Most aircraft are powered by reciprocating engines, jet engines or rocket engines. Don Wilson and Frank Lu are perfecting a fourth type – pulse detonation engines.
Both are professors of aerospace engineering and have been studying shock waves, propulsion and the motion of gases for decades. Dr. Wilson had earned a bachelor’s in aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech and worked in industry developing applications for hypersonic wind tunnels while also pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Lu earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering at Pennsylvania State. He had earlier completed engineering degrees at Cambridge University and a master’s at Princeton.
A job with Vought Aircraft brought Dr. Wilson to Texas. “The first person I met upon arrival in Texas was Louise Files, wife of Professor Carl Files, first chair of what was then the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. I knew of UT Arlington through a colleague of mine at the Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) in Tennessee. He had gone to school with Dr. Jack Fairchild, who started the AE program at UTA, and suggested that I contact Fairchild about teaching part-time. As a result, I ended up teaching my first course, Thermodynamics, as a night lecturer in the spring of 1968.”
Dr. Wilson began teaching full-time in the fall of 1968 as an assistant professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, teaching undergraduate courses in fluid dynamics, direct energy conversion and aerospace propulsion. In 1971, he became an instructor/Ph.D. candidate; after earning his degree in 1974, Dr. Wilson again became an assistant professor.
“As the youngest faculty member on the block, I was assigned the task of developing a high-speed wind tunnel as a result of an early ABET recommendation that we expand our test capability beyond our existing low speed wind tunnel,” Dr. Wilson recalled. “Our first high-speed facility was a transonic tunnel that, fortunately, we were able to acquire from AEDC. From that start and over a period of about 10 years, we were able to add supersonic and hypersonic wind tunnels and an aeropropulsion research lab. This capability led to the creation of the Aerodynamics Research Center, which has been recognized by the Chief Scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center as an experimental aerodynamics research facility without equal in any university in the US.”
Dr. Lu came to UT Arlington in 1987, where he immediately assumed responsibility for completing the hypersonic wind tunnel development and initiated UT Arlington’s first hypersonics research program in support of the National Aerospace Plane Project.
“Our early work centered on developing functioning engine using oxygen and gaseous fuels such as hydrogen and propane, he said. “ Supporting the engine development were fundamental studies into ways of enhancing the detonation. A subsequent numerical modeling effort also contributed to the development of the engine.”
Both later became involved in revamping the aerospace engineering curriculum requirements and modernizing additional laboratories. Dr. Wilson advanced in the department, becoming director of the Aerospace Engineering Program in 1992 and also director of the NASA/UTA Center for Hypersonic Research in 1993.
“We first became involved in pulse detonation engine research in 1994 at the urging of engineers at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics (then General Dynamics), who were doing computational studies and needed experimental validation of some of their models,” said Dr. Lu. “The development has enjoyed funding from federal, state and private sources. It has also enjoyed collaborative work with investigators from Korea, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan. Other than propulsion, the engine has also been applied to terrestrial power production.”
Their shared interests in hypersonic flight would later lead to two U.S. patents on pulse detonation engine designs.
When Dr. Wilson became chair of the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department in 1997, Dr. Lu became director of the Aerodynamic Research Center. Both have become internationally-recognized authorities of these subjects. Their papers on shock waves and pulse detonation have been published in numerous technical publications and conference proceedings, resulting in numerous invited speaking engagements around the world.
Recently, the two received another form of recognition: An example of their research can be seen on the Wikipedia page describing pulse detonation engines - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pulse_detonation_engine. The engine in the photograph is their creation.
