bring forward the upcoming revolution of the aircraft propulsion.

VKI Alumni dinner at the ASME Turbo Expo 2017 Conference in Charlotte

by BY BOGDAN CERNAT, RM 2015

n June 2017 a large group of VKI Alumni gathered in Charlotte (North Carolina, US) on the occasion of ISABE umbrellas and the team. From left to right, Ithe ASME Turbo Expo 2017 conference. During the Ibrahim Eryilmaz, Kubilay Eryilmaz conference week the attendees had the chance to visit the beautiful city center of the American location, ap- During the week a number of keynote speakers, preciating the museums and sport facilities for which about four per day, highlighted the key developments Charlotte is famous (Nascar Hall of Fame, Carolina Pan- and challenges in aircraft propulsion. Paul Stein, CTO thers Stadium among them). Prof. Sergio Lavagnoli and at Rolls-Royce, announced the world’s most powerful Prof. Fabrizio Fontaneto organized the traditional VKI gearbox has run to maximum power which will be in- Alumni dinner, giving the opportunity to the present stalled in the next generation Rolls-Royce engine, the Ul- and former institute members to meet, share impres- traFan (registered trademark). Inaki Ulizar, CTO at ITP, sions on the conference and spend a pleasant evening emphasized the importance of integrated multi-physics all together. More than 20 people participated in the simulations in the production cycle of the components. event, held on the beautiful terrace of the Carolina Ale Regarding the simulation and the computations, the en- House, in downtown Charlotte. The atmosphere was gines now have their digital twins throughout their life very relaxed and the dinner was a great chance for cycle which also shows the importance of the virtual de- everybody to share common memories and exchange sign systems. Jerome Bonini, VP Research Technology the latest developments of their professional careers. of Safran Aircraft Engines, mentioned the use of electric The VKI members participating to the dinner were: Ser- drive units for green taxiing. It was really interesting to gio Lavagnoli, Fabrizio Fontaneto, Tom Verstraete, Fabio Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 11 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

Bigoni, Tania Ferreira, Gian Luca Gori, Maria Rinaldi, VKI Alumni Dinner at the EUCASS Aude Lahalle, Bogdan Cernat and Ignacio Mayo. The former VKI alumni present at the event were: Nicolas 2017 Conference in Milan Billiard and Luca Porreca (DC 2001), Davide Lengani (DC 2005), Elisa Pescini (RM 2011), Taylan Ercan (DC 2005), Fabrice Giuliani (DC 1997), Beni Cukurel (PhD 2012), Francesco Ornano, Guido Galgani and David Cuadrado (RM 2013), Valeria Andreoli and James Braun (RM 2014) and Reinhard Niehuis (DC 1981).

by BY LUDOVICO ZANUS, RM 2016

he EUCASS 2017 conference, this year held in Mi- lan, was a good opportunity to celebrate a VKI TAlumni reunion, as it is tradition during this kind of events. A group of 10 alumni (plus the special participation of the one-year old daughter of the alumni Anne Gosset and Marcos Lema) met at the Italian restaurant "Naxos", close to the Milan polytechnic university cam- pus in Bovisa. For the organization of the dinner location a big thanks goes to Prof. and VKI alumnus Luigi Vigevano, who took care of choosing and booking the place. Table in front, clockwise: Guido Galgani, Francesco Ornano, Elisa Pescini, Luca Porreca, James Brown, David Cuadrado, Bogdan Cernat, Billard, Ignazio Mayo Hague, Tania Ferreira Cacao, Aude Lahalle, Fabio Bigoni, Maria Rinaldi

Table behind, clockwise: Sergio Lavagnoli, Tom Verstraete, Harika S. Kahveci, Beni Cukurel, Cukurel co-worker 1, Cukurel co-worker 2, Fabrizio Fontaneto (standing), Reinhard Niehuis (standing), Davide Lengani, Giovanna Barigozzi, Unknown 1, Unknown 2, Gianluca Gori The photo below shows a group of VKI scientists attending the ASME Turbo EXPO conference.

From left to right, standing: Ivan Padilla Montero current PhD, Jean-Etienne Durand RM 2016, Luigi Vigevano DC 1979, Ludovico Zanus RM 2016, Alessandro Gianni DC 1988, Marcos Lema DC 2002; seated: Fernando Miró Miró RM 2015, Antonella Abbá DC 1988, Giuseppe Gibertini DC 1988, Anne Gosset DC 2002

