Aerospace Mechanics Research Center (AMReC)

The materials we rely on every day could become more reliable thanks to AI

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 20:38:36 +0000

The materials we rely on every day could become more reliable thanks to AI Jeff Zehnder Tue, 09/22/2026 - 14:38

Humans trust dozens of tiny materials each day with their lives and livelihoods— without being able to see the fine details of how durable they are.

Tiny carbon particles mixed with rubber in car tires help distribute heat when we speed up on a highway. And billions of nanoscale switches run the chips in our smartphones. But how long will these important materials last?

A team of physicists and aerospace engineers at CU �Ǹ�Թ� is working toward a future where artificial intelligence can help answer this question. The scientists created an AI tool that could eventually help engineers design manufactured materials that are more durable and predictable.

“AI in science is not only about automation, speed or replacing human expertise,” said Sanghamitra Neogi, an associate professor at the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, who led the research. “In materials science, AI may help researchers reason about hidden physics.”

Neogi’s team created the generative AI system called FluxGAN to learn how the microscopic structure of a coating is connected to the way heat moves through it.

Their research, published last month in Materials and Design, combined high-resolution microscopy images, physics simulations and AI model training to learn how microscopic coating structure and heat flow are connected.

“I call this solid state intelligence,” Neogi said. “Once you poke the material, this AI system is smart enough to tell you what is the ultimate response the material would have to things like extreme heat.”

A closer look

Tiny microscopic pores and grains can influence how heat flows through a material, how cracks form in it and how long it would survive under extreme conditions, she said.

The AI system is doing what a human cannot do: map all of these microscopic details and determine how they control heat flow. Understanding those heat-flow pathways could ultimately help researchers tackle a larger engineering question: when will a material begin to fail?

A rendering shows how heat would move through a coating. Researchers created an AI tool to help analyze a material on a microscopic level.

“These get super-heated, but we cannot see it, and it's a supremely complex system,” Neogi said. “So how do I predict when it will fail?”

Neogi said the technology might eventually be able to help engineers get better at building all sorts of complicated machines that must perform under harsh conditions like constant heat exposure and the extreme temperature swings of outer space.

Think of a heat shield on a spaceship or a thermal coating needed to protect the delicate chips that run computers and smartphones.

“Future technologies will require materials that can operate in harsher, smaller, faster and more complex environments,” Neogi said. “As materials and devices become too complex to design by intuition alone, AI may become part of how scientists connect invisible structure with observable physical behavior.”

Picture this

Neogi said the inspiration for FluxGAN, the AI system, was James Clerk Maxwell’s use of additive color theory to combine red, green and blue filtered images to produce the first color photograph.

Sanghamitra Neogi speaks about her startup, AtomTCAD Inc., at CU �Ǹ�Թ�'s Ascent Deep Tech Community Showcase on June 25, 2025. (Credit: Casey Cass/CU �Ǹ�Թ�)

She wrote in her study that this historic moment “illustrated how multiple channels encode richer information than any single channel alone.”

In her study, the AI system is helping do just that by bringing multiple channels of highly complex information together to give researchers a much better “picture” of a material and how it behaves.

Neogi also envisions a future where the AI system could live on a smartphone and be smart enough to analyze photos of materials and help determine how much longer they will last.

Just as technology currently enables someone to take a picture of a plant and have an AI system help identify what it is, someone might be able to take a close-up picture of their home’s foundation and have the physics-aware AI system help determine how durable it is.

But why stop on Earth? Neogi also envisions AI could someday look at a photo of the surface of an asteroid to help determine how to design the landing interface needed to have a spacecraft stick to it.

“These are really far visions, and I don’t know whether we’ll get there, but we’ll see,” she said. “That’s why I’m hoping people get excited about this research.”

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Smead Aerospace undergrad program ranked #6

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:26:31 +0000

Smead Aerospace undergrad program ranked #6 Jeff Zehnder Tue, 09/22/2026 - 09:26

Smead Aerospace ranked No. 6 and the College of Engineering and Applied Science climbed a spot to No. 14 amongst public universities in U.S. News and World Report’s best undergraduate engineering programs rankings.

The rankings placed CU Engineering at No. 26 overall, tied with Ohio State University, the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and the University of Washington, as well as private schools the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University.

