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VKI

von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (Belgium)

The von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI in short), founded in 1956, is an international non-profit organization (INPA) for post graduate education and research in fluid dynamics. The educational program based on the concept of “training in research by doing research” includes a one year post graduate study in fluid dynamics, attended by 30-35 students, and a PhD research program involving more than 50 candidates. Permanent staff of VKI is about 100 in total, spread over its three departments: Aeronautics and Aerospace, Environmental and Applied Fluid Dynamics, Turbomachinery and Propulsion.

The research and training activities are carried out combining experimental, theoretical and numerical approaches, and span over industrial safety applications. VKI has a large number of advanced experimental facilities, in total 43 wind tunnels and test rigs, available in the domain of aerospace, aeronautical, turbomachinery and industrial fluid dynamics. They cover a large span, ranging from low speed to hypersonic. Experimental research is complemented by an important activity in the domain of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) which now covers about 40 % of the research activities. Four clusters of multi-processor computers are available.

Many of the research activities carried out at the VKI are supported by research contracts with industry, governmental institutions or international institutions. VKI is currently or has been involved, as partner or coordinator, in several EC projects or networks, such as, VALIANT, RESTART, IDIHOM, PHYS4ENTRY, FLOWAIRS, IDEALVENT, LEMCOTEC, SEARCH, AFDAR, RBF4AERO, SESAME, MYRTE,…

Contact persons

Philippe Planquart

Lilla Koloszar

Silvania Lopes

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