The group was quite varied, covering different generations and including people coming from abroad to attend the conference, as well as living and working in Milan. The atmosphere was convivial and friendly during the whole dinner, while tasting delicious dishes from From left to right: Bogdan Cernat, Sergio Lavangoli, the Sicilian cuisine. An ideal evening to speak about the Fabrizio Fontaneto, Fabio Bigoni life of everyone and most of all to share memories of Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 12 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association the time spent at VKI. Even if many years separate some- suggested that anyone interested in further details "will times our experiences in the Institute, I felt like the com- find Crouch’s full paper quite compelling". mon past and feelings still were able to bond us across generations: for sure an important merit of VKI. In 2013 the editor of Jane’s All the World’s Air- craft announced his recognition of a time-worn claim of powered flights in 1898, 1899, 1901, and 1902 made Announcement of next VKI Alumni by Gustave Whitehead, a German immigrant to the United States, flights preceding the successful flight of Dinner the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903. This caught the nnual Social and Dinner for VKI Alumni, spouses attention of the media, sparking a flurry of news sto- and friends. ries and opening up once again the revisionist argument A that Orville and Wilbur Wright were not the first people to fly a successful flying machine. Whitehead made Please join us for an evening at the upcoming AIAA such claims , but his experiments were largely forgotten SciTech conference. We will get together, as we have for until January 1935, when a free-lance writer Stella Ran- several years now, to enjoy a meal and share in each dolph rediscovered the story in a scrapbook in a Smith- other’s company. Our common experiences at the Insti- sonian collection and published an article "Did White- tute have knit us together and so we hope you can join head Proceed (sic) Wright in First Public Flight?" in the us and share in the comradery and fellowship. January 1935 issue of Popular Aviation. She continued WHERE: Sunset Sam’s Fish Camp - Gaylord Palms to champion Whitehead’s cause in two books published Resort & Convention Center - 6000 West Osceola Park- over the next thirty years. The occasional media interest way, Kissimmee, FL 34746 in the story led Orville Wright to publish a detailed refu- WHEN: Wednesday - January 10th tation in 1945 (Orville Wright, "The Mythical Whitehead 7:30 PM - Drinks Flight", U.S. Air Services, August 1945, vol. 30, p.9.). 8:00 PM - Dinner In 1963 William J.O’Dwyer, a retired Air Force pilot liv- RSVP: By NOON, January 10th to Tom Wayman (DC ing in Connecticut became interested in the case and 1994), 912-604-5241, [email protected] emerged as a determined champion of Whitehead. His book on the case, History by Contract, co-authored with Stella Randolph, which included an attack on the Smith- A Review of "The Flight Claims of sonian Institution for its links to the estate of Orville Wright, summarized all of the evidence gathered to date Gustave Whitehead" by John D. in support of the Whitehead claim. In a series of often- Anderson, Jr heated exchanges, C.H. Gibbs-Smith, then the world’s leading authority on the birth of aviation and an associate of the British Science Museum, vigorously coun- tered O’Dwyer’s claims. In March 2013, John Brown, an Australian researcher living in Germany, reopened the old debate, unveiling a website arguing the Whitehead case, and announcing the discovery of a large number of news articles on Whitehead, and a photograph which he by JOHN D.ANDERSON,JR.,CURATOR OF claimed to show one of his powered machines in the air. AERODYNAMICS,NATIONAL AIRAND SPACE MUSEUM, The Connecticut legislature jumped on the band wagon, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONAND PROFESSOR EMERITUS, tacking a provision creating a state Powered Flight Day AEROSPACE ENGINEERING,UNIVERSITYOF MARYLAND, honoring Whitehead onto an omnibus bill whose major HONORARY MEMBEROFTHE VKI-AA purpose was to establish the ballroom polka as the official state dance. This is what led to Jane’s all the World Editors’ note: Recently, several members of VKI had Aircraft recognition in 2013 (Paul Jackson, ed., "Justice read that the Wright Brothers may not have been the first Delayed is Justice Denied", Jane’s All the World’s Air- to fly. Mickey Greenblatt, Vice President for North Amer- craft, 2013.) ica of the VKI Alumni Association suggested that Dr. John With all this, the time had come for a fresh look D. Anderson, Jr., the first Honorary Member of the Asso- at this old story. The fresh look is provided in a peer- ciation, would be able to shed some light on this question reviewed scholarly paper that appears in The Journal and made contact with him. In response, John called to of Aeronautical History, an on-line journal published by our attention a recent publication which addressed the is- the Royal Aeronautical Society, in 2016. The paper is en- sue written by the Senior Curator of the National Air and titled "The Flight Claims of Gustave Whitehead", Paper Space Museum, Dr. Tom D. Crouch. John agreed to write No. 2016/01 written by Tom Crouch, Senior Curator at this review of his paper (the original is quite lengthy) and the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Insti- Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 13 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association tution. Dr. Crouch is the world’s leading authority on the first created by the Wright brothers. I have made nu- Wright Brothers, and one of the leading experts on the merous cases in my writing that the Wrights were in- history of early aviation in general. His paper can be eas- deed the first true aeronautical engineers. They were ily accessed at www.aerosociety.com/publications/jah- the first to fully understand all the basic engineering the-flight-claims-of-gustave-whitehead/, or simply by principles of flight, especially the importance of control inserting The Journal of Aeronautical History, Royal around all three axes of the airplane. They calculated Aeronautical Society into Google and clicking on the things. They tested things in the laboratory. With their paper in the 2016 table of contents. Crouch first de- gliders in 1900, 1901, and 1902, they served as their tails Whitehead’s earliest claims, then asks the question: own test pilots in the air. They developed the first suc- What is the Evidence? In essence, there is none. One cessful airplane design methodology, and although they by one, with detailed scholarly reasoning and counter- never published an explicit and integrated description of evidence, Crouch dismantles the claims made by White- their design methodology, it can be carefully extracted head and his supporters. For example, the members of from their correspondence and notes from the period Whitehead’s own family reported that they had never 1899-1903. In contrast, where are the contributions to seen him fly. Many of the individuals who were most aeronautical engineering made by Gustave Whitehead? closely associated with Whitehead, including Herman What did subsequent airplane designers learn from his Linde who was funding his efforts, doubted that he work? There are none, and nothing was learned. So, in had flown. John J. Dvorak, who had been on the staff addition to the arguments made by the most respected of Washington University in St. Louis when he visited aviation historians such as Dr. Crouch in his recent pa- Whitehead in 1904 to purchase an engine, became con- per, this reviewer adds those of an aeronautical engi- vinced that Whitehead was incapable of completing the neer. It is unbelievable that had Whitehead built a suc- project to build a flying machine, and left in disgust. cessful flying machine, he would not have made it, and "During my stay in Bridgeport", he remarked, "I did not the technical principles behind it, known to the grow- meet a single individual who had ever seen Whitehead ing engineering