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A professional headshot of Rodney Bowersox with the words "Dr. Bowersox awarded AIAA's Dryden Lectureship in Research"
Dr. Rodney Bowersox delivered a lecture on hypersonic wall-bounded viscous flows as the recipient of the 2023 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Dryden Lectureship in Research. | Image: Texas A&M Engineering

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) awarded Dr. Rodney Bowersox the 2023 AIAA Dryden Lectureship in Research. The lectureship is one of AIAA’s most prestigious, and it underscores the importance of basic research in advancing aeronautics and astronautics.

Bowersox is the holder of the Ford Motor Co. Design Professorship I in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University. He is an associate dean for research in the College of Engineering and a Regents Professor. He is also the founder and director of the Texas A&M National Aerothermochemistry and Hypersonics Laboratory (NAL) and is the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station executive director of the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics. Bowersox is an AIAA Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineering Fellow and a 2017-22 Department of Defense Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow.

Bowersox delivered his lecture titled “Hypersonic Wall Bounded Viscous Flows: Theory, Ground Test, and Flight” at the 2023 AIAA SciTech Forum in National Harbor, Maryland, on Jan. 23.

During his lecture, he spoke on national interest in hypersonic flight that provides motivation for accurate simulation of viscous flows at high speeds. He explained the approach in developing and validating turbulence closure for flows with mechanical or thermochemical nonequilibrium. He presented an overview of key hypersonic viscous flow challenges followed by a description of second-order turbulence transport theoretical treatment. He described results acquired in the Texas A&M NAL that examine the role of mechanical and thermochemical nonequilibrium on the structure, statistics and modeling of hypersonic turbulent flow.

Bowersox concluded his lecture with highlights from the recent Air Force Office of Scientific Research Boundary Layer Turbulence (BOLT II) hypersonic flight experiment, successfully launched from NASA Wallops Flight Facility on March 21, 2022. The flight experiment provided new data to quantify the transition mechanisms and subsequent evolution of turbulence for a geometry with concave curvature and highly swept leading edges. 

This premier lecture is named in honor of Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, a renowned aerospace leader and a director of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, as well as the first deputy administrator of NASA. Since it was formed in 1961, the lectureship has been an occasion for sharing knowledge and advancements in research.