Mahendra Bhagwat Senior Research Scientist, Airvehicle Aerodynamics and Preliminary Design, Technology Development Directorate U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center

Dr. Mahendra Bhagwat is the Army Senior Research Scientist (Airvehicle Aerodynamics and Preliminary Design) assigned to the Technology Development Directorate, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center under the Army Futures Command, at Moffett Field, CA.

He conducts analytical, experimental, and computational research in vertical lift research areas developing models and tools to provide a comprehensive analysis environment for airvehicle design.

Prior to becoming a Senior Scientist, Dr. Bhagwat led strategic planning for the aviation basic research & aeromechanics portfolio as the focus/capability area lead.

As the Program Manager for the multi-university, multi- agency Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence (VLRCOE) program, he expanded research collaborations between the universities and government/industry researchers. He planned, led, and executed in-house basic & applied research in aeromechanics including development of new computational methods and experimental research to provide verification & validation data.

Bhagwat has made key contributions to the development of coupled computational fluid mechanics/ computational structural dynamics (CFD/CSD) solution methodology that is the foundation of the Army’s high fidelity modeling & simulation tool.

He led development & validation of hybrid rotor wake and performance prediction methods to enable effective trades between accuracy and speed for design calculations. He led development and validation of various aeromechanics modules such as rotor wake/inflow models and hybrid/variable-fidelity solution methods for the Army’s Rotorcraft Comprehensive Analysis System (RCAS).

He has performed experimental and numerical studies of vertical wake formation, evolution and its implications to rotor performance.

Dr. Bhagwat received his B. Tech. degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering and M.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland.

He has authored over 20 peer reviewed journal papers and over 50 conference papers/presentations.

His work has been recognized with several peer awards including AHS Alfred Gessow Best Forum Paper Award in 2007, Director’s Commendation in 2015, AIAA Associate Fellow in 2016, and VFS Technical Fellow in 2020.