public at the beginning of the Twentieth make a flight ... I personally do not believe that White- Century. No such revelation exists, and in my opinion head ever succeeded in making any airplane flights". therefore, never did such a machine. Over the next two decades, one aviation story after another dominated the front pages of the world’s news- papers, culminating in Charles Lindbergh’s flight from New York to Paris in May 1927, six months before White- The role of VKI: teaching and practice head’s death. Crouch writes: "Yet there is no indication of research, creating international that Gustave Whitehead ever spoke up in defense of his own claim". While Whitehead’s obituary in the Bridge- networks, ... or emigration agency? port Telegram identifies him as a "well-known resident" and a "member of the International Bible Students Asso- ciation", it makes no mention of his flight claims. In his paper, Crouch discusses several very recent statements on the matter. He mentions that a group of more than thirty international scholars, writers and museum curators signed a statement concluding that: "When it comes to the case of Gustave Whitehead, the by BY MARIO CARBONARO, DC 1968, decision must remain, not proven". The historians of VKIHONORARY DIRECTORAND PROFESSOR the Royal Aeronautical Society noted: "All available evidence fails to support the claim that Gustave Whitehead ne of the ideas of Professor Theodore von Kár- made sustained, powered, controlled flights predating mán when creating the Training Center for Exper- those of the Wright brothers". On July2, 2014, The Sci- Oimental Aerodynamics, TCEA, in 1956, renamed entific American weighed in, categorically stating that von Karman Institute for Fluid dynamics in 1963 at the Wright brothers were the first to fly, and that "the the death of its founder, was that researchers from var- data show that not only was Whitehead not the first in ious NATO countries could spend one year together flight, but that he may never have made a controlled, studying and performing a personal research in exper- powered flight at any time". imental aerodynamics, using the facilities existing in This reviewer notes that, on the other hand, we have Rhode-Saint-Genèse, and that when returning to their irrefutable proof of the Wright’s first successful powered home countries, they would keep connections with the flight on December 17, 1903, finally brought home by other attendees, both friendship links and scientific ex- Wilbur’s spectacular flights at Le Mans, France in 1908. changes, and would apply the techniques learned and Moreover, the subsequent explosive expansion of the practiced at the VKI, both in their company or in their technology of the airplane grew from the technology university. However, when noticing that a number of VKI Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 14 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association graduates, after their Diploma Course or Research Mas- tion. With great patience, I started consulting the 1639 ter year spent at the VKI, did not return to their home entries in the VKI mailing list. Up to now, I have the data country, but rather remained at the VKI (... my personal for the last 16 years which seem to indicate that the ma- case, indeed, and that of a number of other VKI fac- jority of students, from 45% to 80% do indeed return ulty members) or remained in Belgium, or emigrated back to their country, and about 15% to 30% emigrate to another country (the USA has a great appeal in this to another country. Almost every year some graduates respect), I asked myself the question: does the VKI ful- remain at the VKI, up to 22% in one specific year. Unfor- fill the original mission envisaged by Professor von Kar- tunately, in the last four years, from 2013-2014 to the man, or is it a mechanism for a brain drain from some present, the VKI mailing list was not properly updated countries to others, presumably more appealing? And and contains unreliable data, so I decided to exclude of course the answer to this question should come from such data from the bar chart below, which contains the an analysis of statistics about the present addresses of data for 12 years only, i.e. from year 2000 to year 2013. VKI graduates after their stay at the VKI. I therefore em- barked on the preparation of such statistics, using the VKI mailing list, where in principle all former students should be recorded. However, due to the large number of people (1639 as of June 2017) having attended the VKI DC or RM, it was important to specify the criteria of such a statistical analysis first, and the method of presenting the results: indeed, recall the usual criticism to statistics: you can use them to demonstrate almost anything, provided you treat the data conveniently. Further- more, should the statistics be presented year per year, or per groups of years, or as a whole for all 60 years of the existence of the VKI? And how should the results be presented, not to have a huge number of classes? Indeed, it would be too extensive to give, for each nationality, the percentage of graduates resident in all other countries: it would be a matrix of N x N, where N is the number of countries (15 NATO countries in 1956, 28 NATO countries presently). I finally decided to start with a simple case: going year per year, so that years could be grouped later if desired, but restricting the classification to five categories: "came back to their home country"; "moved The data for the years from 2000 to 2013 seem there- to another country"; "remained in Belgium"; "remained fore to indicate that the original aim of Professor von at the VKI"; and of course, "unknown destination". A spe- Kármán was indeed reached for most graduates, and cific issue is for people remaining at the VKI: do we also that only a small fraction of graduates were emigrating, put them in the category "remained in Belgium", as VKI which could be interpreted as a beneficial fact, namely is located in Belgium? My choice was no, to avoid dupli- a cross-fertilization among NATO countries, which von cation, thus these persons only appear in the category Kármán also felt was very desirable because it would "remained at the VKI". Another specific issue in this clas- enhance international collaboration. In order to deter- sification is for Belgians or for persons previously resi- mine whether some nationals were emigrating more dent in Belgium, if they remain in Belgium after having than others, I regrouped the years from 2000 to 2013, spent one year or more at the VKI: do we put them in sorted them by nationalities, and summarized the result the category came back to their home country or in the in the second bar chart. However, the chart indicates category remained in Belgium? I decided to put them in percentages, not number of graduates (shown along the the category "came back to their home country". How- abscissa), thus the results have to be considered with ever, in a number of cases, a person came to the VKI, due reservation for nationalities with too few represen- then remained for a PhD, then left; or moved to another tatives: for instance, Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Japan, country, and then moved again: due to the complica- and Morocco, have only one person each: or these, the tion of dealing with these cases, I selected the option of Bulgarian and the Japanese returned to their country referring to the situation as of the summer 2017, ignor- of origin (the Japanese was from JAXA, the Japanese ing the history of possible successive changes from one Space Agency, so he was bound to return to Japan), and country to another. Furthermore, as sometimes the data the other three emigrated to the USA: the Colombian, are unfortunately not correctly updated in the mailing as he had studied there before coming to the VKI, the list, there are several cases of unreliable data, which I Croatian, and the Moroccan, who in the meantime had decided to group with the category unknown destina- applied for Belgian citizenship. Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 15 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

