ISSW35: Shock Waves Down Under. 5-14 July 2025

Co-chairs:

Local Organising Committee:

International Advisory Committee:

Program at a Glance

A tentative ISSW35 program can be found below. Please click on the image to see an enlarged version.

The distinguished plenary speakers which we have selected for ISSW35 can be found below:

The Ray Stalker Lecture

Emeritus Professor Hans Hornung
California Institute of Technology
Former director of GALCIT - Graduate Aerospace Laboratories

Hans G. Hornung received a B.Mech.E. (1960) and a M.Eng.Sci. (1962) degree with honours from the University of Melbourne and a Ph. D. (1965) in Aeronautics from Imperial College, London. He worked at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories, Melbourne (1962-63, and 1965-67), and on the faculty of the Physics Department of the Australian National University (1967-80), with a sabbatical year as a Humboldt Fellow in Darmstadt, Germany, 1974. In 1980 he accepted an offer to head the Institute for Experimental Fluid Mechanics of the DLR in Göttingen, Germany. He was appointed director of the Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories at Caltech in 1987. He is Emeritus since 2005. He made contributions in gasdynamics, notably in Mach reflection and high-enthalpy real-gas effects, in separated flows, and in wind tunnel technology. Honors and awards include election to the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science, the US National Academy of Engineering, award of the Ludwig Prandtl Ring of the German Aerospace Society (DGLR), the ICAS von Karman Award for international cooperation in aeronautics, the AIAA Fluid Dynamics Award, and the AIAA Hypersonic Systems and Technologies Award. He received a D.Sc. honoris causa from the ETH Zurich. He is a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science of the Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society and of the International Shock Wave Institute.

The Irvine Glass Lecture

Associate Professor Sally Bane
Purdue University
Director of Laboratory & Hands-On Education in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Sally Bane is an Associate Professor and the Director of Laboratory & Hands-On Education in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University.  She received her BS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia and her MS and PhD in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology.  Dr. Bane’s research interests span a broad range of problems in plasmas, high-speed flows, and combustion. She is a founding member of Purdue’s Cold Plasmas Preeminent Team, an interdisciplinary cohort of faculty studying nonequilibrium plasmas for a wide range of engineering and scientific applications.  Dr. Bane’s plasma research focuses on ultra-fast plasma spectroscopy, plasma-induced flow diagnostics, and plasma flow and combustion control. She received an AFOSR Young Investigator award to study high-pressure plasma-assisted combustion and continues to explore ways to use plasma-based actuators to control high-speed aerodynamic flows and turbulent combustion.  Dr. Bane is also involved in hypersonics research at Purdue, focusing on non-intrusive optical diagnostics for accurate measurements of high-speed turbulent flows and active control of boundary layers and shock wave/boundary layer interaction.

The Paul Vieille Lecture

Professor Matthew McGilvray
The University of Oxford
Head of the Oxford Hypersonics Group

Matthew McGilvray is a Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. Matthew studied at the University of Queensland for both his Bachelors (2003) and PhD (2008) in aerospace engineering. Professor McGilvray has established two research groups at Oxford, focussed on particle deposition in turbomachinery and high-speed aerothermodynamics. Professor McGilvray heads the UK Centre of Excellence in Hypersonics Science and Technology. Professor McGilvray led the development of multiple large scale hypersonic wind tunnels, including the Oxford High Density Tunnel and the Oxford T6 Stalker Tunnel, as part of the UK’s National Wind Tunnel Facility. Professor McGilvray was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering/MoD Research Chair in Hypersonic vehicles in 2021.

Professor Vincent Wheatley
The University of Queensland (UQ)
Co-Director of UQ's Centre for Hypersonics

Professor Vincent Wheatley is co-Director of the Centre for Hypersonics at the University of Queensland. He obtained his PhD in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology in 2005. Vincent is an expert in the computational, experimental and theoretical modelling of supersonic gas and plasma flows. His most significant research contributions have been on overcoming the challenges facing accelerator scramjets and the magnetic suppression of shock driven instabilities in fusion plasmas. Vincent has led experimental research projects in UQ’s T4 Shock Tunnel ranging from fundamental experiments on porous fuel injection and boundary layer combustion to the testing of complex-geometry scramjet engines. In 2018, he was named Australia’s Research Field Leader in Aviation and Aerospace Engineering. He also received the 2017 Australian Award for University Teaching - Award for Teaching Excellence (Physical Sciences and Engineering) and has supervised 14 PhD students to completion, with all moving on to research careers in industry, government or academia.