“We hope these rankings lead even more students to discover the unique community we’re building at CU Engineering,” said Dean Keith Molenaar. “In addition to innovating in engineering education, we’re also focused on student retention and belonging. Our students are challenged and supported in ways that make them better engineers when they start careers or pursue grad school – I think these rankings reflect student excellence.”

In the engineering and computer science specialty rankings, four CU �Ǹ�Թ� engineering degrees were also ranked in the top 15 amongst public universities:

Aerospace engineering sciences: No. 6 (tie)
Environmental engineering: No. 7
Civil engineering: No. 10 (tie)
Chemical engineering: No. 11

Computer science also earned a spot in the rankings at No. 16 amongst public peers.

The rankings were released on the U.S. News and World Report website on Sept. 22. Undergraduate rankings are based solely on the judgments of deans and senior faculty at peer institutions who participated in a peer assessment survey. Read more about the methodology.

Smead Aerospace ranked No. 6 and the College of Engineering and Applied Science climbed a spot to No. 14 amongst public universities in U.S. News and World Report’s 2027 best undergraduate engineering programs rankings.

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Tailored surface vibrations to improve aerodynamic performance in passenger jets

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 21:32:58 +0000

Tailored surface vibrations to improve aerodynamic performance in passenger jets Jeff Zehnder Fri, 08/21/2026 - 15:32

Jeff Zehnder

Visualization of broadband flow stabilization by a super-resonant coiled phononic subsurface.

A passenger jet soars across the sky at 640 mph, its wings pummeled with wind and boundary-layer turbulence, challenging the plane’s operation and efficiency.

Advancing research from Mahmoud I. Hussein aims to prevent that turbulence with engineered microscopic vibrations from synthetic, subsurface materials that can dramatically improve fuel efficiency.

Commercial planes consume over 10,000 gallons of jet fuel on a single cross-country trip, so improvements in fuel economy could lead to big savings for airlines.

In new papers published in Physical Review X and Proceedings of the Royal Society A, Hussein and his team report dual discoveries that bring the research closer to reality: super-resonance and scatterless interference.

“The prevailing paradigm since the beginning of aviation is to control drag by only shaping the vehicle. Now we have a new concept to influence surface drag using materials that can dynamically interact with the airflow, enhancing the vehicle performance in an unprecedented manner,” said Hussein, a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the �Ǹ�Թ�.

Hussein also has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Physics and an affiliation with the Materials Science and Engineering Program.

His research focuses on phonons—tiny vibrations within the material itself, rather than the conventional vibrations of an entire structure. Although such movements are incredibly tiny, their effect is not.

Harnessing and controlling these internal vibrations is the basis of the emerging field of phononics, which Hussein has helped develop since its early stages more than two decades ago. In 2011, he co-founded the Phononics 20xx conference series, which has grown into a leading international forum for the field.

In 2015, he introduced the concept phononic subsurfaces (PSubs), materials that can passively manipulate vibrations on surfaces interacting with a fluid flow. Since then, PSubs have been designed―by his group and other researchers around the world―to operate at a single frequency.

Mahmoud Hussein

Now, Hussein has shown that by coiling PSubs, it is possible to manipulate vibrations across a range of frequencies, enabling a new phenomenon called super-resonance, which significantly expands the technology’s potential.

“We started with one frequency and aspired to eventually cover a broad range of frequencies, which is the way turbulence is generated in the real world. Now we’re there. A coiled phononic structure overcomes a long-standing limitation in laminar flow control strategies,” Hussein said.

Scatterless interference takes the technology further. Instead of a single PSub at one location, groups of them can be arranged in a grid or as a lattice to delay turbulence across a large surface, like the wing of a plane or the body of a hypersonic vehicle.

“This allows effective downstream control,” Hussein said. “These two problems, downstream control and broadband control, have been the key limitations of the technology since its introduction over a decade ago. We’ve resolved both.”

Adam Harris is a materials science and engineering PhD student in Hussein’s lab and co-author on both papers. He said these advances take the research to the next level.

“These two new milestones provide complementary solutions towards the puzzle that is the effectiveness of PSubs for actual flight conditions,” Harris said. “Scatterless interference gives us a way to attenuate the spatial behavior of the instability field downstream of the PSub, while super-resonance gives us a way to broaden the range of frequencies over which the control can operate. Together, they bring the original PSub concept closer to the level of versatility needed for real-world flow environments.”

While the current research is still computational, PSubs are more than just theoretical. Several groups around the world currently have built functional physical prototypes and are working towards demonstrating their effectiveness in wind tunnels.

