Alina Alexeenko
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Education
PhD/Aerospace Engineering/Penn State/2003
MS/Applied Mathematics/Novosibirsk State University/1999
BS/Mathematics/Novosibirsk State University/1997
Research Interests
Computational rarefied gas dynamics; Gas-phase effects in N/MEMS sensors and actuators; Modeling, analysis and design of vacuum deposition systems (MBE, P/CVD, EBPVD, ALD) for nano/microfabrication
Research Impact
Professor Alexeenko’s research is centered upon development and application of new models and algorithms to study rarefied gas flow phenomena occurring in both high-altitude flight, such as spacecraft contamination, plume interactions, high-altitude aerothermodynamics; and in emerging technologies such as N/MEMS and in vacuum manufacturing processes. Broadening applications of rarefied gas dynamics is one of her long-term research goals. Alexeenko’s group at Purdue has developed fast computational algorithms and solvers for the deterministic, as opposed to the stochastic direct simulation Monte Carlo, solution of rarefied flow problems. Such new techniques are especially useful in studying low-speed and/or unsteady phenomena such gas damping and thermal Knudsen forces in N/MEMS and shock wave propagation at the microscale.