Mr Carey Scott
NASA Langley Research Center
Head of the NASA SCIFLI (Scientifically Calibrated In-Flight Imaging) Team

Carey ‘CJ’ Scott is the Principal Investigator for the Scientifically Calibrated In-Flight Imagery team, which is based out of NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA.  Mr. Scott is a graduate of California State University, Chico where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics in 2010. Mr. Scott has been supporting the SCIFLI team since 2017, having completed over 40 successful scientific observation missions (to date) over a wide range of spacecraft configurations and flight regimes. Mr. Scott was the recipient of the NASA Silver Achievement Medal in 2020 for outstanding service during the successful observation of the Hayabusa2 sample return capsule, and the Early Career Achievement Medal in 2024 recognizing his leadership of the SCIFLI team and its impact on human spaceflight.

Professor Oren Petel
Carleton University
Head of the Impact Dynamics Research Group

Oren Petel is a Professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Prior to joining Carleton University in August 2013, he completed his PhD research at McGill University, where his focus was condensed phase detonation, terminal ballistics, and shock wave physics. Much of his current work is related to the dynamic response of multiphase protective materials and technologies, as well as the development and use of novel diagnostic capabilities for injury biomechanics investigations under blast and impact loading. His group has developed several polymer nanocomposite materials that improve the ballistic performance of multilayer transparent armour and pelvic/extremity undergarment systems against environmental debris from improvised explosive devices. He was a guest editor for a two-part special thematic issue on blast-induced traumatic brain injury published in the journal Shock Waves. In 2023, he received the US Army’s Honorary Award for Science for his contributions to soldier protection.

Professor Ivett Leyva
Texas A&M University
Head of the Aerospace Engineering Department

Ivett A. Leyva has been the head of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, which has about 1000 students and 48 faculty members, since September 2021.  Previously, she was at the Air Force for 15 years. Her last assignment was as the Program Element Monitor for Munitions and Hypersonics (S&T) at the Air Force, Headquarters.  Prior to that, she was the program officer for Hypersonic Aerodynamics at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, AFRL and before that she was a researcher at the AFRL Rocket Lab working on liquid rocket instabilities. Her technical expertise is in hypersonic aerodynamics and liquid rocket engines. Ivett holds a bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree from Caltech. Her Ph.D. was in Aeronautics.  Ivett has six patents and has authored numerous papers and two book chapters. She is a fellow of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Air Force Research Laboratory, a National Associate of the National Research Council of the National Academies, and a recipient of a Civilian Achievement Medal and two meritorious Civilian Service Awards and Medals from the Air Force. 

Professor Hideyuki Tanno
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Former manager of the JAXA-HIEST (High-Enthalpy Shock Tunnel)

Hideyuki Tanno received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Tohoku University in 2005. From 1996 to 1998, he served as a visiting researcher at the University of Queensland, where he conducted research on friction drag in scramjet combustors. His primary research projects include re-entry vehicles and Japan's asteroid sample return missions, Hayabusa1 and Hayabusa2. For both missions, he conducted spectroscopic measurements of fireballs from the stratosphere aboard NASA aircraft. In addition, he pursues fundamental research on hypersonic boundary-layer transition, aerodynamic heating, supersonic combustion, and rotating detonation engines. He currently serves as a board member of the Japan Society for Aeronautical and Space Sciences, a visiting professor at Tohoku University, and a senior researcher at JAXA-HIEST (High-Enthalpy Shock Tunnel).

Short Course on Hypersonic Shock Tunnel Experimentation and Modelling

Saturday 5 July, the University of Queensland

UQ's Centre for Hypersonics (CfH) is a world leader in hypersonic shock tunnel experimentation with more than 40 years of experience. The CfH has a critical mass of hypersonics knowledge across many different fields including scramjet combustion, planetary entry, and hypersonic transition. The CfH operates the T4 reflected shock tunnel, the X2 expansion tube and also the X3/X3R multi-mode reflected shock tunnel and expansion tube in conjunction with Australia’s Defence Science and technology Group. The CfH also develops and uses the lmr hypersonic CFD code for simulating hypersonic flows and hypersonic impulse facilities.

This short course will be a unique opportunity for conference participants to learn about hypersonic shock tunnel facilities from the experts in the CfH while the ISSW conference is here in Brisbane. It will be aimed at non-experts in hypersonic shock tunnel testing but will hopefully have something of use for everyone whether you are a first year experimental hypersonics PhD student, a shock tunnel expert, or you focus on supersonic or hypersonic simulations. 

