17th Symposium of VKI PhD Research 2026
Date: 10-13 March 2026
Location:
10-12 March 2026: VKI, Waterloosesteenweg, 72, 1640 Sint-Genesius-Rode, Belgium - near Brussels
13 March 2026 (only VKI staff and students):
Safran Aero Boosters, Route de Liers 121, 4041 Herstal , Belgium followed by a visit of BeCover, Rue du Fond des Fourches 23A, 4041 Herstal, Belgium
About the symposium
Don't miss the opportunity to learn about the exciting research activities conducted at VKI! Join us online (for the public) / on-site (for VKI members, supervisors and invited guests) from March 10th to March 13th for the VKI PhD Symposium, where prominent lecturers in three application fields of fluid dynamics will give keynote lectures to open each day of the symposium.
VKI PhDs will review the doctoral research carried out in the three departments of the Institute. The symposium is organized into sessions covering a range of topics, including:
- Compressor Aerodynamics & Heat Transfer
- Instrumentation & Measurement Techniques
- Propellant Management
- Turbine Aerodynamics & Heat Transfer
- Shape Optimization
- Liquid Metals & Industrial Flow
- Machine Learning for Fluid Dynamics
- Thermal Management and Process Safety
- Wind Energy & Environmental Flows
- Shape Optimization
- CFD & Numerical Methods
- Hypersonic Propulsion
- Aeronautics & Low Speed Aerodynamics
- Rarefied and Plasma Flows
- Aerothermochemistry
- Aerothermodynamics
Programme
Tuesday, 10 March 2026
08:30 - 09:00 Registration invited guests
09:00 - 09:20 Introduction
Prof. Jeroen van Beeck and Prof. Delphine Laboureur
Session: Aeroacoustics and Aerodynamics
Chair: Dr. Alessandro Zarri, Research Engineer
09:20 - 09:40 Towards Field Characterization of Drone Emission Noise Using an Attached Microphone Cage
Peter HARTFORD
09:40 - 10:00 Hybrid Experimental – Numerical Approach for Ice Mechanical Properties Characterization
Francesco MANCINI
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break
10:30 - 10:50 Experimental Investigation of Propeller-Strut Interaction Noise
Balint SOOS
10:50 - 11:10 Machine-Learning based Modeling of the Wall Pressure Statistics in Non-canonical Boundary Layers
Nicholas ZINGALE
Session: Thermal Management and Process Safety
Chair: Dr. Muhsin Can Akkurt, Research Engineer
11:10 - 11:30 Experimental Study of Flow in a Mini Channel by μPIV
Selçuk KIZILCAOGLU
11:30 - 11:50 Numerical Study of Ship Compartment Fires
Benjamin CREVITS
11:50 - 12:10 Cancelled
12:10 - 13:30 Lunch
Session: Compressor and Turbine Aerodynamics
Chair: Prof. Fabrizio Fontaneto, Turbomachinery and Propulsion Department
13:30 - 13:50 POD Reconstruction of Transitional Turbine Flows
Peter CASSIDY
13:50 - 14:10 Heat Transfer Effects in Compressor Bladings
Jorge PEREZ BARCENA
Session: Wind Energy and Environmental Flows
Chair: Prof. Wim Munters, Envrionmental and Applied Fluid Dynamics Department
14:10 - 14:30 Persistent Wind Speed Lows over the North Sea in High-resolution Climate Models
Anouk DIERICKX
14:30 - 14:50 Gravity Waves in Wind Farms: Bridging Models and Data
Alexandros PALATOS-PLEXIDAS
14:50 - 16:30 Poster session + drink
- Andrea BENI: Reduced-order Modeling of the Acoustic Signature of High-Speed Rotorcraft
- Joran DARTEVELLE: From Mesoscale Weather to Dispersion Modeling in Agroecosystems leveraging Large Eddy Simulation and Reduced Order Model
- Tommaso DE MARIA: Adaptive Control of Sloshing in Partially filled Tanks using Semi-active Baffles and Reinforcement Twinning
- Giacomo Gaetano DE SIO: Experimental and Numerical Study of Environmental Effects on Ionic wind for Atmospheric Electric Propulsion
- Asli Beril EJDER: Multi-Fidelity Modeling of Two-Phase Transport in Wicked Heat Pipes
- Alice FISCHER: Transient Growth Mechanism for Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition on Blunt Forebody
- Ioana GOCEA: Numerical Investigation of Water-liquid Metal Interactions under Film Boiling Conditions
- Charles JACQUET: Development of Engineering Wake Models for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines from Wind Tunnel Experiments and High-fidelity Numerical Simulations
- Yannick LECOMTE: Reinforcement Twinning for Real Time Control of Variable-pitch Quadcopter Propulsion Systems
