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    Education in Research through Research


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  • von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics

    Education in Research through Research


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  • von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics

    Education in Research through Research


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  • von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics

    Education in Research through Research


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  • von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics

    Education in Research through Research


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In the memory of Jean Ginoux

Jean ginouxIt is a very sad duty to announce that the Honorary member of the Board of Directors and former VKI Director, Professor Jean J. Ginoux, passed away on Thursday 2 March 2017.

Professor Jean J. Ginoux was and will remain a central figure of the VKI. He is the last of the VKI members that were present at the founding of the institute in 1956, when Professor Theodore von Kármán himself entrusted him and Professors Paul Colin and Jean Smolderen with the task of developing the academic programmes of the TCEA (Training Center for Experimental Aerodynamics). Professor at the creation of TCEA, Jean J. Ginoux was appointed Associate Director in 1973 and Director in 1976 until his retirement in 1990. He was then nominated Honorary member of the Board of Directors in recognition of his contributions to the von Karman Institute.

Jean Ginoux' stay in Princeton during 1955-56 was extremely profitable for our Institute. Involved in a basic research study on the separation and reattachment of supersonic turbulent boundary-layers financed by the US Air force, he took this opportunity to extend his work to the laminar case because of the low Reynolds numbers that existed in the supersonic tunnel of the VKI. He also performed research in the two hypersonic tunnels of the VKI, H-1 and H-3, notably on shock-boundary layer interactions, hypersonic heating and cross-hatched ablation. In the early 70’s, together with Professors Paul Colin and John Wendt, he initiated the regrouping of various VKI labs (low-speed, supersonic, hypersonic and low density) into the Aeronautics/Aerospace Department and the General and Environmental Fuid Dynamics Department (GE dept.), which he first headed, and which was renamed EA dept. some years later. He was well known in the international scientific scene, being also a full member of the Fluid Dynamics Panel (FDP) of AGARD, the precursor of the Research and Technology Organization (RTO), now renamed STO. He was also an extremely wise financial administrator, with a careful management of the VKI budget, and instrumentation investments made with the savings at the end of each financial year.

The VKI students who had the privilege of attending his lectures will remember him as an exceptionally skilled and rigorous teacher.

Born in 1925, Jean Ginoux obtained in 1947 a mechanical/electrical engineering degree, then in 1948 an aeronautical engineering degree from the Free University of Brussels and was hired as full-time assistant. After receiving his doctoral degree in March 1956 when returning from his research at Princeton, he became assistant professor, then professor and full professor at the Free University of Brussels (ULB).