Dr. David Peters Speaks at AIAA Technical Specialist Meeting at Boeing IDS in St. Louis

Dr. David Peters, the 2008 recipient of the Alexander A. Nikolsky Honorary Lectureship, spoke at the AIAA Technical Specialist meeting April 14 at Boeing IDS Building 100. His topic, "How Dynamic Inflow Survives in the Competitive World of Rotorcraft Aerodynamics," was especially timely in this era of the resurgence of rotorcraft for both civil and military applications. The presentation was rich in both technical and historical details, with Dr. Peters making a strong case for the continued use of dynamic wake models in future rotorcraft design.

Dr. Peters currently serves as the Director of Washington University's Center for Computational Mechanics and the Associate Director of Georgia Tech/Washington University Center of Excellence for Rotor Technology. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Applied Mechanics from Washington University in St. Louis, and completed his Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. Dr. Peters has been on faculty at Washington University since 1975, and is also affiliated with Georgia Tech. His reputation in the field of wake modeling and rotorcraft technology is firmly established in the aeronautic engineering field, and his mastery of the dynamic wake model was clearly evident.

The presentation was essentially the one that was given at the AHS International Annual Forum in Montreal , Canada on April 29, 2008. The merits and shortfalls of other aerodynamic models, such as computational fluid dynamics, free wake, and prescribed wake were discussed before venturing into dynamic wake modeling. The dynamic wake model predicts flow of air past the rotor blades as a function of time, radius and azimuth. It uses a fixed number of state variables that vary with user needs, and is more robust than other models due to its inherit simplicity and hierarchical nature. The model is hierarchical in that each level of improvement can be added so that some level can be used for analysis at any given time.

The development of the dynamic wake model was traced from the insights of Ken Amer, G. J. Sissingh, Bob Loewy, Rene Miller, Kurt Hohenemser, and others (many of which were also Nikolsky Lecturers). This cumulative development process, which mirrors the hierarchical nature of the model, increases its versatility. The model, to which Dr. Peters also dedicated much of his career, was shown to correlate well to test data, and can be adapted to tandem and tiltrotor technologies.

Dr. Peters clearly demonstrated his mastery of the technical aspects of aeronautical engineering, along with his conversational and engaging presentation style. You can view the written presentation at http://research.engineering.wustl.edu/~petersd/index.html.