“Our goal is to move beyond the traditional paradigm that flow control must come from solely changing the shape of the exposed surface or, more recently, using active actuators,” Hussein said. “With phononic subsurfaces, a wing or a fuselage can retain its shape and smoothness and remain passive, while the material beneath it is engineered to allow interaction with the flow in a highly targeted way.”

Although this research is focused on aerospace structures, both super resonance and scatterless interference may have even greater applications.

“In addition to aircraft, this could be important for marine vessels, pipelines, turbomachinery, anywhere turbulence is an issue. In fact, both ideas may have application beyond flow control altogether” Hussein said.

The ongoing research also tackles hypersonic flows and is supported by a $7.5 million, five-year Department of Defense Office of Naval Research (ONR) Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).

Additional coauthors on the research include Armin Kianfar (MAeroEngr’20), now at the Aerospace Corporation; David Roca and Daniel Yago, both from Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain; and Christoph Brehm of the University of Maryland, College Park.

A passenger jet soars across the sky at 640 mph, its wings pummeled with wind and boundary-layer turbulence, challenging the plane’s operation and efficiency. Advancing research from Mahmoud I. Hussein aims to prevent that turbulence with...

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New leadership in Smead Aerospace

Jeff Zehnder — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 14:55:57 +0000

New leadership in Smead Aerospace Jeff Zehnder Wed, 07/01/2026 - 08:55

Jeff Zehnder

John Evans is the new chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the �Ǹ�Թ�.

A 13-year veteran of the department, Evans was elected by the Smead Aerospace faculty and is taking over from Hanspeter Schaub, who is stepping down after four years of service.

Looking Forward

“I’m very excited. There’s a lot of interest in aerospace right now and lots of new opportunities that directly link to research in our department, including human spaceflight, astrodynamics, quantum sensing, and hypersonics. We’re uniquely positioned to be part of solving big challenges related to these opportunities,” Evans said.

His elevation to chair follows tenure as the department’s associate chair for undergraduate curriculum, where he spearheaded the development and initial deployment of a new undergraduate aerospace curriculum.

The overhaul ensures continued alignment with industry needs and provides new course offerings and academic opportunities for students. It also aims to be more scalable, amid increasing demand for aerospace engineers.

Student Growth

Over the last 15 years, Smead Aerospace has nearly tripled in size to become the second largest undergraduate aerospace program in the United States.

“The growth signals the interest in our department, and more generally, the aerospace industry in Colorado. People want to be here. Throughout this curriculum development process, I’ve been working closely with a lot of faculty and staff. Those relationships are important stepping into the chair role,” Evans said.

As the student body grows, Smead Aerospace is also looking to expand its faculty ranks. Evans said faculty growth will be an important priority as the department responds to rising student demand, emerging research opportunities and the evolving needs of the aerospace sector.

Beyond the classroom, the aerospace chair has responsibilities in donor and industry engagement. Evans said he is looking forward to expanding the department’s industry-sponsored research.

“We’re very involved with industry in senior projects and education, but less on research. There’s a national shift of universities engaging with business more directly on research and there are opportunities we can plug into,” he said.

Aerospace Excellence

Evans joined CU �Ǹ�Թ� in 2013. His research focuses on fluid dynamics and fluid structure interaction. He has been repeatedly recognized as a highly cited researcher and was the 2021 recipient of the Collegiate Educator of the Year award from the Rocky Mountain chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

He holds a PhD in computational and applied mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin.

As chair, Schaub led the department through significant budget restructuring, ongoing enrollment growth, new collaboration with student groups, and development of a formal strategic vision. He remains a member of the aerospace faculty and Evans said he is eager to build on that foundation.

“Hanspeter has done a tremendous amount for the department,” Evans said. “I’m grateful for his leadership and excited to work with our faculty, staff, students, alumni and partners on the next phase for Smead Aerospace.”

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Smead Aerospace ranked #5 among public universities by U.S. News

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:00:22 +0000

Smead Aerospace ranked #5 among public universities by U.S. News Jeff Zehnder Tue, 04/07/2026 - 09:00

The �Ǹ�Թ� is again ranked as one of the top 10 public engineering graduate programs in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report’s Best Graduate Schools list for 2026-27.

In the specialty rankings, nearly all of CU Engineering’s graduate degree programs were ranked in the top 20 amongst their public peers – with two in the top 10.

