Research Areas
Research at ISAS/JAXA  Research at NASA GLENN RESEARCH CENTER  Research at Tohoku University

Research at ISAS/JAXA
Many of them are collaborative work with Prof. Kozo Fujii@ISAS/JAXA

Aerodynamic design of Mars airplane for the next Mars mission MELOS-1.(2009-)
Aiming at the next japanese Mars mission MELOS-1 in 2020, we are doing aerodynamic design of Mars airplane. Especially, we are interested in high performance wing for low Reynolds number flow condtion because the air density on Mars is roughly 1/100 of that on Earth. 

 

Research on aerodynamics of flapping wing for future Mars exploration airplane development (2004-)
This is a fundamental research on aerodynamics of flapping airfoil for future Mars exploration airplane. We use a Navier-Stokes Solver for aerodynamic evaluation, a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm for multiobjective optimization, and self-organizing map for data mining of the obtaiend Pareto-optimal solutions. This research revealed some aerodynamic knowledge useful for future flapping wing design.

Aerodynamic Design Exploration of the Reusable Sounding Rocket (2008-)
This research is on aerodynamic design exploration of the reusable sounding rocket under development in Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. We are looking at tradeoff among drag minimization in ascending and transonic/supersonic lift-to-drag maximization in cruising. This is a joint research with Inatani Laboratory.


Multiobjective design exploration of trajectory of the next Japanese solar observation mission SOLAR-C (2009-)
This work is on multibobjective design exploration of trajectory of the next Japanese solar observation mission SOLAR-C. This work is collaborative work with Prof. Kawakatsu at ISAS/JAXA. Multibojective design exploration is revealing tradeoff information among design objectives and sensitivity information of each design parameter.

Data mining of Pareto-optimal solutions (2007-)
Optimal solutions of a multiobjective design optimization problem is called Pareto-optimal solutions. It is very important for real-world design to extract essential information useful for designers from the Pareto-optimal solutions. Thus we are investigating approaches for data mining of Pareto-optimal solutions.

Active flow control using DBD plasma actuator (2006-)
This is an experimeltal research on active flow control using DBD plasma actuator. We apply the DBD plasma actuator to a wing model to control  flow separation from the wing surface.

　　　

Conceptual study of hybrid rocket using multiobjective design exploration (2008-2010)
Hybrid rocket has some advantages as lower operationecost and higher reliability. In this work capability of hybrid rocket design is investigated in conceptual level using multiobjective design exploration.

Multidisciplinary design exploration of Turbopump of the next generation rocket engine LE-X (2007-)
This research is on multidisciplinary design optimization of turbopump of the next generation rocket engine LE-X. For the multidisciplinary design optimization, we use a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm for optimization and self-organizing map for data mining. This is a joint research with JAXA's Engineering Digital Innovation Center.

Experimental research on Mach number effect on flow over a delta wing with blunt leading edge (2006- 2008)


Reliability improvement of JAXA's main rocket valves based on new design process using information technology (2003- 2008)
 We have introduced information technology to design and development process of JAXA's main rocket valves to improve is reliability. We have developed softwares and database system for detailed FMEA, FTA, and QFD.
Research on aerodynamics of reusable sounding rocket (2005-2007)


Aerodynamic design optimization of airfoil for future Mars exploration airplane (2004-2006)

Development of Design for multi-objective six-sigma for efficient design approach to obtain robust designs (2003-2006)


Development of Pareto-optimality-based constraint-handling technique for evolutionary algorithm （2004-2005）


Research at NASA Glenn research center
These are collaborative work with Dr. Meng-Sing Liou@NASA GRC

Aerodynamic design optimization of three-dimensional blade shape of axial-flow compressor （2001-2003）
Aerodynamic design optimization of multi-stage axial-flow compressor blade （2001-2002）
Conceptual design optimization of turbopumps using multiobjective evolutionary algorithm （2000-2001）


Research at Tohoku University
These research are done under the suvervision of Prof. Nakahasi and Prof. Obayashi


Comparison of design optimization methods in multiobjective design optimization problems (2000-2004)
Multidisciplinary design optimization of transonic wing using multiobjective evolutionary algorithm （1999-2000）
Stall prediction of two-dimentional wing using computational fluid dynamics （1999- 2000）
Wing design using real-coded adaptive range genetic algorithm （1999-2000）
A robust GA named Real-coded Adaptive Range Genetic Algorithm (ARGA) has been developed and applied to aerodynamic shape designs. Though aerodynamic designs of airfoils, the present method has proved to overcome the difficulty in solving large-scale design optimization problems. Abstract submitted to the 1999 IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Conference, Tokyo, Japan, October 1999.
Comparison of design variables for wing designs, Dr. Shigeru Obayashi, and Dr. Kazuhiro Nakahashi, 1998.9-.2000.3
Several encoding methods for wing shape designs are compared through a reproduction of NASA supercritical airfoil and an aerodynamic shape optimization using the GA code. The aerodynamic design demonstrates that the optimized designs using GAs depend on their encoding methods. It also indicates the proper coding procedure leads to finding a better optimum in aerodynamic optimization problem. Abstract submitted to the AIAA 14th Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, Cleveland, Ohio, June 1999.
Coding by Taguchi method for Genetic Algorithms Applied to aerodynamic optimization （1997-2000）
A new coding technique using Taguchi method is proposed for GA applied to an aerodynamic optimization. Taguchi method is used to investigate interactions of design variables and to determine the appropriate coding structure for GA in advance. The present GA based on the structured coding was applied to aerodynamic design of a transonic wing and the designs indicate the present GA is a promising approach for large-scale optimization problems.
Design optimization of supersonic wings using Genetic Algorithms (1997- 1998)
GA coupled with the Euler/Navier-Stokes code was applied to aerodynamic shape optimization of a supersonic wing for supersonic civil transportation (SST). The design result indicates that the present GA successfully minimizes both the induced drag and the volume wave drag in the given design space.
Transonic wing optimization using Genetic Algorithm(1996- 1997)
GA was applied to optimize a transonic wing shape. Designed wings show a tradeoff between an increase of the airfoil thickness driven by a structural constraint and a reduction of the wave drag produced by a shock wave. The present result indicates that EA has found a best feasible solution in the given design constraints.
Three-dimensional aerodynamic optimization with Genetic Algorithm (1995- 1996)
Genetic Algorithm (GA) coupled with a three-dimensional Navier-Stokes code was applied to optimize a subsonic wing shape. To overcome enormous computational time necessary for this optimization, Numerical Wind Tunnel at National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) in Japan, a parallel vector machine with 166 processing elements was used. Design results indicate feasibility of the present approach for the aerodynamic optimization in advanced computational environments.
Application of multigrid method to LU implicit schemes (1995-1996)
Multigrid strategy was applied to LU-ADI implicit scheme and LU-SGS implicit scheme for solving the two and three-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations. The results indicated whether or not the multigrid method improve the convergence rate of the baseline procedure depends on the fine grid relaxation process.