Dr. Jose Palacios joined the faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Penn State University in August 2013. Jose received his bachelor, MS and PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the same department and school. He spent 5 years as a post-doctoral researcher at the Penn State Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence. During that time, his main research focus has been aircraft and wind turbine icing. Jose has developed testing capabilities to investigate icing physics and methods to prevent ice accretion. The construction of an Adverse Environment Rotor Test Stand and an upcoming Ice Crystal Wind Tunnel have helped secure funds for on-going research in the field of rotorcraft icing physics, engine icing, de-icing systems, and ice protective coatings |
Jose continues to expand his current research in the aircraft-icing field while maintaining fruitful professional relationships with industry and government partners. Jose is also establishing new lines of research in the fields of active vibration control and actuator health diagnostics. Successfully deploying ruggedized, high authority actuators and sensors on future rotor systems has the potential for transformational gains in rotorcraft vehicles. Enabling robust vibration and loads control will enhance flying qualities, consequently reducing pilot workload. Active rotor technologies open the door to exciting research in the field of swashplateless rotors, non-thermal ice protection systems, and rotor blade structural health prognosis, that in turn, could improve reliability, sustainability, safety, and productivity of vertical lift vehicles. Jose believes that it is critical to continue to advance both actuation and sensing technologies and the development of associated control algorithms. Aggressive research and development efforts are necessary to assure the ultra-reliable operation of these active rotor systems. Challenging environmental conditions, inherent dynamic loads, and affordable manufacturing and installation tolerances provide many research challenges to fielding reliable active rotor systems across various rotary wing platforms. Jose continues to expand testing expertise of active rotor systems to design and evaluate robust active rotor concepts such as trailing edge flaps, leading edge slats, and Micro Trailing Edge Effectors (MiTE).
Areas of Interest :
- Rotor blade, engine, and wind turbine icing. Rotorcraft Aeromechanics. Active rotors
Video of AERTS in Action:
Teaching:
- AERSP 301 (Introduction to Aircraft Structures)
- AERSP 470 (Advnaced Aircraft Structures)
- Preparing the following courses:
- AIRCRAFT ICING (Coming on Fall 2014)
- SMART STRUCTURES (Coming on Spring 2015)