MAE Research

Heng Ban is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His research interests include thermophysical properties of materials, fluid dynamics at micro- and nano-scale, and energy and environmental aspects of coal and biomass utilization. Prior to joining Utah State University, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he led many projects sponsored by DOE, NASA, EPRI and industry.

Steven Folkman is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His research interests involve structural analysis using finite element methods, structural dynamics, design of spacecraft structures, and analysis of buried structures. He is associated with USU's Space Dynamics Laboratory where he has had an active role in the design and analysis of a number of payloads.

Dr. Folkman is also involved with USU's Buried Structures Laboratory where his interests involve soil/structure interaction, finite element modeling and testing. The buried structures laboratory is recognized as one of three laboratories in the United States for performing tests on buried pipes.

Thomas Fronk is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His primary research interest is in composite structures. He has received numerous teaching awards including "Teacher of the Year" and "Advisor of the Year" for the College of Engineering. He also serves as the faculty advisor for the student section of ASME.

Rees Fullmer is an Associate Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Utah State University, where he teaches courses in Dynamics, Spacecraft Controls, Linear and Nonlinear Control Theory, and Robotics. His research activities center on spacecraft and optical instrument control systems for spacecraft. He is currently investigating jitter stabilization methods for optical sensors, lidar control systems modeling, and magnetic attitude control techniques. He previously designed the attitude determination and control system for SDL's Skipper spacecraft, as well as participating in other programs and studies on small spacecraft control problems for BMDO, MDA, DARPA, ONR, and AFRL. Dr. Fullmer has worked in spacecraft control system design since 1993.

David Geller is an Assistant Professor of Mechancial and Aerospace Engineering. His research interests are in spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control systems, as well as trajectory design for space missions. He also has an interest in space physics. Recent projects and studies include a lunar sample and return mission, a Mars entry, descent, and pinpoint landing study, a Mars orbital rendezvous study for a Mars sample and return mission, and a navigation system design for LEO and GEO inspection satellites. His expertise includes orbital rendezvous maneuvering and navigation, atmospheric entry guidance and navigation, spacecraft trajectory design, powered flight guidance, linear covariance analysis, closed-loop dynamics simulation development using graphical programming languages, astrodynamcis, and optimization theroy.

Thomas Hauser is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His research interests are in the areas of computational fluid dynamics, parallel processing and large-eddy simulation. He recently received an Honorable Mention Gordon Bell Prize in the Price/Performance category.

Christine E. Hailey is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and an Associate Dean in the College of Engineering at Utah State University. She is Director of the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education, an NSF-funded Center for Learning and Teaching. She is a member of the ADVANCE-US team, an NSF-funded program to address issues that impact female faculty's effectiveness and satisfaction in the four engineering and science colleges at Utah State. Her teaching responsibilities include Thermodynamics and a Women in Engineering Seminar. She also serves as an ASME ABET evaluator.

Leila Ladani is an assistant professor of Mechanical and Aero Space Engineering. Her research interests include materials and manufacturing with emphasize on characterization, constitutive properties, fatigue, fracture, failure and damage behavior of materials at micro and nano scale levels. In addition, her research involves design and process optimization of microelectronics devices and materials used in aerospace, defense, health care, commercial and other applications for optimum quality and reliability. Her recent works include damage initiation and evolution in voided and un-voided Pb-free solder joints used in micro-electronic devices. She is involved in both modeling and experimentation of materials and is actively perusing research in developing experimental techniques for characterization of materials and structures in micro and nano scales, multi-scale modeling of material and bio materials.

Leijun Li is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and is the Director of the Materials Processing and Testing Laboratory. His research interests have focused on materials science and manufacturing engineering, using the methods of heat and mass flow, microstructure characterization, mechanical testing, and fracture mechanisms. Recent projects include laser processing of single-crystal superalloys, fabrication of nano-scale particles, analysis of ultrasonic consolidation of composites, and failure analysis of engineering structures.

Warren Phillips is a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, flight mechanics, and aircraft design. His research interests are in the area of aerodynamics and flight mechanics. His particular areas of interest include airfoil design and modeling, wing tip vortex effects in finite wing design, propeller performance analysis, development of aircraft design software, aircraft performance optimization, computational methods for incompressible fluid dynamics, and turbulence modeling in incompressible flow.

Barton Smith is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and is the Director of the Experimental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. His research has focused on oscillating flows and their application to flow control, thermoacoustics, and thermal management. Recent Projects have included fundamental studies of oscillating flow, jet vectoring, the instability of parallel 2-D jets, and thermoacoustic chip coolers for thermal management.

Robert Spall is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Spall's research interests are in the area of applied computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer. Past work has involved swirling flows and vortex breakdown, buoyancy driven flows, aerodynamic flows, environmental flows, turbulence modeling, and algorithm development. He has also been active in developing computational fluid dynamics algorithms for use in engineering education.

Brent Stucker is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and he is Director of the Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Laboratory. This laboratory is being developed to utilize a collection of technologies for creating novel structures from advanced material systems. Equipment in this lab includes Laser Engineered Net Shaping, Selective Laser Sintering, high temperature furnace, metallurgical analysis, precision welding, and additional equipment for investigating applications where computer-controlled manufacturing technologies intersect applications of advanced materials.

These applications include (Dr. Leijun Li is a co-PI on many of these projects):

1. Fabricating superior medical implant structures
2. Repair of worn or damaged aerospace components made using advance materials
3. Multi-material and gradient material structures
4. Satellite manufacturing
5. Titanium powder metallurgy
6. Injection molding and die casting tooling and EDM electrodes
7. Fabricating complex structures for thermal/fluids experiments and educational projects

Dr. Stephen A. Whitmore. is an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Utah State University. He joined USU after 28+ years working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Dr. Whitmore's recent research focus at USU is on the development of piloted simulation models for lunar-return lifting reentry vehicles, with an emphasis of developing high-precision low-dispersion footprint techniques for lifting aero-capture and aero assist. He is supporting the NASA and Lockheed CEV Entry, Descent, and Landing EDL team. Dr. Whitmore is director of the Chimaera Hybrid Rocketry program at USU. Experience gained with the Chimaera rocket program has recently spun off a series of research topics focusing on the characterization and modeling of medium-scale experimental hybrid rocket motors. Dr. Whitmore teaches classes in compressible fluids, propulsion systems, and mechanical measurements at USU.

Byard Wood is Professor and Department Head of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His area of specialization is heat and mass transfer phenomena in energy systems with an emphasis on solar energy applications. His present research focus is an experimental evaluation of a hybrid solar lighting technology, development of a hydrogen based renewable electric power system, and improving the efficiency of desalination processes. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers. He is a registered Profession Engineering (Mechanical) in the State of Arizona.

Wenbin Yu is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His expertise is in solid/structure mechanics, multibody dynamics, and computational mechanics (finite element method), with an emphasis on developing efficient yet accurate models for smart or composite materials/structures. He has developed several engineering programs which are frequently requested by government, academic, and industry researchers throughout the world. He is also actively pursuing research in multiscale simulation with applications in material science, bioengineering, and nanotechnology. For detailed and most updated information, please browse his personal page.