Wenyuan (Roger) Hou
Wenyuan (Roger) Hou is a PhD candidate in aeronautics and astronautics whose research interests are focused on design and structures for emerging propulsion applications. Roger has used MATLAB to model structural evolution processes during melt-based additive manufacturing of oxide dispersion-strengthened superalloys, a novel class of high-temperature materials with potential applications in reusable staged-combustion rocket engines. Supported by his second MathWorks Fellowship, he will build on these insights to explore how these alloys can enable novel turbine architectures that mitigate thermal fatigue. Roger’s work will integrate computationally efficient, reduced-order models of fatigue life with classical bounding theorems to rapidly sample the turbine design space and determine turbine designs that develop favorable residual stress profiles that suppress thermal fatigue. His research has strong potential to further our understanding of the structural evolution processes that govern the properties and performance of additively manufactured materials and, ultimately, to deliver novel turbine designs for reusable heavy-lift launch vehicles, unlocking next-generation space economics and space accessibility.