When Joachim Hodara defends his doctoral dissertation in February, it won't be the first time he's been grilled on the subject.

When Joachim Hodara defends his doctoral dissertation in February, it won't be the first time he's been grilled on the subject.

On Dec. 8, Hodara was recruited to present his work, "Turbulence Closure for Static and Dynamic Stall in the Transitional Regime" before scientists at NASA Ames Research Center as a part of the regular Advance Modeling and Simulation seminar series.

"It was great practice for my doctoral defense," said Hodara, whose research under Dr. Marilyn Smith has focused on transition and turbulence modeling for rotorcraft applications.

"But more than that, it was a fantastic opportunity to meet so many of the people whose research papers I've read over and over again. Really, these are the people who've been framing the field."

Hodara's work ultimately seeks to improve rotorcraft speed and efficiency by better defining the performance conditions that prevent it from traveling effectively at higher speeds.

"We need simple models to predict rotorcraft performance at high speed, but, first, we need to understand exactly what is going on," he said.

Employing high-fidelity numerical simulations, Hodara hopes to develop such an accurate understanding of the problem that he will be able to develop simpler, less costly models to resolve it. He has teamed up with researchers at the University of Maryland who are conducting the experimental work, thus allowing Hodara to focus on the CFD analysis.

"This research holds a lot of promise. If we can get helicopters to fly faster, we will be able to respond more quickly and successfully in rescues and other situations," he said.

Joachim Hodara is a Ph.D. candidate and graduate research assistant. Before coming to Georgia Tech, he received two M.S. degrees from Cranfield University and Ecole Centrale de Lille. His honors and awards include a Best Paper Award (aerodynamics) at the 71st AHS Forum (2015), two Vertical Flight Foundation scholarships (2013 and 2014), the Southern Regional Lichten Award (2014) and the Director’s prize for best performance in the M.S. at Cranfield University (2012).

Find out more about Hodara's research.