The course will be held on Saturday the 5th of July at the University of Queensland on the weekend before the main ISSW35 conference. The short course will have a nominal small fee to cover catering of the day and registration will be required to confirm numbers.

The short course will be broken up into four different sessions each taught by different subject matter experts from UQ’s CfH:

Session 1: An introduction to hypersonic shock tunnels and expansion tubes
Session 2: Optical diagnostics in hypersonic shock tunnels and expansion tubes
Session 3: Applications of hypersonic shock tunnels and expansion tubes
Session 4: Modelling of hypersonic flows in support of hypersonic shock tunnel experimentation

Delegates will be able to register for this short course during their conference registration.

Re-entry Emission Signatures Workshop

Monday 14 July, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba

The 'Re-entry Emission Signatures' workshop will be running as an extension to the main ISSW conference on Monday the 14^th July 2025 at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba, a two hour drive from Brisbane. 

The objective of this is to bring together an international group of people working in this field for extended discussions around current capability and future opportunities.

The day will be split into two sections; in the morning different research groups will give short presentations on their current capabilities, status and research objectives. In the afternoon there will discussions around the technical bleeding edge of remote diagnostics and future observation opportunities which might be of interest.

Workshop on wind tunnel free-flight testing

Monday 14 July, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba

Conference Delegates with an interest in free-flight testing of models in ground facilities are encouraged to participate in this one-day workshop which will be held at the Toowoomba Campus of the University of Southern Queensland. The workshop will include a tour of the TUSQ hypersonic wind tunnel and it will also provide an opportunity to present and discuss recent developments, results and challenges in an informal environment. We will not be publishing any proceedings from this workshop. We will aim to define an agenda for the workshop in early June, once the level of participation has been finalised.

Toowoomba is located approximately 130 km west of Brisbane and has an altitude of about 700 m. It tends to be somewhat cooler than Brisbane; the average maximum temperature in July is around 17 degC. The return trip between Brisbane and Toowoomba is convenient with a hire car but will take a little more than 1.5 hours of mostly highway driving; you may wish to consider an overnight stay in Toowoomba as there are plenty of good options. If you are not hiring a car, there is a regular coach service between Brisbane and Toowoomba which takes around 2 hours and generally provides good views of the Lockyer Valley.

If you are interested in presenting your free-flight ground testing experience and/or attending the workshop, please contact david.buttsworth@usq.edu.au. 

Conference Venue:

ISSW35 will be held at the University of Queensland's (UQ) St Lucia campus in downtown Brisbane, Australia. UQ is a top 50 ranked university in the world and through UQ's Centre for Hypersonics, UQ is a leading world university in hypersonic and shock wave research.

UQ's St Lucia campus houses several major hypersonic test facilities, such as the T4 Stalker Tube (shown below) and the X2 expansion tube, which will be able to be toured during the conference.

Getting to the Conference

Brisbane is well connected through the Brisbane International Airport (BNE). There are regular direct flights to and from Brisbane into most of Asia and to the East Coast of the USA. Generally, major cities in the rest of the world can be accessed via a single connecting flight.

Further information about destinations which can be reached from Brisbane can be found on the Brisbane International Airport website.

Australia is far away from the rest of the world. If you are arriving from overseas, we would recommend arriving in Brisbane a couple of days before the conference begins to allow you to acclimatise to the time difference and be recovered in time to properly enjoy the conference. If you aim to arrive in Brisbane on Friday the 4th of July you will have the opportunity to participate in our Shock Tunnel Short Course on Saturday the 5th of July, the Welcome Reception on Sunday the 6th of July and to explore Brisbane city a bit before the conference starts.

Host City: Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital of the Australian state of Queensland. Being a semi-tropical climate, Brisbane is a great place to visit in winter when ISSW35 will be held. Information about accomodation and restaurants specifically related to ISSW35 will be provided at a later date, but generic information about Brisbane can be found below.

Important Dates

Registration Fees

All registration fees are in Australian dollars and inclusive of Australia’s Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Registrations are performed using the registration portal of the Whova conference platform which can be found below.

Register Now on Whova

Please contact us if you need to perform bulk registratins of more than 10 people at once and we can provide the bulk registration link.

Delegate and Student registration includes:
•    Conference registration
•    Welcome Reception
•    Coffee breaks and Lunch during the conference
•    Conference social day at Tangalooma Island Resort
•    Gala Dinner at Ballroom Le Grand in the Brisbane Central Sofitel hotel
•    Presentation of one paper (either oral or poster). Additional paper presentations are charged at a cost of $200 AUD.

