Research
In a dark laboratory within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, a bright green laser passes through a cloud of suspended particles. On a nearby screen, their movement slows, then fragments into patterns. A graduate student adjusts the system in small increments, watching for changes that might reveal something consistent.
The experiment is designed to answer a specific question: How do the components of a solid rocket propellant mix, and what happens in the moment before ignition?
These are 鈥渉olographic measurements of particle motion to understand solid propellant mixing,鈥 Professor Joseph Kalman explained. As leader of the university's , Kalman focuses on energetic materials 鈥 substances that release energy rapidly through combustion 鈥 and on the physics and chemistry that govern how those materials ignite, decompose and combust.
Kalman is just one of many 91桃色 research centers and labs that approach persistent questions in aerospace design from multiple directions.
Our goal is to develop next-generation, high-performance and safe hybrid rocket engines that can further open the gates of space exploration to humanity.
Assistant Professor Mortaza Saeidi, for example, develops materials that, under controlled conditions, serve as fuel. He and Kalman lead students in studying hybrid rocket propellants 鈥 including paraffin-based fuels that burn faster and cleaner. In recent years, the work has expanded into additive manufacturing.
鈥淥ver the past year and a half, we have been working on a novel additive manufacturing approach called combinatorial or gradient-based 3D printing," Saeidi said. 鈥淥ur goal is to develop next-generation, high-performance and safe hybrid rocket engines that can further open the gates of space exploration to humanity.鈥
In the Beach Rocket Lab, Associate Professor Mahdi Yoozbashizadeh leads research in metal 3D printing for aerospace applications, overseeing a lab where functional rocket components are designed using a Pressure-Fed Static Fire Test Stand funded by the (AFRL). Students conduct the tests in the vastness of the Mojave Desert 鈥 a safer place to inflict up to 2,000 pounds of thrust.
Yoozbashizadeh and collaborator Professor Parviz Yavari also hold a patent in metal 3D printing using nanoparticles, and their work has generated numerous research papers and master鈥檚 theses.
Professor Yoozbashizadeh approaches a 10-foot-tall metal 3D printer and opens a small chamber, revealing a 300-watt laser used to manipulate stainless steel, titanium and other metals. Accompanied by a variety of plastic and composite 3D printers, students are able, he said, to do 鈥渁ll the fabricating of a rocket, from A to Z, in-house, with research-grade equipment in collaboration with experts at NASA and the Air Force.
鈥淩elativity Space, Northrop Grumman and others are all looking at ways to improve metal 3D printing," he added. "At the same time, we are also producing the engineers these companies want to hire."
Meanwhile, the university's STEAM-I Lab (Sustainable Thermal Energetics using Advanced Materials and Imaging) uses high-speed optical and infrared imaging to study heat transfer and thermal-fluid systems, and the PACK Lab (Perception, Actuation, Control and Network) studies swarms of drones and fleets of vehicles that sense one another and make coordinated decisions without a central computer.
Together, efforts like these connect research, education and industry 鈥 advancing the work that helps define Space Beach.