Aerospace engineering sciences: No. 5
Environmental engineering: No. 7
Chemical engineering: No. 11
Mechanical engineering: No. 14
Computer engineering: No. 14
Civil engineering: No. 15
Computer science: No. 15 (Best Computer Science Schools)
Electrical engineering: No. 17
Biomedical engineering: No. 19
Materials science and engineering: No. 20
Biological engineering: No. 26

“These U.S. News & World Report rankings represent the strongest performance in the history of our graduate programs and reflect the extraordinary dedication of our faculty, staff and students,” said Keith Molenaar, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science. “Having every department with at least one graduate program ranked in the top 20 among public universities speaks to the depth and consistency of excellence across the college. This recognition affirms our commitment to impactful research, outstanding graduate education and preparing engineers and applied scientists to lead and serve society.”

When compared to its public university peers, CU �Ǹ�Թ�’s engineering graduate program landed at No. 10. The college was ranked No. 18 overall, tied with Columbia University and the University of Maryland-College Park, when compared to both public and private universities.

To calculate its rankings, U.S. News and World Report looks at a range of data about graduate programs, including research activity, peer and recruiter assessments, and student selectivity. Read the full methodology.

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Aerospace professor elected to National Academy of Engineering

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 23:08:02 +0000

Aerospace professor elected to National Academy of Engineering Jeff Zehnder Fri, 02/13/2026 - 16:08

Iain Boyd is one of three CU �Ǹ�Թ� faculty being inducted into the National Academy of Engineering for 2026.

Election to NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education.

Richard Obermann, senior technical advisor for the Colorado Space Policy Center at CU �Ǹ�Թ�, was also elected as a member of the NAE.

The new members of the Class of 2026 join Scott Diddams, Hanspeter Schaub, Dan Frangopol and Charles W. Hull, engineers with ties to CU �Ǹ�Թ�, who were elected to the NAE last year. More than 20 engineers with ties to the College of Engineering and Applied Science at CU �Ǹ�Թ� have been elected to the NAE over the years.

Dana Anderson

Dana Anderson (Credit: Infleqtion)

JILA Fellow; Professor, Department of Physics; appointment to the Department of Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering

Anderson was recognized for "for contributions to optical quantum engineering of ultracold atoms."

He joined the CU �Ǹ�Թ� faculty in 1984 and has long been at the forefront of translating laboratory science into real-world impact. As founder and chief science officer of Infleqtion (formerly ColdQuanta), he has helped lead the development of practical quantum systems including clocks, inertial sensors, radio frequency sensors, networks, and quantum computing platforms. Infleqtion systems are currently operating on the International Space Station through NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory mission, with continuous operation for over five years.

Anderson's academic research spans quantum optics, atomic physics, atom-chip technologies and precision measurement, areas in which his group has developed integrated atom interferometers and practical devices based on ultracold atoms. He earned his doctorate in physics from the University of Arizona and is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.

Reflecting on his election to the NAE, Anderson emphasized the community that helped make it possible: “I owe much to the support that CU Physics, JILA and Engineering have given me over the years to transition atom-based quantum technology into the ‘real’ world.”

Iain Boyd

H.T. Sears Memorial Professor, Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences; Director, Center for National Security Initiatives

Boyd is recognized "for contributions to the computational simulation of high-temperature gases and plasmas using kinetic methods for hypersonics and space propulsion."

He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of aerothermodynamics. Boyd's research focuses on physical and computational methods for analysis of nonequilibrium gas and plasma dynamics processes that occur around hypersonic vehicles and in space propulsion systems.

He has authored over 250 journal articles, more than 450 conference papers, and a book titled "Nonequilibrium Gas Dynamics and Molecular Simulation." He joined CU �Ǹ�Թ� in 2019 following positions at the University of Michigan, Cornell University and NASA Ames Research Center.

Boyd earned his doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics from the University of Southampton in England. He is a fellow of the American Institute for Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA), the American Physical Society and the Royal Aeronautical Society.

"Hypersonics is so engaging to me because it involves so many different disciplines including gas dynamics, chemistry, materials, structures and propulsion," Boyd said. "Interest in hypersonic systems has never been greater with major activities in national security, space exploration and the evolving space economy."

Bob Erickson

Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering

Erickson is recognized "for advances in modeling, control, education and massive open online courses in power electronics."