- Domenico MASSARI: Advanced Methodologies for Thermal Protection System Design using Dynamic Ground Testing and Flight Correlation
- Carolina MORANDI: DECAF - Development of Evaporation and Condensation Correlations in Air and steam Finned channels
- Gianmario PERRUCCI: Development of a High-Order Computational Fluid Dynamics Solver to Simulate Electron Concentration in Hypersonic Flows
- Justin PESESSE: Influence of Aerothermochemistry on Laminar to Turbulent Transition in Hypersonic Flows
- Vittorio PIRO: Development of Uncertainty Quantification Techniques for Meteoroid Entry: Stochastic Approach to Trajectory and Radiation Modeling
- Francesco PORTA: Design of a Linear Cascade Subsonic Wind Tunnel for Rotating Detonation Engines Applications
- Florian SOYEZ: Numerical modeling of RFICP Torches for the Electrification of High Temperature Industrial furnaces
- Théo VAN DYCK: Machine Learning Based Flutter Safe Design of Axial Transonic Compressors in Aeroengines and Heavy Duty Gas Turbines
- Tobias WINTER: Variable-Order Subcell Limiting: A Discontinuous Galerkin Stabilization Technique for Robust and Accurate Flow Simulations
Wednesday , 11 March 2026
09:00 - 10:00 Keynote: The PhD journey: turning every stumbling block into a stepping stone
Dr. Clara Garcia Sanchez, TU Delft, The Netherlands
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break
Session: Liquid Metal and Industrial Flows
Chair: Dr. Matilde Fiore, Research Engineer
10:30 - 10:50 Numerical Investigation into CFD - PBE Models for an IRDE Reactor with Applications to Water Electrolysers
Aswath ASHOK
10:50 - 11:10 Development of Reduced Order Models for the Thermal Hydraulics of Nuclear Reactor
Valerio DI DOMENICO
11:10 - 11:30 A Numerical Analysis of Pore-Scale Two-Phase Flow in Porous Transport Layer of Proton Exchange Membrane Electrolyzer
Silay ÖNDER
Session: Machine Learning for Fluid Systems
11:30 - 11:50 Identification and Control of Floating Wind Turbines
Sebastiano RANDINO
11:50 - 12:10 Flow Development over an Accelerating Propeller at Low Reynolds Numbers
Manuel RATZ
12:10 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 14:45 Keynote: Stress to Resilience and Mental Well-being
Dr. Saar Jacobs, Belgium
Session: Machine Learning for Fluid Systems (continued)
14:45 - 15:05 A Meshless Data-tailored Approach to Compute Statistics from Scattered Data with Adaptive Radial Basis Functions
Damien RIGUTTO
15:05 - 15:25 High-Fidelity Fluid–Structure Interaction of Sloshing in Microgravity for Flexible Spacecraft
Umberto ZUCHELLI (online presentation)
15:25 - 15:55 Coffee Break
Session: Aerothermodynamics
Chair: Professor Guillaume Grossir, Aeronautics and Aerospace Department
15:55 - 16:15 Optical Characterization of Hypersonic Crosshatching
Diego HACHEZ
16:15 - 16:35 Numerical Investigation of the Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition over a Blunt Cone using High-Order Discontinuous Galerkin Methods and Stability Theories
Antoine GHYOOT
Session: CFD and Numerical Methods
16:35 - 16:55 Stabilisation Strategies for High Order DG Simulations of Hypersonic Turbulent Flows
Maxime BORBOUSE
16:55 - 17:15 Two-Dimensional Stability-Based Geometry Optimization of a Planar Quiet Nozzle and Assessment in Three-Dimensional Baseflow
Alberto TESTA
17:15 - 17:35 Revision of a Variational Multiscale Framework for Airfoil Simulation and Optimization
Carlo BRUNELLI
Thursday, 12 March 2026
09:00 - 10:00 Keynote: Numerical simulation of hypersonic flows
Dr. Pierre Henri Maire, CEA, France
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break
Session: Aerothermochemistry
Chair: Dr. Bernd Helber, Research Expert, Aerothermochemistry Research Expertise Group
10:30 - 10:50 Staggered Coupling Strategy of Flow and Material Solvers for Modeling of High-Enthalpy Flows with Ablation
Julien KLAUNER
10:50 - 11:10 Investigating Thermomechanical Behaviour of Woven Thermal Protection Material for Aerospace Applications
Diana MARTINS
11:10 - 11:30 Advancing Additive Manufacturing of Technical Ceramics for Aerospace Applications
Waut DECLERCQ
11:30 - 11:50 Characterization of Supersonic Plasma Flow over Flat Plate in the VKI-Plasmatron
Sander HOLUM
Session: Rarefied and Plasma Flows
