Tbe task of defining the aerothermodynamic environment for a vehicle flying through the air at hypersonic speeds offers diverse challenges to the designer. He must integrate a wide variety of scientific and technical disciplines, blending mathematical modeling, computational methods, and experimental measurements. Many of the manned reentry vehicles are relatively blunt or fly at very high angles of attack (so that the drag is relatively large) and enter the atmosphere at a relatively low entry angle. As a result, the hypersonic deceleration occurs at very high altitudes. Because the...

Energy levels, resonanees, vibrations, feature extraetion, faetor analysis - the names vary from discipline to diseipline; however, all involve eigenvalue/eigenveetor eomputations. An engineer or physicist who is modeling a physieal proeess, strueture, or deviee is eonstrained to seleet a model for whieh the subsequently-required eomputations ean be performed. This eonstraint often leads to redueed order or redueed size models whieh may or may not preserve all of the important eharaeteristies of the system being modeled. Ideally, the modeler should not be foreed to make such apriori...