Prof. JIANG Zonglin from the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences won the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Ground Testing Award for 2016, becoming the first Asian recipient since its foundation. 

The award, which will be issued to JIANG on June 14 in Washington, is to honor JIANG’s “skillful leadership in conceiving, developing and commissioning of the world’s largest shock tunnel capable of true hypersonic flight simulation”, according to AIAA. 

The award, established in 1975, recognizes outstanding achievement in the development or effective utilization of technology, procedures, facilities, or modeling techniques for flight simulation, space simulation, propulsion testing, aerodynamic testing, or other ground testing associated with aeronautics and astronautics. 

JIANG and his team have dedicated themselves to theory and techniques of advanced hypersonic test facilities for 15 years, and finally established the techniques of duplicating hypersonic flight conditions on the ground and developed the shock tunnel JF12. 

“It is a great honor to be selected as the winner of the AIAA Ground Testing Award for 2016”, said JIANG. “Our team will make the most use of this advanced hypersonic test facility and we believe that any progress in this discipline could be helpful to pave the way toward the goal of flying faster, higher and further.” 

JIANG’s work has advanced the state of the art in large-scale hypersonic test facilities, which are necessary to test air vehicles at speeds above Mach 5. JIANG and his team created a hypervelocity detonation-drive shock tunnel capable of duplicating flight conditions at speeds ranging from Mach 5 to Mach 9 at altitudes between 20 and 50 kilometers. 

Being also a member of AIAA’s Propellants and Combustion Technical Committee, JIANG focused on the research of shock capaturing scheme, computer flow visualization and image processing, high temperature and supersonic gas flows, detonation phenomena and pulse detonation engines, detonation-driven high enthalpy shock tunnel, and Shock/vortex interaction. 

AIAA is the world’s largest aerospace professional society, serving a diverse range of more than 30,000 individual members from 88 countries, and 95 corporate members. AIAA members help make the world safer, more connected, more accessible, and more prosperous.