Chair: Dr. Federico Bariselli, Co-leader of Rarefied and Plasma Flows Research Expertise Group
11:50 - 12:10 A High-Order Discontinuous Galerkin method for Inductively Coupled Plasma flows
Landry RIOU (online)
12:10 - 13:30 Lunch
Session: Rarefied and Plasma Flows (continued)
Chair: Dr. Federico Bariselli, Co-leader of Rarefied and Plasma Flows Research Expertise Group
13:30 - 13:50 Modelling and Simulation of Plasma-spacecraft Interaction and Charging in Very Low Earth Orbit
Jan SKACEL
13:50 - 14:10 Gyromoment Methods for Highly Magnetized Plasma
Zoubair TAZAKKATI (online)
14:10 - 14:30 Development of a Deterministic Boltzmann-Poisson Solver for the Simulation of a Rarefied Plasma Plume in the VKI DRAG-ON Facility
Bruno FONTAINE (online presentation)
14:30 - 14:50 Development of a high order numerical model for Hall Thrusters
Julien COLUTCHE (online)
14:50 - 15:20 Coffee Break
Session: Propellant management
Chair: Dr. Jorge Pinho, Senior Research Engineer
15:20 - 15:40 A Lagrangian Meshless Non-Isothermal Solver: High-Performance Python Implementation via JAX Matrix Operations on GPUs
Samuel AHIZI
15:40 - 16:00 Digital Twinning and Control for the Thermal Management of Cryogenic Tanks
Francisco MONTEIRO
16:00 - 16:20 Experimental Investigation of Bubble Cavitation at the Wall
Alessandro NOVI
Session: Hypersonic Propulsion
Chair: Dr. Bayindir Saracoglu, Research Expert, Hypersonic Propulsion and Combustion Research Expertise Group
16:20 - 16:40 Verification and Validation of Runtime Configurable Solver through Deflagration to Detonation Transition and Pulsed Detonation Engine Problems
Sunny RAGHAV
16:40 - 17:00 Multi-Objective Design Optimisation of Variable Cycle Engines
Karel VAN DEN BORRE
Session: Rarefied and Plasma Flows (continued)
Chair: Dr. Federico Bariselli, Co-leader of Rarefied and Plasma Flows Research Expertise Group
17:00 - 17:20 Effect of Thermochemical Nonequilibrium on Species Diffusion for RF Blackout Prediction (online)
Alexandra RICHET
Friday, 13 March 2026 (at Safran Aero Boosters, Route de Liers 121, 4041 Herstal , Belgium)
09:00 - 10:00 Keynote (Restricted to VKI Staff) : From current flow simulation trends to test validation in axial low pressure compressor
Stéphane Hiernaux, SAB and Rémy Princivalle, BeCover, Belgium
10:00 - 10:15 Coffee break
Session: Turbomachinery & Propulsion
Chair: Dr. Filippo Merli, Research Engineer
10:15 - 10:35 Aeroelastic Analysis of Instrumentation in Turbomachinery: Investigation of a Possible Root Cause of Rake Flutter
Bruno BARATA
10:35 - 10:55 Experimental Investigation of Supersonic Trailing Edge Flows
Andre DIETZ
10:55 - 11:15 Loss Modelling for Innovative High-turning Compressor Profiles by Advanced Data Driven Techniques
Julien HEINE
11:15 - 11:35 Adjoint Shape Optimization of a Turbo Heater based on Large Eddy Simulations through an Adaptation of the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes Equations
Loir VICTOR
11:35 - 11:55 Aerothermochemical Investigation of Reactive Turbomachinery for Steam Cracking Defossilization Using a Novel Implicit OpenFOAM Solver
Marco CASTALDI
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch
Session: Turbomachinery & Propulsion (continued)
Chair: Dr. Alessandro D'Aguanno, Research Engineer
13:10 - 13:30 Design, Optimization and Flow Analysis for an Aggressive S-shape Diverter-less Duct
Stefano PLATINI
13:30 - 13:50 Time-Resolved Self-Aligned Focusing Schlieren Applied to Turbine Cascades
Enrico ZAMMIT
13:50 - 14:10 Influence of Vortex Shedding Regime on Transonic Turbine Losses
Alexandre HALBY
14:10 - 14:30 Experimental Assessment and Modelling of the Effect of Free-Stream Turbulence on Turbomachinery Boundary Layers: Literature Review, Scaling Approach and Preliminary Experimental Results
Giacomo PASTORINO
14:30 - 14:50 Aerodynamics and Loss Budget of a Transonic LPT Profile
Giovanni DI LUCIA
14:50 - 15:00 Closing words
15:10 - 17:00 Visits : Shop floor and test center Visits (max. 60 people only VKI members)
1. Safran Aero Boosters, Route de Liers 121, 4041 Herstal , Belgium
2. BeCOVER, Rue du Fond des Fourches 23A · 4041 - Herstal · Belgium
Fee and Registration
The online participation and registration to the symposium is free. The on-site participation is only on invitation.
