ME Graduate Student Wins AIAA Award

Hongyuan Zhang, a graduate student in Suo Yang's Computational Reactive Flow and Energy Lab (CRFEL), won the Martin Summerfield Graduate Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Only one award recipient is chosen per year from candidates all around the world. "This is the most prestigious award for any graduate student in propellants and combustion," said Yang, Zhang's advisor.

Zhang is a fourth-year ME PhD student whose research focuses on multiphase flows and transcritical flow simulation. "This award is an acknowledgment of the efforts I have made in the past, and it will encourage me to continue and finish my work," said Zhang. "I hope my work on developing high-fidelity CFD solvers based on vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) theory can provide a new tool to investigate transcritical flows and combustion." Zhang will attend the award ceremony in January 2023 at the AIAA SciTech Forum and Exposition in National Harbor, MD.