VKI Student trip to the Bourget Air Show

by BY DANIEL GUARIGLIA, RM 2013, PHD 2017, VKI POST-DOC

Ah, what a beautiful summer morning in Belgium! The sun is shining, and the fresh air is filling you with good energies to start the day. So, what’s better than going to work at VKI on such a Saturday morning? Well, for sure in the top 10 list there could be arriving in The situation looks good for countries like Czech Re- front of the gates and thinking: "Not today! Today is for public (16 returnees over 18), Germany (17 returnees WHOOOSH! Today is for ROARRR! Today is for WOW! over 23), Portugal (13 returnees over 18), as most of Today is for Le Bourget!!!" their citizens return home. A little bit less for Belgium, And that’s how the trip started. Thanks to the VKI France, Hungary, Spain and Turkey, with percentages of Alumni Association, a trip to "Le Bourget International returnees around 60%, plus or minus 5 %. And then Paris Air Show" has been organized for all the VKI stu- comes one country with just less than 50% of returnees, dents and employees. Italy, and the data look reliable due to the largest number of participants, 92 over 12 years. Among these, 25 emigrated: most of them went to the UK (7 persons), to Switzerland (6 persons), to the USA (5 persons), to the Netherlands (2 persons) and to Australia, Denmark, France, Spain and Japan (one each). Eleven of them remained at the VKI, five others in Belgium, and we lost track of six of them. And last, the situation seems poor for Greece and Poland, where most of the graduates emigrated, but such data are unreliable due to the small sample size. Among four Greeks only one returned to Greece. Also among four Polish only one of them returned to Poland, the other three emigrated: one to the USA, a lady, (I remember an upset Polish professor telling me: in future we will see that we do not send In front of the Institute, before departure any more ladies who are single, but just married persons, making sure that their spouses remain in Poland), The "Salon International de l’Aéronautique et de one to the UK and one to Germany. In conclusion we l’Espace" is a one-week event which takes place every could say that the aim of Professor von Karman in creat- two years, mid-June, in Le Bourget airport, just north ing the Institute is globally met, with minor exceptions. of Paris. The event is one of the largest of its kind in It would of course be interesting to complete the study the world. Here are just a few numbers on the present to determine which nations are more attractive for the year outcome from the official press release: 2381 ex- future careers of VKI graduates, or to extend the analy- hibitors (3% more than 2015), only 322000 visitors at- sis to years before 2000. But this will probably come in tended the event (8% less than 2015). This drop in par- another article ... ticipation has been partially ascribed to a number of ex- hibitor’s budget restrictions, as well as to the increased sense of danger due to the terrorist attacks (the last one occurred in London just 3 weeks earlier). Nevertheless, the Air Show was considered a success, with 140 aircraft present in the air and on the ground, and more than $150 billion worth of orders were announced including: 897 orders and purchasing commitments for a Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 16 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association catalogue value of 115 billion USD, for a total of 934 ready twice in my life. On my first time, already eight commercial aircrafts. Well, then good news for all of us years ago, I was there for an event of my student asso- working in the aerospace sector, I suppose. Our jobs are ciation EUROAVIA, but we focused more on the pavil- safe. ions’ content than on the exposition. The second time, Now, back to the trip! This year the participants four years ago, it was just after my Research Master. were 37 enthusiastic people, all students from the Short The Alumni Association was not organizing this activ- Training Program, Research Masters, PhDs ... and me, ity, yet, and so we arranged with other fellows of my the only ex-student (sigh, I’m getting old). Nothing to course. Clearly, I focused only in finding a job, and I be surprised, then, that after five hours of highways spent most of my time in the pavilion dedicated to the and lovely French countryside (thanks to the driver who job meeting. I remember I was so focused in throwing didn’t want to use the GPS), they were all jumping my CV left and right, that I did not see any aircraft fly- around like kids in a frenzy, while I was lurking around ing. But for sure I heard them! When you hear a Rafale in search for a decent coffee ... But anyway, finally yes! flying over your head with the after-burner on, well, it At 12:15 the air show gates appeared in front of us. doesn’t matter what you are doing, you stop. Your mind Thanks to the RM representative Alexandre Zapata, who instinctively tells you "Dude, cover your ears!", but you took the lead of the group, we managed to pass all to- are there right to hear the noise! And so you are some- gether the checkpoints, and we set the appointment at how in a tense state, with your wise brain side trying the end of the show. Given the hour, we decided it was to preserve a quite important part of your body, and the more worthy to watch the aircraft static and flying ex- brave side saying "Don’t worry, there are two ears exposition than to enter the pavilions. At this point, the actly in case one fails ..." How can one object to such group dispersed, as foreseeable, but we were able to clever logic? Until the noise peak is passed, and your collect some very nice pictures and comments at several entire chest starts to resonate with the low tone sound. moments of the show. Both the brain sides agree: "Wooow ... that was cool!". General comment: "This is HUGE!", and yes, it really was. The amount of information that the brain tries to record and analyse is overwhelming. Aircraft, engines, rockets, satellites, drones .... "I’m completely blown up, don’t know where to go first!" said one of the students at his first time in Le Bourget. To gather the initial attention, there were the distant profiles of the full-scale mock-ups of the ESA launchers. These are the trademark of Le Bourget: the Ariane 5 and Ariane 4. The latter, in particular, starts showing some signs of aging. Probably, it is there since a while, wit- nessing its glorious past with 116 launches in 15 years. However, one question came to my mind: "Where is the Vega rocket?". The little brother of the family is performing very well on the market, and it should for sure deserve a place in Le Bourget. What are you saying? Ah, Flight demonstration of "Patrouille de France" Alpha Jets it’s not French. I see ... And there begins the unofficial ranking of the loud- est (aka coolest) aircraft. The louder, the better. Now, imagine there were some aeroacoustic engineers even- tually present in the crowd. Maybe they were so proud of their new fighter, much more silent compared to those of their competitors. After spending years of work, sweat and blood on trying to make that aircraft just a few dB quieter, now everybody will see ... Until one of the kids around you says "Mmmm, that was just like my grandpa’s car ...". End of the show, we can go home. For the chronicles, the aircraft subject of this irreverent comment was the 5th generation fighter F35a "Lightning II". I was really excited to watch it for the first time. This version was the one with conventional take-off and landing. Overall, it performed really well, particularly at Ariane 5 and Ariane 4 ESA Launchers low speed its manoeuvrability was outstanding, and it was also very silent! That quality evidently was not un- However, I had the chance to watch those giants al- derstood by the general public, to whom noise = power. Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 17 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

