Papers authored by Georgia Tech School of Aerospace Engineering students, faculty, and alumni were awarded top honors by the American Helicopter Society at its 71st Forum, held in Virginia Beach this May.
Among those recognized were AE professors Marilyn Smith and Eric Johnson; Georgia Tech graduate students Joachim Hodara (AE), Daniel Magree (AE), Stephen Havilland, and Dimitry Bershadsky; and GT-AE alumni Dr. Daniel Prosser, '15, and Dr. Troy Schank,'08.
Of the 255 papers selected for review, the 20 best from each technical area were selected. Each paper then competed in the Technical Directorate comprising of 3-4 technical areas. Seven finalists were chosen to compete for the Gessow Best Forum Paper Award.
"This year, Georgia Tech and Bell Helicopter each had three papers selected in the top 20," said Smith, an AHS Technical Fellow.
"That represents the highest number of papers in an organization selected for best paper."
GT-AE alumnus Dr. Troy Schank and his Bell Helicopter colleague Dr. Kynn Schulte were recognizedfor their work, "Collaborative Investigation of the Aerodynamics Behavior of Airfoils in Reverse Flow" which received three much-coveted awards: Gessow Best Paper of the AHS Forum, Best Paper for the HUMS/CBM, and Best Paper in the Systems Engineering Technical Directorate.
Prosser and Smith took home the Best Paper in the Modeling and Simulation Technical Area and Best Paper in the Systems Integration Technical Directorate for their work, "Physics-Based Aerodynamic Simulation Models Suitable for Dynamic Behavior of Complex Bluff Body Configurations."
Prosser, who received his doctorate in May, will be joining NAVAIR in July 2015.
Winners of the Best Paper in the Unmanned VTOL Aircraft & Rotorcraft Technical Area
were Havilland, Bershadsky, Magree, and Johnson for their presentation, "Development of a 500-gram Vision-based Autonomous Quadrotor Vehicle Capable of Indoor Navigation."
Hodara and Smith joined University of Maryland colleagues Andrew Lind and Anya Jones in winning the Best Paper for the Aerodynamics Technical Area for their work, "Collaborative Investigation of the Aerodynamics Behavior of Airfoils in Reverse Flow," a joint venture between UMD and GT-AE's Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence and ARO.