He is a pioneering figure in power electronics whose innovative research has transformed the field and set new standards for efficiency and performance in electric vehicles, as well as in inverters for solar power, wind power and battery energy storage systems. He joined the CU �Ǹ�Թ� faculty in 1982 and served as chair of the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering from 2002-06, 2014-15 and 2018-2020.

Erickson is a life fellow of IEEE, a fellow of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute at CU �Ǹ�Թ� and is the author of the textbook Fundamentals of Power Electronics. He received the IEEE William E Newell Power Electronics Award in 2021, the CU �Ǹ�Թ� Inventor of the Year award in 2015, the Holland Teaching Excellence Award in 2010, and the IEEE Power Electronics Society Transactions Prize Paper Award in 1996.

His research interests include modeling and control of power conversion systems, modular and multilevel converter systems and power electronics for electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, and data centers. Erickson received his doctorate in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

“I am most grateful for this honor, and I very much appreciate the support and collaboration of my colleagues in ECEE, the college and CU �Ǹ�Թ� through the years," Erickson said.

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23 years after Columbia disaster, a one-of-a-kind ‘plasma tunnel’ recreates the extreme conditions spacecraft face upon reentry

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 16:16:16 +0000

23 years after Columbia disaster, a one-of-a-kind ‘plasma tunnel’ recreates the extreme conditions spacecraft face upon reentry Jeff Zehnder Mon, 02/02/2026 - 09:16

Picture a spacecraft returning to Earth after a long journey.

The vehicle slams into the planet’s atmosphere at roughly 17,000 miles per hour. A shockwave erupts. Molecules in the air are ripped apart, forming a plasma—a gas made of charged particles that can reach tens of thousands of degrees Fahrenheit, many times hotter than the surface of the sun.

The sight is spectacular to behold, but it’s also dangerous, said Hisham Ali, assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

The Columbia disaster is a tragic example. On Feb. 1, 2003, as the space shuttle reentered Earth’s atmosphere, plasma flooded into the vehicle through a defect in its shield of protective tiles. The shuttle disintegrated, and seven crewmembers, including CU �Ǹ�Թ� alumna Kalpna Chawla, died.

Illustration showing what NASA's Orion spacecraft might look like upon its return to Earth. (Credit: NASA)

Ali has dedicated his career to helping prevent those kinds of accidents.

“One of the most critical and dangerous phases of any space mission is when spacecraft reenter Earth’s atmosphere,” he said. “If we’re taking more humans to orbit through space tourism, we need to do that safely and effectively, and that’s a challenging problem.”

Scientists call this kind of flight “hypersonic.” Vehicles hit hypersonic speeds when they travel at Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, and faster. At sea level, that’s a blistering 3,800 miles per hour.

Ali and his team are trying to recreate the wild physics that occur at those speeds, entirely from the safety of the ground.

To do that, the group opened a new kind of research facility on campus in late 2025. Known as an inductively coupled plasma tunnel, the facility generates streams of plasma that flow at speeds of hundreds to thousands of miles per hour and burn at up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit and hotter.

He and his students are using this one-of-a-kind facility to test how new materials and other technologies behave in such a treacherous environment. They’re also exploring an out-there idea: whether engineers can use powerful magnets to actually maneuver vehicles flying at incredible speeds, something that’s not possible today.

“There’s not a chamber exactly like this anywhere in the world,” Ali said.

A lab that glows

That machine is coming to life now in a windowless lab on CU �Ǹ�Թ�'s East Campus. There, a 40-kilowatt generator roars on, and it’s hard to hear anything over the sound.

Ali and a small team of graduate students monitor a series of readouts on a computer terminal. Beside them are the main components of the group’s plasma wind tunnel: The first is a tube made of quartz glass, known as a nozzle, which is about the size and shape of a wine bottle. It feeds into a much larger chamber that’s sealed with stainless steel several inches thick.

“I think we’re ready to light,” Ali says to his team.

In an instant, a lavender-colored light blinks on in the quartz-glass tube. The eerie glow comes from a plasma, like the kind that threatens spacecraft when they return to Earth.

From there, the plasma rushes into the metal chamber, which you can peer into through a porthole window. Inside, every surface radiates orange from the heat.

To simulate the conditions of hypersonic flight the group needs two things: speed and heat.

To build up speed, he and his students inject a stream of argon gas into their tunnel. A powerful vacuum system then sucks that gas through the tunnel—and fast. The vacuum can pull more than 20,000 cubic meters of air per hour, making it one of the most powerful machines of its kind at any university in the United States.