So, I was still recovering from the epiphany that my research is completely useless (because I AM an aeroacoustic engineer working on jet noise), when a magic apparition brightened up my day: the Airbus A380 took off with a spectacular manoeuvre, cutting the breath of many spectators. I never had the opportunity of ﬂying inside one of these giants, but all agree that it is very comfortable and quiet. Just seen from the outside, you cannot imagine how this can be possible.

Twin2 aircraft in the static exposition

The rest of the day was a blaze of emotions and discoveries; it’s impossible to describe them all. So, we sadly walked back to the entrance gate for the ren- dezvous with the other participants, and we reached the bus in the parking. The bus driver was waiting for us already with the engine turned on. He started complaining we were late, and menacing to leave us there. No time for completing the rollcall; as soon as the people there were inside, he closed the door and left. The thing was getting really A group of VKI students in front of the large Airbus A380 upsetting. "What if somebody is still missing?", "I don’t care! I have to finish my turn and go home!". Yeeep ... very pleasant person. By some miracle, everybody was The A380 does not seem to fly, it seems to surf in the there, and so at the end, there was no need to pull the air, like a giant glider, peaceful and slow. Which is prob- emergency brake. After another four hours, we all ar- ably what, aerodynamically speaking, it was doing. With rived sane and safe in Rhode-St-Genèse. such enormous wing surface, no passengers, and proba- Apart for this small episode, what a great day! The bly just the minimum fuel, the need for engines can be best, I think, to close an academic year. We all thank the minimal. Several years ago, I was not that enthusiastic VKI Alumni Association for this opportunity. Till the next of this plane, especially from the aesthetic point of view. airshow, ciao! I clearly remember a conversation with a commercial pilot, who said: "When I look around the airports, a B747, in my mind it’s like a swan. While, instead, the A380 re- minds me of a goose ...". Well, now I can definitely say to have changed my mind, and I want to cite the words of Interview with Tom Weisel, VKI DC one of the participants: "for me, the A380 is like a man- 1986 tis in the sky!". Very well guessed! Let’s move on with an aircraft that really impressed me. It was probably one of the fanciest aircraft present on the static display: the EU- LAIR Twin2. This aircraft has a very unclassical design. It is a canard configuration, but the canards are so big that they could be considered as a second wing. No tail verti- cal plane. Its function is redirected to two large winglets on the main wing, with two rudders embedded. Also the propulsion is rather unusual, with two propellers, one in by JOHN WENDT, the front, and one in the back in pull-push configuration. FORMER VKIPROFESSORAND DIRECTOR Despite the weird appearance, the manufacturers claim it flies very pleasantly, traveling 450 km in 2 hours at om Weisel joined the Diploma Course program be- full take-off weight of 472 kg, and they have already in cause, in his words, he felt it would be an "op- mind to propose a drone version. Good luck! Tportunity to learn on many levels". He did well Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 18 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association by graduating with an Honors degree in 1986. He then ideas. I attribute this to the general environment at VKI started a professional career which took him through but more specifically to Professor Olivari who encouraged corporate life and ultimately on to form his own com- me to "walk into the dark room and explore". I wouldn’t pany, Arch Day Design. So Tom’s career also covered be where I am if it wasn’t for his mentoring." many levels and led to success. What memories do you have of life outside of the VKI Tom, what induced you to come to the VKI back in while you were in Belgium? the middle 1980’s? "The numerous gatherings at somebody’s flat are the "A few years prior to my VKI experience I had worked first thing that comes to mind. It was easy to find a a summer at Saab-Scania in Sweden. I did not take full few people willing to partake in an after-hours drink and advantage of the time and when I returned promised my- dinner. The Greeks (Panos, Thanos, Nikos, Georgos, etc.) self that I would find another opportunity. As I was finish- were always represented in good form. The weekend train ing my Master’s degree in the U.S., I found out about VKI trips from Gare Du Midi allowed for extensive exploration through my advisor, John LaRue, who was an alumnus of and to appreciate the splendor of Belgium. The basketball the Diploma Program. After investigating the research be- league in which VKI had a team though I can’t remember ing done at VKI in an atmosphere of people from many if we won or lost but had fun. And wondering if Paul Glad- different backgrounds I figured this would be a fantastic nick put enough gas in the Citroen to actually make it to opportunity to learn on many levels." VKI that morning."

