Professor Zingg’s research areas include aerodynamics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and aerodynamic shape optimization. His current research is concentrated on applying high-fidelity aerodynamic shape optimization to the design of unconventional low-drag aircraft configurations motivated by the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft. Together with two colleagues from NASA, he is a co-author of the textbook Fundamentals of Computational Fluid Dynamics, published by Springer in 2001. He has held the Tier I Canada Research Chair in Computational Aerodynamics and Environmentally Friendly Aircraft Design since 2001 and was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004 for research in the design of environmentally friendly aircraft. He is a Fellow of the CASI and an Associate Fellow of the AIAA.

The motivation for the research in the computational aerodynamics group is based on two premises. The first is that we require a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per passenger-km from the next generation of aircraft. Although the current contribution of civil aviation to climate change is relatively modest, demand for air travel is projected to increase at 5-6% per year, while emissions per passenger-km have historically decreased at a rate of 1-2% per year. It should be clear that this situation is not sustainable, and we need aggressive R&D to obtain larger reductions in emissions. The second premise is that aerodynamic optimization can play an important role in achieving this goal through the design and evaluation of new concepts and configurations for low-drag aircraft. The specific goals of the computational aerodynamics group are:

1. To advance the state of the art in algorithms for high-fidelity aerodynamic shape optimization.
2. To apply these algorithms to the design and development of the next generation of aircraft with greatly reduced greenhouse gas emissions per passenger-km.

The group has strong interactions with Bombardier Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney Canada, and the NASA Ames Research Center. Our flow solver TORNADO has been used by Bombardier Aerospace in the design of high-lift systems for many years.

Recently completed projects include the following. A general unsteady adjoint formulation was developed and applied to a hybrid acoustic prediction algorithm based on the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations combined with the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings wave propagation formulation to provide an efficient far-field noise minimization algorithm. In another project, an automated multipoint optimization procedure has been developed for practical aerodynamic design problems with multiple operating requirements. CFD projects include the development of an efficient higher-order Newton-Krylov implicit Runge-Kutta time-marching algorithm for unsteady flows and a parallel higher-order Newton-Krylov-Schur solver for the three-dimensional Euler equations. The latter flow solver provides the basis for an efficient new three-dimensional aerodynamic shape optimization capability that has been successfully applied to multipoint transonic wing design with over 170 design variables. Moreover, the algorithm has been used to study induced drag minimization of unconventional configurations with nonplanar wakes.

Current projects in the computational aerodynamics group are aimed at the development of novel algorithms for high-fidelity aerodynamic shape optimization and application of these algorithms to the design of new aircraft configurations with reduced drag. Within these general areas, there are numerous exciting thesis topics.

Applications from talented students are always welcome. Please see Professor Zingg's web site for more up-to-date information. Several recent papers are posted there.