Francesco Panerai

For More Information

• Center for Exascale-enabled Scramjet Design (CEESD)
• Center for Hypersonics and Entry Systems Studies (CHESS)

Education

• B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Università degli Studi di Perugia (Perugia, Italy) 2005.
• M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Università degli Studi di Perugia (Perugia, Italy) 2007.
• Research Master in Fluid Dynamics, von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (Rhode-Saint-Genese, Belgium) 2008.
• Ph.D. Industrial Engineering, von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (Rhode-Saint-Genese, Belgium) and University of Perugia (Perugia, Italy) 2012. Thesis: "Aerothermochemistry Characterization of Thermal Protection Systems". Thesis Advisors: Prof. Olivier Chazot, Prof. Gianluca Rossi.

Academic Positions

• 2012. Postdoctoral Fellow, Aeronautics and Aerospace Department, von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (Rhode-Saint-Genese, Belgium). Advisor: Prof. Olivier Chazot
• 2012 - 2015. Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY) . Advisor: Prof. Alexandre Martin
• 2019 - present. Assistant Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 2020 - present. Assistant Professor (by courtesy), Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Other Professional Employment

• Material Scientist, Thermal Protection Systems and Materials Branch, NASA Ames Research Center - AMA Inc. (Moffett Field, CA) 2012 - 2018

Research Interests

• Aerothermodynamics
• High temperature materials
• Hypersonics

Chapters in Books

• Chazot O, Panerai F. High-Enthalpy Facilities and Plasma Wind Tunnels for Aerothermodynamics Ground Testing. Chapter 7. In: Josyula E, editor. Hypersonic Nonequilibrium Flows: Fundamentals and Recent Advances, American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, April 2015.
• Panerai F. Temperature and heat flux measurements. Chapter 6. In: Discetti S, Ianiro A, editors. Experimental Aerodynamics. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, March 2017.