What was your technical focus at VKI?

"I was in the Environmental and Applied Fluid Dynam- ics Department working under Professor Olivari. My work was experimental producing a ﬁnal project titled, Feasi- bility Study for Using Infrared Measuring Techniques for Flow Recognition."

Conference at the Sports Center’s pool. Clockwise from Carol Calta, Luis Burnay, Georgos Stoumbos, Panos Kalfantis, Marc Dubois, Tom Weisel, Nikos Neris, Peter Drtina, Vittorio Michelassi, Rustem Aslan

Tom Weisel, Prof Domenico Olivari, Panos Kalfantis, Georgos Stoumbos

What were the biggest impacts that VKI had on you?

"Two things come to mind. First, I learned many new ways to look at problems and to perform experiments. Be- ing surrounded by creative people with different areas of expertise opened me up to a learning experience that I use to this day. Secondly, I was taught to trust my instincts and not be afraid to act on them. This self-conﬁdence in technical endeavors is paramount if we are to push towards new VKI Class of 1986 (with a few extras added) Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 19 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

Tell our readers how you came to form Arch Day De- sign.

"When Surgical Solutions was sold and closed down I was suddenly without a job and facing a commute of an hour if I wanted to remain in the medical device industry and stay in my house. I felt that I was at a peak combina- tion of professional contacts and energy to take on the task so I started Arch Day Design. Fortunately I started quickly with well-funded companies that helped us weather the 2008 economic downturn. Our business model is to perform consulting work for other companies and if it gets slow, continue work on our own ideas that hopefully get licensed for royalties in the future. This way the work load Tom receiving his diploma from Prof. Alec Young, stays relatively level which can be a challenge in the con- Chairman of the VKI Board sulting ﬁeld."

What are your products and what techniques do you use to accelerate your output?

"Our products focus mostly on surgical tools and medical implants. Much of our work is in orthopedics but we have also designed products for cardiovascular, Ear/Nose/Throat, ophthalmic and plastic surgery. With mounting medical regulations in Europe and the U.S., many companies have slowed to the point that their development efforts have come to a virtual halt. Since these companies need to continue growth they are often looking outside for RD resources that can quickly develop the required product. To better service our customers we are Tom, his son Kellin and his wife Kerry at Kitty Hawk, always looking for new ways to improve and speed up our North Carolina, where the Wright brothers made the first process. One belief we follow is from Thomas Watson of controlled powered flight of an aircraft IBM fame that in order to increase success rate, one must double his/her failure rate. One way we do this is to invest How did your career progress since graduation? in tools that we can use immediately and not be subject to a queue. A good example of this is our 3D printer. If one has an idea in the morning it can be modeled and "Upon returning from VKI I decided to get a job in printed by the end of the day for analysis. If changes are private industry. After an extended search I got a break needed another print can occur over night and be waiting because of my fluid dynamics background. A cardiovascu- for the engineer in the morning. These quick turnaround lar company (Baxter Edwards now Edwards Lifesciences) iterations allow for a design convergence in less time than needed analysis of flowing blood in an arterial sampling if using outside resources." line. Since there were no Navier-Stokes equations that could be used it became an experimental exercise. Regard- less, it got my foot in the door and started my career in Quite a few of our younger graduates have expressed medical device design. At Edwards I focused on cardio- a desire to form their own small company after a few vascular catheters and associated attachments. From there years of corporate life. With your broad background in our group spun off in to a start-up company designing an small companies, both as an employee and as owner, intracranial pressure monitoring system. I then changed what would be a few words of advice for success in such over to arthroscopy with Linvatec (now Conmed) design- an endeavor? ing manual instruments. MicroMotors, a custom surgical power OEM company, was my next stop. After that I went "There are a number of matters to consider if one is back in to a pure arthroscopy start-up called Surgical So- to start a new company. Note that these are based on my lutions which was sold to Johnson & Johnson. That pushed experiences, observations, personal strengths/weaknesses, me to form my current company Arch Day Design. We etc. of which each person differs. First, you must be com- provide design consulting services for surgical instruments fortable with discomfort. For instance, a steady paycheck and implants and just celebrated our 10th anniversary." may not be steady. If you think you can just be an engineer, Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 20 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association forget it. A large portion of the job becomes sales, whether VKI Alumni Association Research selling your services, your product, or your company. You must also be comfortable setting strategic direction and Travel Grants starting each morning thinking about the viability of the current direction and where new opportunities may re- AMES is a temple for aerodynamicists side. This effort should never end or else the company may quickly ’end’. Make sure you have the energy to put in the by FEDERICO BARISELLIAND BRUNO DIAS, required extra effort. This is not a 40 hour/week endeavor. RM 2015 AND 2014, VKI PHDCANDIDATES It probably involves nights, and weekends. Though virtual meetings are commonplace, it is still immensely valuable to not hesitate to fly in for face-to-face meetings. Also, be prepared to do anything and everything. This could in- clude such things as handling the finances to minimize overhead position and emptying the trash since a clean- ing person may be too expensive. Lastly, don’t do it for the money. I’m confident that if I had stayed in a large cor- poration I would be better off financially. There may be a better potential in my own company but multiply that by e are writing on the airplane, waiting for the the chance of success for small vs corporate position, I’m take off and ready to come back to our routine, pretty sure the latter financially wins out. All that said, I Wfull of adventures and stories to share with our have been at this for 10 years and can never imagine going friends and colleagues. back to a corporate job. The freedom to set direction and If we look back, it seems yesterday when we were work with the people I enjoy cannot be beat. I took a vaca- jumping on the same flight, different direction. Four tion when I first started the company and realized this was hours on a tiny seat, passing through Reykjavik just for the first time I was not getting paid during that time off. the time to stretch our legs, ready to curl up for another But then I also realized that I didn’t have to get permission ten hours without movies or food. This is the way you from anybody to take off the time. Well worth the tradeoff. go to America in the twenty-first century, far away from And yes, the potential for something financially big is an the comfort (and the high cost...) of the flights running intriguing facet." in the seventies, literally one century away from the era of transatlantic passenger airliners. We crossed the ocean to work at the NASA Ames These are excellent comments and recommendations Research Center with Dr. Eric Stern. Ames is a temple which I am sure will be taken seriously by those readers for aerodynamicists. Yes a temple, indeed: when you ar- who are contemplating such a change in their careers. rive and face the huge outlet of the NACA’s 40x80 foot Do you still have contacts with your fellow VKI gradu- wind tunnel, it recalls Milano’s Dome facade more than ates? a ground testing facility.

