MEP Lecture Series: From Everyday Noise to Scientific Insight: The Dynamics of a Transient Pressure Event
Event |
The Munich Institute of Integrated Materials, Energy and Process Engineering (MEP) warmly invites you to a lecture by Prof. Hans G. Hornung. At the invitation of MEP Director Prof. Nikolaus A. Adams and the TUM Chair of Aerospace and Geodesy, Prof. Hornung will give a scientific talk on March 12, 2026.
Date: March 12, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 001, ZEI
About Prof. Hans G. Hornung
Prof. Hornung is one of the most distinguished experts in experimental fluid mechanics. He is Emeri-tus C. L. “Kelly” Johnson Professor of Aeronautics and served for many years as Director of the Gug-genheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. His scientific career also included positions at the University of Melbourne, Imperial College London, the Australian National University, and the German Aerospace Center in Göttingen. Among his major projects at Caltech are
the T5 Hypervelocity Shock Tunnel, the John Lucas Adaptive-Wall Wind Tunnel, and a supersonic Ludwieg tube. His contributions to the field have earned him membership in the Royal Swedish Acad-emy of Engineering Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
About the Lecture
In his talk, Prof. Hornung takes a childhood experience as a starting point. At the age of ten, he and his brother discovered that a wooden bench falling onto concrete could produce an unexpectedly loud bang. A recent computational investigation of a simplified axisymmetric version of this event reveals the surprising complexity of the underlying gas dynamics. The process unfolds in four distinct phases. An initial pressure rise is followed by a radial pulsation. A flow condition then develops that produces the bang, before the system finally returns to rest. The lecture will present both the parameter study and the quantitative analysis of this phenomenon.