The heat comes next. The researchers hit their plasma with strong radio waves that flip back and forth. Those waves generate electric currents within the gas, eventually causing it to explode into a plasma. Once the argon is lit, the team can then inject regular, Earth air into the tunnel.

“My students and I worked a lot of late hours to make this happen,” Ali said.

Hisham Ali opens the door to the plasma tunnel chamber.

Staying cool

Ali’s own passion for hypersonic flight began on a school trip.

The engineer grew up in Alabama, and when he was in fifth grade, he attended Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. There, a guide pulled out a tile similar to the ones NASA engineers once used to shield space shuttles from heat during reentry.

“They put a blowtorch on one side and let us put our hands on the other. You could still feel that it was cool,” Ali said. “I thought that was very interesting.”

It kicked off Ali’s lifelong dream of helping humans explore the solar system—and come back safely.

The new plasma tunnel brings him one step closer to that goal.

Ali explained that he and his students can use a metal arm to lower almost anything—like a new type of heat-resistant material or design for a sensor—into the flow of their plasma. The streaming plasma instantly forms a shock wave around the obstruction. The team can then test how technologies behave under those kinds of extreme conditions.

The researchers have already collaborated with one aerospace company to test a new type of heat-resistant material. They have plans to work with several more companies in the months ahead.

But the facility does more than just capture Earth’s atmosphere in a bottle. It can also simulate the atmosphere of many other planets. What would happen, for example, if a space capsule rammed into Mars’ thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere?

“Once our plasma is lit, we can inject carbon dioxide and create a plasma made of flowing carbon dioxide, similar to what a spacecraft might experience at Mars,” Ali said.

Hisham Ali inspects his plasma wind tunnel.

Room to maneuver

The team is tackling what might be the most persistent challenge of hypersonic flight: Once a vehicle hits those kinds of speeds, it’s nearly impossible to steer. That’s because anything that sticks out from a plane or spacecraft, like wings or flaps, would burn up almost at once. As a result, pilots can’t easily change a spacecraft’s trajectory after it reenters Earth’s orbit if something goes wrong.

Ali’s team hopes to get around that limitation with the help of an unusual property: magnetism.

Plasmas, Ali noted, are made of charged particles. If you have a powerful enough magnet, you can potentially change the flow of those charged particles, much like how you can use toy magnet to move around iron filings.

The researchers envision that future spacecraft could employ ultra-strong magnets to push on the plasma shock waves around them. In the process, they might build up enough force to turn—at least a little bit.

The team will soon start running experiments to test that idea.

For now, Ali is excited to see the culmination of a dream that began with a blowtorch all those years ago.

“Increasing humankind’s understanding of our world and others is something I’ve always found really inspiring,” he said.

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Spectroscopy spotlights Smead Aerospace materials research

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 22:45:14 +0000

Spectroscopy spotlights Smead Aerospace materials research Jeff Zehnder Thu, 12/11/2025 - 15:45

Research led by Maryam Shakiba is being highlighted in Spectroscopy.

The industry trade publication interviewed Shakiba and Santiago Marin about the journal article "Thermo-oxidative aging of semi-crystalline polyimide films: Experimental characterization and predictive modeling." The work was co-authored by Shakiba, Marin, and Marwa Yacouti and published in Polymer Degradation and Stability.

Shakiba is an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the �Ǹ�Թ�. She is an expert in computational mechanics as well as materials and composites under extreme conditions. Marin and Yacouti are PhD students in her laboratory.

The technical discussion breaks down their research to provide a predictive framework for understanding and forecasting long-term thermo-oxidative degradation in polyimides.

The work is important to developing accurate performance predictions for high-performance polymers used for aerospace and electronics in challenging environments.

Read the full interview at Spectroscopy...

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Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 21:56:10 +0000

Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread Jeff Zehnder Fri, 12/05/2025 - 14:56

In a windowless, warehouse-sized lab on campus, a team of CU �Ǹ�Թ� researchers huddle around two wind tunnels—long metal tubes that blow air currents at controlled speeds. The crew turns out the overhead lights. The fire, glowing blue and yellow through a window in the tube, is the only light to be found. Shannon turns on the air current, speeding it up and slowing it down, and the flames flicker and sway wildly.

