Fall 2025 AIAA Hypersonics Webinar (AIAA Member Exclusive) 14 November 2025 | 12–1 p.m. (ET) Online
On-Demand Replay
Featuring Francesco Panerai
AIAA Members: make sure you are signed in to the site with your member credentials to be able to access the replay.
This event is offered exclusively to AIAA members. Want to learn more about the benefits of AIAA membership?
Join us for the Fall 2025 AIAA Hypersonics Webinar, presented by the HyTASP TC with featured speaker Francesco Panerai. This webinar will provide insights into carbon ablation mechanisms as Panerai discusses two recent experiments—high-speed X-ray imaging and plasma wind tunnel testing—that reveal how microstructure, oxygen interactions, and surface chemistry influence material erosion, mass loss, and failure mechanisms. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the complex processes governing high-temperature ablation in carbon-based materials.
Speaker
Francesco Panerai is an Assistant Professor in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research covers advanced materials for extreme environments, transport in porous media, and hypersonic aerothermodynamics. Prior to Illinois, he was a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. He received his PhD and Research Master in Aeronautics and Aerospace from von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (Belgium) and a M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Perugia (Italy). He is a recipient of the 2019 Air Force Young Investigator Award and is an AIAA Associate Fellow. He is one of the founding members of the Center for Hypersonics and Entry Systems Studies (CHESS) at Illinois.