New York. May 05, 2011

Last week, CD-adapco was proud to inform the University of Alabama at Birmingham's, David Cooper, that he was the winner of its 2011 Academic Paper Contest.

CD-adapco has long been dedicated to providing the academic engineering community with industrial strength engineering simulation software. Its simulation tools are used by thousands of users at hundreds of academic institutions, educating the engineers of the future and powering the research programs of today.

Students and researchers, who were enrolled in CD-adapco's University Program and had completed a CFD simulation project between 2009 and 2011, were invited to submit a paper describing their simulation work for that project. The author of the winning paper, David Cooper, was chosen by CD-adapco’s panel of expert judges, and is receiving an all-expense paid trip to the STAR American Conference 2011. The trip includes flights and accommodations, and the opportunity to present his work to the gathered audience of distinguished industrial simulation experts.

David, a senior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, took a CFD Basics (ME 421/521) class last semester and used STAR-CCM+ for the design of a micro-air vehicle for his Senior Design Project. The paper he submitted, entitled “Performance of a Proposed Micro-Aerial Vehicle Design,” exhibited a very good application of a number of STAR-CCM+ techniques to an applied engineering design that would be difficult to test experimentally.

David commented on his win, “I am excited and honored to be selected as the CD-adapco academic paper contest winner. My team and I were designing and constructing a micro air vehicle and simulation was the only means available to evaluate critical design parameters such as the amount of power required and ideal wing motion. Luckily I had access to the intuitive and powerful tool, STAR-CCM+. I thank CD-adapco for their consideration and look forward to seeing everyone in June.”

Tammy deBoer, CD-adapco’s Global Academic Program Coordinator, was very excited to present the award to David, “The competition was extremely tough for this contest. We received numerous papers that were extremely well written and very interesting technologically.” She continued, “I know David will make a great contribution as a presenter at our STAR American Conference 2011. It will be a wonderful experience for him to present his senior design project to such a notable group of engineers. We are so happy to be able to give students this opportunity and look forward to the coming years of bringing academia and industry together.”

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