The researchers are using the wind tunnels to study wildfire behavior. For nearly a decade, the team has been delving into the hundreds of factors that can affect the way wildfire starts, moves and spreads, as well as the damage it causes.

Ultimately, the team has an ambitious goal: to build computational tools that can predict how wildfire will behave. They envision a day when, shortly after a fire starts, firefighters can plug in details about it and learn where—and how quickly—it could spread. The tools could help keep communities safer in a world where climate-driven wildfire is becoming more common—and more dangerous.

“Being able to have more accurate, better predictors of fires is extremely important to protecting people, lives and property,” said Shannon. “The more accurate we can make our simulations in the long run, the safer we can keep wildfires.”

The research team also brings a unique, interdisciplinary approach to studying wildfire, blending ideas and technology from mechanical and aerospace engineering.

“This research was driven by recognizing that there was a gap. There were these really advanced aerodynamics and sensing tools that had not been used in this field yet,” said Greg Rieker, a research team member and professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Teasing apart the elements of wildfire

Wildfire behavior is complex and hard to predict because there are so many variables—like wind, rain, humidity, fuel and topography—to consider. The researchers have been methodically isolating and studying these variables to understand more about how fire behaves under different conditions.

The team is using wind tunnels to better understand basics like how fire moves, its shape and structure, and how it transfers heat downstream. They’re also looking at the impact of ground slope on fire spread, using a tunnel that can tilt at an angle.

“The idea is to model the influence of ground slope to think about wildfires climbing hills versus descending. You have different physics and different dynamics,” said John Farnsworth, a team member and associate professor in CU’s Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

The team is also exploring how embers form and spread. Wind can carry these burning pieces of wood or debris miles away from a fire, sparking additional blazes. Embers were likely a major driver of the December 2021 Marshall Fire and the October 2020 East Troublesome Fire, which spread from Grand Lake to Estes Park overnight due to blowing embers.

A large smoke plume from the 2020 East Troublesome Fire in Grand and Larimer counties. Wind helped push the fire across the Continental Divide from Grand Lake to Estes Park, prompting massive evacuations. (Source: BLM)

In a study that has not yet been published, former mechanical engineering graduate student Charlie Callahan set one-millimeter wooden discs on fire to create embers, then dropped them into a wind tunnel and took a high-speed thermal video of the embers moving through the tunnel.

“Larger firebrands can travel long distances and start a fire a mile away, which causes fire spread. But also, small firebrands can change the rate of fire spreading over short distances,” Callahan said. “There hadn't been too many studies on looking at this specific size of firebrand.”

The study found that the embers, or firebrands, fluctuated rapidly in temperature—by hundreds of degrees—as they traveled through the tunnel. And the fluctuations happened more frequently in embers that were traveling at faster speeds compared to the wind speed. The faster they moved, the hotter they got.

Callahan and the other researchers plan to continue studying firebrands to understand more about the significance of these temperature changes and how they affect fire spread.

Looking forward

The researchers say it’s still extremely difficult for firefighters to predict how fires behave and spread, especially in areas with variable terrain and wind conditions. Fires such as the Marshall Fire and the East Troublesome Fire can spread more quickly and erratically than expected.

Scientists believe wildfire will likely become an even more significant threat as climate change progresses, temperatures rise and drought conditions persist in many areas. When fires happen, it’s crucial to be able to understand and predict how they’ll behave.

The work is particularly urgent for communities in the wildland-urban interface that border on wilderness and are more vulnerable to wildfire. The researchers hope their predictive tools might help improve evacuation plans and enhance firefighting approaches.

Peter Hamlington, a professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering and the principal investigator behind this research, noted the impacts of wildfire extend beyond direct burn damage, and smoke from the fires can also travel long distances and negatively affect human health.

“A better understanding of the causes and dynamics of wildland fires will help us develop new computational tools for predicting the occurrence of fires and mitigating their most devastating effects,” Hamlington said.

“Ultimately, our project is focused on the development of more accurate and reliable predictive tools that can be used by those seeking to understand and reduce fire risk.”

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Nuclear-powered missiles—How they work, what Russia's claimed test means for global strategic stability

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 21:59:22 +0000

Nuclear-powered missiles—How they work, what Russia's claimed test means for global strategic stability Jeff Zehnder Fri, 10/31/2025 - 15:59

The Russian military claims to have flown its Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile 8,700 miles over 15 hours. Read from CU expert Iain Boyd on The Conversation.

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