"Unfortunately I’m not in contact with very many VKI alumni. But I do see Paul Gladnick occasionally when visiting Seattle (he has a great wife and two wonderful boys), I get Facebook postings from Carol Calta often and have reconnected with Kevin Hopkins (the year after us) near his Chicago home."

In closing, Tom posed a question:

"Are the Far Side comics (by Gary Larson) still on the wall in the large student room?" NASA 40x80 feet wind tunnel

I had to answer him that these hilarious cartoons did The spark for the collaboration was started in 2015 remain for a few years but finally disappeared, much to after an exchange of ideas at the AIAA Conference in my personal regret. Dallas. With time our project grew up and the chance Tom, many thanks for taking time from your obvi- for a research stay emerged. ously very busy schedule to participate in this interview. Right after the Chelyabinsk’s event in 2013, the US Readers who would like to communicate with Tom can government started funding the development of tools reach him at [email protected]. which can predict and assess the potential risk of ground Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 21 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association impact of asteroids. On the other side of the ocean, since a few years, VKI has been involved in the Belgian RAdio Meteor Stations (BRAMS) project, a network of more than thirty radio stations which employs the forward scattering technique to detect a massive amount of me- teors and allows scientists to study the meteoroid popu- lation over the Belgian sky. Astrophysicists speak about one hundred tons of material entering the atmosphere every day. These bodies rush with velocities that are three hundred times faster than the speed of sound. Looking at a meteor’s entry through the lens of gas dynamics, we discover a very challenging field of research, where non-equilibrium effects, radiation coupled with plasma dynamics and mul- VKI Alumni crew at the Golden gate view point; from left tiphase flows play a role in the phenomenon. Supporting to right: Bruno Dias (RM 2014), Francisco Torres (RM the interpretation of BRAMS data through the numeri- 2017), Francesco Panerai (DC 2008), Alejandro Laguna cal simulation of the free electrons in the trail is the final (RM 2013), Federico Bariselli(RM 2015) aim of our PhD projects. In this perspective, NASA Ames gave us the opportunity to access experimental data, useful to validate the ablation models which are currently under development at VKI. More in detail, we could give a look to the data collected during some laser ablation and arc-jet experiments. These experimental results allow us to evaluate our models and to have an insight on the physical mech- anisms which characterize the ablation phenomenon.

Bruno Dias (RM 2014) and Federico Bariselli (RM 2015) working hard at NASA AMES Golden Gate bridge from the Golden gate view point This was definitely a memorable and intense experience both on the professional and personal side. Our Surely not all the time was devoted to work. The VKI experiences at NASA Ames would not have been possi- family hosted us, making us feeling at home a thousand ble without the support of the VKI Alumni Association kilometers away. The nights spent chatting together on Travel Grant. We would like to thank the VKI-AA for giv- a sofa or at Antonio’s Nut House of Palo Alto will be ing us this opportunity. We definitely recommend this to difficult to forget. We had time to enjoy sunny Califor- any PhD student! nia and foggy San Francisco. We discovered the city of PS. For the reader, a piece of advise: do not hesitate Jack London and its harbor. We could ride our bikes on to bring your own sandwiches and Belgian fries if you the Golden Gate to Sausalito. We spent lazy times at the are flying on a low cost Icelandic airline. Dolores Park, walked among the giant sequoias in Muir- wood and drank California’s finest wine in the Napa Val- ley. Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 22 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

