Apr 3, 2018   SOURCE: PR NewsWire

AHS Announces 2018 Lichten Award Winners

AHS Announces 2018 Lichten Award Winners

Selected for technical excellence from first-time technical paper presenters

FAIRFAX, Va., April 3, 2018 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- AHS International, The Vertical Flight Society, today announced the winners of its prestigious Robert L. Lichten technical award. The overall winner will be recognized at the Grand Awards Banquet on Wednesday, May 16, 2018, during AHS International's 74th Annual Forum & Technology Display in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

Alberto Rigo of Politechnico di Milano was selected as the overall Lichten Winner. His winning paper, "Numerical Evaluation of Gust Loads on Tiltrotor" will be presented on Tuesday morning, May 15, during the Dynamics I session. Mr. Rigo was also the winner of the AHS Europe-Africa Region Lichten competition.

James McElreath from Texas A&M University was selected as the Lichten Runner-up for his paper, "Tip Vortex Measurements on a Cycloidal Rotor Blade at Ultralow Reynolds Numbers." McElreath will receive a runner-up certificate. He was the AHS Southwest US Region winner.

The other regional winners, who were finalists for the international competition, were as follows:

    --  Maged Yassin of McGill University, CFD Laboratory, was the winner of the
        AHS Americas Region with the paper, "Modeling of Iced Rotor Dynamics in
        Hover and Forward Flights via CFD-Multibody Coupling."

    --  Jason Cornelius of The Pennsylvania State University was the AHS Mideast
        US Region winner for his paper, "An Efficient CFD Approach for a
        Co-axial Rotor Simulations."

    --  Geoffrey H. Chen of the US Army Aviation Development Directorate was the
        AHS Western US Region winner for his paper, "Wind Tunnel Test Results
        for an Overlapped Quadrotor Configured UAS." This paper is being
        presented at Forum 74 during the Test and Evaluation session on
        Wednesday afternoon, May 16.

    --  John A. Labarga of Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company, was the AHS
        Northeast US Region winner for his paper, "Predicting Helicopter
        Component Removals from Onboard Faults and Warnings."

    --  Aarohi Shah of the Georgia Institute of Technology was the AHS Southern
        US Region winner for his paper, "Closed Loop Approach to Structural
        Health Monitoring of Critical Rotorcraft Components." This paper is
        being presented during the Structures and Materials III session on
        Thursday afternoon, May 17.

The Robert L. Lichten Award was established in 1976 to encourage AHS members who have not previously presented the results of their work at a technical meeting to begin to do so through presentations at local and regional AHS meetings. Each of the ten AHS regions around the world is eligible to select a regional winner, from which an overall winner and runner up are selected. The overall Lichten Award Winner is invited to present his/her technical paper at the Forum and receives complimentary travel to and lodging at the Forum, as well as a $500 honorarium.

The Lichten award honors the memory of Robert L. Lichten, an outstanding rotary wing engineer and 22nd President of AHS. Lichten was a skilled and dedicated innovator who spent much of his career championing early tiltwing and tiltrotor concepts. He was considered the "Pioneer of Tilt Rotor Technology" for his work at Bell, where he became the director of advance technology.

More information about AHS International's 74th Annual Forum & Technology Display is available at www.vtol.org/forum.

AHS International -- The Vertical Flight Society
2701 Prosperity Avenue, Suite 210, Fairfax, VA 22031 USA
phone: 1-703-684-6777; toll free: 1-855-AHS-INTL; fax: 1-703-739-9279
email: staff@vtol.org; web site: www.vtol.org

Media Contact: Julie Gibbs, AHS International, 7036846777 x103, pr@vtol.org

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SOURCE AHS International