William Scholten ’14, a graduate student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, has received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP). The NSF GRFP is a highly competitive fellowship awarded to students pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees in NSF-supported fields of science, mathematics, and engineering. The fellowship lasts for three years, pays for awardees’ tuition and fees, and provides a monthly stipend.
Scholten received his undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M in December 2014, and has been doing research with Dr. Darren Hartl (research professor at Texas A&M) and Dr. Travis Turner (researcher at NASA Langley) for the past two years as an undergraduate. Scholten is now a graduate student and is co-advised by Dr. Thomas Strganac (professor at Texas A&M).
His current research focuses on the development of a new shape memory alloy (SMA) implementation for aircraft noise reduction. The leading edge slat device of transport aircraft is a significant source of airframe in the vicinity of airports. The proposed solution, developed by researchers at both Texas A&M and NASA-Langley, is the concept of the slat-cove filler (SCF), which reduces aeroacoustic noise by removing the cavity between the main wing and slat. Currently, the team is looking into different methods of active SCF retraction and is studying its interaction will the flow field during take-off and landing.