Selected Articles in Journals

• Swaminathan Gopalan K, Borner A, Ferguson J, Panerai F, Mansour NN, Stephani K. Gas-surface interactions in lightweight fibrous carbon materials. Computational Materials Science 205 (2022) 111190.
• Konnik M, Panerai F, Stephani K. The role of impurities and degradation on the thermal conductivity of carbon fiber and amorphous carbon. Carbon Trends 7 (2022) 100151.
• Price K, Panerai F, Borchetta C, Hardy JM, Martin A, Bailey SCC. Arc-Jet Measurements of Low-Density Ablator Spallation. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 133 (2022) 110544.
• Ferguson JC, Borner A, Panerai F, Close S, Mansour NN. Continuum to rarefied diffusive tortuosity factors in porous media from X-ray microtomography. Computational Materials Science 203 (2022) 111030.
• Panerai F, Bessire BK, Haskins JB, Foster C, Stern EC, Barnard HS, Feldman JD. Morphological Evolution of Ordinary Chondrite Microstructure During Heating: Implications for Atmospheric Entry. Planetary Science Journal 2(5) (2021) 179.
• Ferguson JC, Semeraro F, Thornton JM, Panerai F, Mansour NN. Update 3.0 to “PuMA: The Porous Microstructure Analysis software”, (PII: S2352711018300281). SoftwareX 15 (2021) 100775.
• Semeraro F, Ferguson JC, Acin M, Panerai F, Mansour NN. Anisotropic analysis of fibrous and woven materials part 2: Computation of effective conductivity. Computational Materials Science 186 (2021) 109956.
• Barry C, Panerai F, Bergeron K, Stapleton S, Sherwood J. Mesomechanical Modeling of Braided Cords. Procedia Manufacturing 47 (2020) 162-168.
• Semeraro F, Ferguson JC, Panerai F, Mansour NN. Anisotropic analysis of fibrous and woven materials part 1: Estimation of local orientation. Computational Materials Science 178 (2020) 109631.
• Torres-Herrador F, Coheur J, Panerai F, Blondeau J, Magin TE, Mansour NN. Competitive kinetic model for the pyrolysis of the Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator. Aerospace Science and Technology 100 (2020) 105784.
• MacNeil JML, Ushizima DM, Panerai F, Mansour NN, Barnard HS, Parkinson DY. Interactive volumetric segmentation for textile micro‐tomography data using wavelets and nonlocal means. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining: The ASA Data Science Journal 12(4) (2019) 338-353.
• Torres-Herrador F, Meurisse JBE, Panerai F, Blondeau J, Lachaud J, Bessire BK, Magin TE, Mansour NN. A high heating rate pyrolysis model for the Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) based on mass spectroscopy experiments. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis 141 (2019) 104625.
• Panerai F, Cochell T, Martin A, White JD. Experimental measurements of the high-temperature oxidation of carbon fibers. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 136 (2019) 972-986.
• Jambunathan R, Levin DA, Borner A, Ferguson JC, Panerai F. Prediction of gas transport properties through fibrous carbon preform microstructures using Direct Simulation Monte Carlo. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 923-937.
• Sanson F, Panerai F, Magin T, Congedo P. Robust reconstruction of the catalytic properties of thermal protection materials from sparse high-enthalpy facility experimental data. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 96 (2018) 482-492.
• Ferguson JC, Panerai F, Boner A, Mansour NN. PuMA: the Porous Microstructure Analysis software. SoftwareX 7 (2018) 81-87.
• Meurisse JBE, Lachaud J, Panerai F, Tang C, Mansour NN. Multidimensional material response simulations of a full-scale tiled ablative heatshield. Aerospace Science and Technology 76 (2018) 497-511.
• Bailey SCC, Bauer D, Panerai F, Splinter SC, Danehy PM, Hardy JM, Martin A. Experimental analysis of spallation particle trajectories in an arc-jet environment. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 93 (2018) 319-325.
• Ferguson J, Panerai F, Lachaud J, Mansour NN. Theoretical study on the micro-scale oxidation of resin-infused carbon ablators. Carbon 121 (2017) 552-562.
• Vanaerschot A, Panerai F, Cassell A, Lomov SV, Vandepitte D, Mansour NN. Stochastic characterisation methodology for 3-D textiles based on micro-tomography. Composite Structures 173 (2017) 44-52.
• Panerai F, Ferguson J, Lachaud J, Martin A, Gasch MJ, Mansour NN. Micro-tomography based analysis of thermal conductivity, diffusivity and oxidation behavior of rigid and flexible fibrous insulators. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 801-811.
• Sanson F, Villedieu N, Panerai F, Chazot O, Magin T, Congedo P. Uncertainty quantification for the characterization of reusable material catalytic property. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 82 (2017) 414–423.
• Borner A, Panerai F, Mansour NN. High-temperature permeability of fibrous materials using direct simulation Monte Carlo. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 106 (2017) 1318-1326.
• Viladegut A, Panerai F, Chazot O, Pichon T, Bertrand P, Verdy C, Coddet C. Design, integration and preliminary results of the IXV Catalysis experiment. CEAS Space Journal 9 (2017) 141-151.
• Wong HW, Peck J, Assif J, Panerai F, Lachaud J, Mansour NN. Detailed analysis of species production from the pyrolysis of the Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis 122 (2016) 258–267.
• Panerai F, White JD, Cochell TJ, Schroeder OM, Mansour NN, Wright MJ, Martin A. Experimental measurements of the permeability of fibrous carbon at high temperature. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 267-273.
• Martin A, Bailey SCC, Panerai F, Davuluri RSC, Vazsonyi AR, Zhang H, Lippay ZS, Mansour NN, Inman JA, Bathel BF, Splinter SC, Danehy PM. Numerical and experimental analysis of the spallation phenomena. CEAS Space Journal 8 (2016) 229-236.
• Omidy AD, Panerai F, Lachaud JR, Mansour NN, Martin A. Effects of water phase change on the material response of low-density carbon-phenolic ablators. Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer 30 (2016) 473-478.
• Nouri N, Panerai F, Tagavi KA, Mansour NN, Martin A. Evaluation of the anisotropic radiative conductivity of a low-density carbon fiber material from realistic microscale imaging. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 95 (2016) 535-539.
• Ferguson J, Panerai F, Lachaud J, Martin A, Bailey SCC, Mansour NN. Modeling the oxidation of low-density carbon fiber material based on micro-tomography. Carbon 96 (2016) 57-65.
• Wong HW, Peck J, Bonomi RE, Assif J, Reinisch G, Panerai F, Lachaud J, Mansour NN. Quantitative determination of species production from the pyrolysis of a phenol-formaldehyde resin. Polymer Degradation and Stability 112 (2015) 122–131.
• Balat-Pichelin M, Charpentier L, Panerai F, Chazot O, Helber B, Nickel K. Passive/active oxidation transition for CMC structural materials designed for the IXV vehicle re-entry phase. Journal of the European Ceramic Society 35 (2015) 487-502.
• Panerai F, Marschall J, Thoemel J, Vandendael I, Hubin A, Chazot O. Air plasma-material interactions at the oxidized surface of the PM1000 nickel-chromium superalloy. Applies Surface Science 316 (2014) 385-397.
• Panerai F, Helber B, Chazot O, Balat-Pichelin M, Nickel K. Aerothermal response of ceramic matrix composites to nitrogen plasma at temperatures above 2000 K. Aerospace Science and Technology 39 (2014) 1-5.
• Cipullo A, Helber B, Panerai F, Chazot O, Zeni L. Investigation of Freestream Plasma Flow Produced by Inductively Coupled Plasma Wind Tunnel. Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer 28 (2014) 381-393.
• Panerai F, Martin A, Mansour NN, Sepka SA, Lachaud J. Flow-Tube Oxidation Experiments on the Carbon Preform of a Phenolic-Impregnated Carbon Ablator. Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer 28 (2014) 181-190.
• Panerai F, Helber B, Chazot O, Balat-Pichelin M. Surface temperature jump beyond active oxidation of carbon/silicon carbide composites in extreme aerothermal conditions. Carbon 71 (2014) 102-119.
• Marschall J, Pejakovic D, Fahrenholtz WG, Hilmas GE, Panerai F, Chazot O. Temperature Jump Phenomenon During Plasmatron Testing of ZrB2-SiC Ultrahigh-Temperature Ceramics. Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer 26(4) (2012) 559–72.
• Panerai F, Chazot O. Characterization of gas/surface interactions for ceramic matrix composites in high enthalpy, low pressure air flow. Materials Chemistry and Physics 134 (2012) 597−607.

Teaching Honors

• List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students, UIUC (Fall 2021) (2021)

Research Honors

• von Karman Institute Excellence in Experimental Research Award (2008)
• Analytical Mechanics Associates Group Achievement Award - The Asteroid Threat Assessment Project Arc Jet Team (2017)
• NASA Group Achievement Award - Micro-Scale TPS Modeling Team (2017)
• Air Force's Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) (2019)

Recent Courses Taught

• AE 312 - Compressible Flow
• AE 419 - Aircraft Flight Mechanics
• AE 498 HAT (AE 498 ONL) - Hypersonic AeroThermodynamics
• ME 410 - Intermediate Gas Dynamics