EEC Planning: Track 1 BPE for Development of Hypersonics Research Collaborations

高超音速技术的发展是重新出现的全球太空竞赛的关键因素，并有可能彻底改变商业航空运输，太空访问和国防。美国空间科学和工程行业面临着在不久的将来有资格退休的劳动力的很大一部分，缺乏具有技能或经验的年轻工人成长为这些角色，以及有资格进行相关研究和开发的毕业生可能短缺。在航空航天领域，提高多样性对于实现改变文明的目标至关重要，如星际旅行、高超音速飞行、电动飞机和低排放推进技术。该项目将为学术合作伙伴（包括UTSA，霍华德，麻省理工学院）的多元化联盟提供一个机会，以解决这些当前和未来的航空航天劳动力的挑战，特别强调高超音速研究和劳动力的发展。UTSA是一所少数族裔服务机构，霍华德是一所历史悠久的黑人研究型大学，麻省理工学院是世界公认的工程教育和研究领导者。这种伙伴关系将利用这些机构独特的研究基础设施（包括UTSA的一个新的高超音速风洞），为高度多样化的学生群体提供改变生活的体验。这项计划拨款将使提出建议的团队能够促进和发展这种合作，从而促进未来高超音速技术的大量研究和开发。研究活动将与每个伙伴机构的教育推广活动紧密结合，作为一个平台，使不同群体的学生参与航空航天研究，同时使未来的航空航天劳动力多样化。速度快于5倍音速或5马赫-大约每小时4,000英里-通常被认为是高超音速。高超声速系统设计目前受到缺乏高速流实验数据的限制，这表明迫切需要验证计算流体动力学（CFD）模型。例如，几种能显著影响高超音速飞行器性能和结构完整性的基本物理现象--包括激波/边界层相互作用、湍流转捩和非平衡化学效应--继续给高超音速流的预测计算流体动力学模型的发展带来问题，需要在基础科学基础上进行更多的研究工作。该团队已经确定了这一独特的机会，将一批具有实验和计算高超音速空气动力学专业知识的科学家和研究人员聚集在一起。UTSA最近还建造了一个世界级的马赫数7风洞，用于独特的实验测量，而每个合作机构都拥有相当多的计算资源。这种技术能力，加上Karina Vielma博士提供的工程教育背景，使该小组能够为高超音速需求领域的代表性不足的学生提供宝贵的研究经验。有了这笔规划拨款，PI团队将探索这种合作的令人兴奋的潜力，并制定一个具体的框架，以促进这些机构的高超音速研究的增长，包括开发未来提交给NSF计划。UTSA-Howard-MIT团队将完成一系列活动来实现这些目标。活动将包括与合作团队的每月会议，学生和教师交流实地考察，与NSF项目经理的接触，联合研讨会，初步数据收集，收集受影响学生团体的反馈和调查，以及未来NSF提案的制定。预计这一努力将导致建立一种长期的伙伴关系，使有关各方互惠互利。在短期内，计划拨款，以巩固这种伙伴关系，交流思想，参观各自的校园，并编写建议，以NSF的计划。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的评估使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Hypersonic technology development is a key element of the re-emerging global space race, and has the potential to revolutionize commercial air transport, space access, and national defense. The U.S. space science and engineering industry faces a large fraction of its workforce eligible for retirement in the near future, a lack of younger workers with skills or experience to grow into those roles, and a possible shortage of graduates qualified to conduct relevant research and development. In the aerospace sector, improving diversity will be critical towards achieving civilization-changing goals like interplanetary travel, hypersonic flight, electric aircraft, and low-emission propulsion technology. This project will provide an opportunity for a diverse coalition of academic partners (including UTSA, Howard, & MIT) to address these current and future challenges in the aerospace workforce with a specific emphasis on hypersonic research and workforce development. UTSA is a minority serving institution, Howard is a historically black research university, and MIT is a world-recognized leader in engineering education and research. This partnership will leverage unique research infrastructure at these institutions (including a new hypersonic wind tunnel at UTSA) to provide life-changing experiences to a highly diverse group of students. This planning grant will enable the proposing team to foster and grow this collaboration, leading to considerable future research and development in hypersonics. Research activities will be tightly integrated with educational outreach at each partner institution, serving as a platform to engage a diverse group of students in aerospace research while diversifying the future aerospace workforce. Velocities faster than five times the speed of sound or Mach 5—approximately 4,000 miles per hour—are generally considered to be hypersonic. Hypersonic system designs are currently limited by a lack of experimental data for high-speed flows, representing a critical need for validation of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. For example, several fundamental physical phenomena that can significantly impact hypersonic vehicle performance and structural integrity—including shock-wave/boundary-layer interactions, turbulent transition, and non-equilibrium chemistry effects—continue to pose problems for the development of predictive CFD models for hypersonic flow, requiring additional research efforts grounded in basic science. The assembled team has identified this unique opportunity to bring together a collection of scientists and researchers with expertise in both experimental and computational hypersonic aerodynamics. UTSA has also recently constructed a world-class Mach 7 wind tunnel for unique experimental measurements, while each of the partner institutions possess considerable computational resources. This technical capability, coupled with the engineering education background provided by Dr. Karina Vielma, positions this group to offer valuable research experiences to under-represented students in the in-demand field of hypersonics. With this planning grant, the PI team will explore the exciting potential of this collaboration and develop a concrete framework for fostering growth of hypersonics research at these institutions, including developing future submissions to NSF programs. The UTSA-Howard-MIT team will complete a number of activities to accomplish these objectives. Activities will include monthly meetings with the collaborating team, student and faculty exchanges & site visits, engagement with NSF program managers, joint seminars, preliminary data collection, collection of feedback and surveys from impacted student groups, and development of future NSF proposals. It is expected that this effort will lead to a long-lasting partnership that will mutually benefit all parties involved. In the short term, the planning grant to solidify this partnership, exchange ideas, visit respective campuses, and write proposals to NSF programs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.