Gas Surface Interactions Lab

UK’s Alexandre Martin wins NASA medal for advancing space technology

Alexandre Martin, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) in the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering at the University of Kentucky, has been awarded the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal — one of the highest honors given to individuals outside the agency.

Poster Presentations at ACCESS Review 2025

Ph.D. students Sean McDaniel and Berk Gur presented their research at the ACCESS Review held at the University of Colorado Boulder.

UK grad is reaching for the stars

Congratulations to Asa for his successes.

Congratulation to Kate McLarney-Popham

On Monday, April 21st, Kate McLarney-Popham successfully defended her MSc thesis, titled "Computational Modeling of the Heat Treatment of White Oak Bound for Spirit Maturation". Congrats!

Congratulation to Kirsten Ford

On Thursday, April 17th, Kirsten Ford successfully defended her MSc thesis, titled "Kentucky Re-entry Universal Payload System (KRUPS): Second Atmospheric Re-entry Flight". Congrats!

New Journal Papers

Price K. J., Martin A., and Bailey S. C. C., "Measurement of particulates formed during thermal protection system spallation in an arc-jet environment", Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, (2025)  Volume 167.doi: 10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2025.111487. McQuaid J. A., Brehm C., Zibitsker A. L. and Martin A., "Development of an Overset Near-Body Cartesian Solver for Graphite Ablation Simulations", AIAA Journal, (2025) .

New papers at AIAA SciTech 2025

Grover M. S., Valentini P., Bisek N. J., Jo S. M., Davuluri R., Martin A., Notey A., Panesi M., Andrienko D., Hanquist K. M., and Fraijo D., "Comparative Analysis of Thermophysics Models for the Simulations of Nonequilibrium Flow" , AIAA SciTech 2025 Forum, AIAA Paper 2025-0641, Jan. 2025.doi:10.2514/6.2025-0641. Gur H. B., Fu R., and Martin A., "Modeling NuSil Coating With Thin-Layer Approach" , AIAA SciTech 2025 Forum, AIAA Paper 2025-1039, Jan. 2025.

New group photo

New talks at 14th Ablation Workshop

Fu, R., "Fracture and Failure Modeling in Ablative Materials ",  14th AWS, Nov 2024.Martin, A., "Overview of the KREPE-2 Hypersonic Flight Mission ",  14th AWS, Nov 2024.Tacchi, B., "Data Analysis of the Kentuck Re-entry Universal Payload System (KRUPS) Hypersonic Flights ",  14th AWS, Nov 2024.Many Posters 

Talks from 2024 Southeast Regional Space Grant Meeting

The talks were given in the 2024 Southeast Regional Space Grant meeting at Oxford, MS, September 26-27, 2024.