Boltzmann computations in Texas, New Mexico and Montana

by ERIK TORRES, Our numerical calculations were run on the "Stampede" DC 2009, VKI PHDCANDIDATE high-performance cluster of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) located at ICES (photo credit UT Austin) am Erik Torres, a Ph.D. candidate in the Aeronautics and Aerospace department at VKI. My research fo- Icuses on physical modeling and development of the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, as ap- As part of this stay, I visited Los Alamos National plied to high-speed atmospheric entry flows under rar- Laboratories (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and efied conditions. worked with Dr. Haack, another collaborator on this project. Visiting LANL was also useful, because it al- In the context of my PhD project, I received the VKI- lowed me to directly interact with researchers tasked AA Research Travel Grant in order to spend the summer with carrying out and modelling inertially confined fu- of 2017 working at the Institute for Computational Engi- sion (ICF) experiments. Since such experiments produce neering and Sciences (ICES), located at the University of collisional plasmas at very high temperature, there ex- Texas at Austin. I am very grateful to Prof. Irene Gamba, ists some similarity to the conditions prevalent in the my mentor at the institute, for her kind welcome and atmospheric gas surrounding space craft during reentry. for providing all of the resources and a fruitful research Future developments regarding physical models in our environment at ICES. Prof. Gamba’s expertise lies in the field could benefit from their expertise and vice versa. development of numerical methods for solving kinetic equations, such as the Boltzmann equation. During my stay, I also had the opportunity to attend the 9th Ablation Workshop in Bozeman, Montana. This The Boltzmann equation is the governing equa- workshop serves as a gathering point for researchers in- tion of Rarefied Gas Dynamics, and in the continuum vestigating novel concepts for thermal protection sys- limit leads to the Navier-Stokes- or Euler equations of tems (TPS) for space craft. It encompasses all aspects classical fluid dynamics. Our collaboration focused on of physical modeling, experimental investigations and comparing the accuracy and computational cost of a numerical tools to analyze the phenomenon of ablation, deterministic Spectral-Lagrangian solver for the Boltz- as applied to expendable heat shields, as well as degra- mann equation with the stochastic, particle-based DSMC dation of asteroids and other space debris entering the method, which is more prevalent in engineering prac- atmosphere. tice. This stay also was a good excuse for me and two colleagues from VKI to pay a visit to Yellowstone national park, located just a few hours away from the conference venue. Although we didn’t meet any bears, we had a good time exploring some of the backcountry trails in the wilderness.

Irene M. Gamba is professor of mathematics and leader of the ICES Applied Mathematics Group

Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium - 23 - m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] 23rd Newsletter of the VKI Alumni Association

sure to maintain the collaboration with both of them and will certainly visit ICES again.

The VKI Alumni Association would like to thank the University of Texas at Austin for covering unexpectedly all Erik’s expenses, which is noteworthy since it means that they found the experience to be very positive, a good re- ﬂection on the VKI as well as on Erik.

Obituaries he VKI Alumni Association regrets to announce the unexpected deaths of two former VKI professors in TOctober: Jean-André Essers on Tuesday 24th , and Buffalo herd we passed by, while hiking through Bryan Richards on Monday 30th. Yellowstone (photo credit B.Helber)

PROFESSOR JEAN-ANDRÉ ESSERS Jean-André Essers was a VKI graduate of 1972/73. He obtained his PhD degree under the supervision of Professor Jean Smolderen at University of Liege, was then hired by the VKI in 1980 as Assistant Professor to teach numerical methods in Fluid Dynamics, was promoted to Part-time Associate Professor in 1984. He left the VKI in 1988 to join the Faculty of Engineering at Uni- versity of Liege. He retired in 2013, receiving the title of Emeritus Professor of the University of Liege.

PROFESSOR BRYAN RICHARDS Bryan Richards joined the VKI as an Assistant Profes- sor in the Aeronautics/Aerospace Department in 1966. Enjoying partially burnt ravioli out of a can at our camp He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1970 and to site, VKI team left-to-right: Bernd Helber, Alessandro Professor in 1977. His research and teaching centered Turchi, Erik Torres (photo credit B.Helber) on experimental studies of high speed ﬂows with heat transfer, and he also developed the Compression Tubes I am certain that this visit will help to maintain and technology at the VKI for the CT-1 and the CT-2 facili- further enhance the existing collaboration between VKI ties. He left the Institute at the end of 1979 to take a po- and Prof. Gamba’s group at ICES. It was also very use- sition at Glasgow University as Professor for the Mechan ful for me personally, because it allowed me to gain a Chair of Aeronautics and Fluid Mechanics. He retired in broader perspective on my future research interests. I 2003, receiving the title of Emeritus Professor and Hon- wish to thank Prof. Gamba and Dr. Haack for their warm orary Senior Research Fellow. A full biography of Bryan welcome and continued support during my stay. I am Richards will appear in the next issue of this newsletter.

Association of the Alumni of the von Karman Institute - 24 - Chaussée de Waterloo 72, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgium m www.vki-alumni.org v +32-2-35 99 600 B [email protected] Newsletter Technical/Manuscript Editor: Mario Carbonaro, using Mehmet Mersinligil’s template B [email protected]