Daniel Kirk, Ph.D.
Professor | College of Engineering and Science Florida Tech
- Melbourne FL
Dr. Kirk's research focuses on air-breathing propulsion and rocket propulsion, and additive manufacturing for aerospace applications.
Areas of Expertise
About
He joined Florida Tech in 2004 and is currently a professor in the Department of Aerospace, Physics and Space Sciences.
Dr. Kirk’s research interests focus on air-breathing and rocket propulsion, experimental and computational fluid dynamics, and advanced and additive manufacturing for existing and new aerospace applications. He has obtained over $4 million dollars in external funding, produced over 80 conference and journal publications, served as a visiting scholar at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA Kennedy Space Center and managed research projects with NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the Office of Naval Research.
In collaboration with NASA and MIT, Dr. Kirk’s research group has directed experiments onboard the International Space Station to study how liquid propellant slosh behavior affects the dynamics of rocket motion.
Research Focus
Air-Breathing Propulsion for High Thrust-to-Weight Aircraft
Investigation and modeling of turbine combustion processes for the design of high specific thrust aircraft engines. Experimental and numerical investigation of the augmentation in surface heat flux due to interaction of residual freestream combustor fuel with film-cooled turbine surfaces. Reduced order analytical models and governing non-dimensional parameter framework for film-cooling prediction and design in the presence of near-wall reactions.
Analysis, Design and Testing of MEMS-scale, Liquid Bi-propellant Micro-rocket Systems.
Fluid, thermodynamic and heat transfer analyses of various system components, including turbo-pump assemblies, valve control of propellants, cooling methods, thrust chamber and nozzle design. Development of transient models to predict governing time scales in rocket starting processes, including time scales for ignition, supercritical behavior of propellants, cooling performance, and thrust versus time dependence. Experimental performance investigation of micro-servo valve assemblies for design of fluidically-actuated micro-valves, with application to aerospace, mechanical and biological systems.
Media Assets
Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.S.
Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
1999
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ph.D.
Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
2002
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
B.S.
Mechanical Engineering
1997
Links
Social
Selected Articles
Extraction of Pendulum Model Parameters from Steady-State Slosh Data in Diaphragm Tanks
Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets2022
Experimental Investigation of Spherical Tank Slosh Dynamics with Water and Liquid Nitrogen
Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets2020
Progress towards a Microgravity CFD Validation Study using the ISS SPHERES-SLOSH Experiment
AIAA Propulsion and Energy 2020 Forum2020
Comparison of Propellant Settling Approaches for On-Orbit Propellant Depots During Propellant Transfer Maneuvers
AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum2019
Affiliations
- National Engineering Honor Society
- Tau Beta Pi
Accomplishments
Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Ralph A. Teetor award
2008