Accompanying Person registration includes the following:
•    Welcome Reception
•    Conference social day at Tangalooma Island Resort
•    Gala Dinner at Ballroom Le Grand in the Brisbane Central Sofitel hotel

Registration Cancellation Policy

We understand that plans change and will endeavour to accommodate registration cancellations as required minus a small administration fee to recoup costs associated with fees charged for the registration payment and payment reversal. Due to the need to lock in numbers with contractors a month before the conference, we will not be able to provide refunds after this date.

Please email issw35@uq.edu.au to organise registration cancellation. 

Further details and costings will be worked out closer to the conference date, but a preliminary Partner’s and Accompanying Person’s Program can be found below:

• Sunday the 6th of July: Partners and accompanying persons are welcome to join the conference Welcome Reception at the University of Queensland on Sunday afternoon.
• Monday the 7th of July: Full day tour to Lamington National Park where one can experience some of the nature around Brisbane.
• Tuesday the 8th of July: Free day. Evening event down the Gold Coast (one hour’s drive) for the Australian Outback Spectacular show and dinner.
• Wednesday the 9th of July: Partners and Accompanying Persons are welcome to join the conference Social Day at Tangalooma Island Resort on Moreton Island.
• Thursday the 10th of July: Ferry to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane where partners and accompanying persons can see and interact with local Australian wildlife such as koalas, emus, and kangaroos. The plan is to back by 4PM so partners and accompanying persons can join the conference Gala Dinner at Ballroom Le Grand in the Brisbane Central Sofitel hotel.
   

Applying for an Australian Visa

All travelers, except Australian and New Zealand citizens, must obtain a valid visa before arriving in Australia. Delegates can submit their visa applications online and use the Department of Home Affairs' visa finder tool to Explore visa options. It is highly recommended to apply at least six weeks before your arrival in Australia. For the latest visa-related information, please visit the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs.

Visa Invitation Letters

During registration, you will have the option to request an invitation letter. To assist with visa processing, you will be asked to provide certain details required by the immigration department. These details will be passed to the Australian Department of Home Affairs as confirmation of your attendance. Once your registration and payment are complete, a visa invitation letter will be sent to your registered email. Please allow up to one week for processing and verification. Please note we cannot provide support to delegates who have not completed payment.

Visa Application Status

As conference organisers, we do not have access to visa application updates—this is handled solely by the Australian Department of Home Affairs. We also do not have any influence over visa decisions. If you require an update on your application, please contact the Department of Home Affairs directly.

Visa Refusals

If your visa application is refused, we will refund your registration fee minus a small administration fee to recoup costs associated with fees charged for the registration payment and payment reversal. Proof of refusal will be required, and refunds will be processed after the symposium.
 

Australia:

Further information about Australia will be forthcoming.

Abstracts are sought under the following topics:

• Atmospheric Entry
• Blast Waves
• Chemical Kinetics
• Chemically Reactive Flows
• Detonation, Combustion and Ignition
• Diagnostics and Flow Visualization
• Facilities and Instrumentation
• High Enthalpy Gas Dynamics
• Medical and Biological Applications
• Multiphase Flows
• Nozzle Flows and Supersonic Jets
• Numerical Methods
• Plasmadynamics and Magnetohydrodynamics
• Propulsion
• Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability
• Shock Induced Surface Chemistry Interactions
• Shock Wave Interaction with Various Media
• Shock Wave Reflection, Interaction, and Focussing
• Shock Waves in Dense Gases
• Shock Waves in Internal Flows
• Shock Waves in Liquids
• Shock Waves in Rarefied Gases
• Shock Waves in Solids
• Shock/Boundary Layer Interaction
• Shock-Vortex Interaction
• Supersonic and Hypersonic Flows

Proceedings Publication

The conference is using the Springer EquinOCS proceedings system to process both abstracts and papers. Full papers will be subject to peer review and accepted papers will be included in the proceedings of ISSW35, to be published by Springer after the conference. 

Student Competition

All students who are presenting a paper and are its first author will be automatically entered into the student competition. A total of 10 winners will be selected based on the best student oral and poster presentations. If you do not want to be entered into the student competition, please make this clear in the comments field of the submission form.

Submitting your abstract

Abstracts are to be submitted in pdf format to the Springer EquinOCS system, which can be accessed at the following url: https://equinocs.springernature.com/service/issw35

The abstract template is available for download, in both Latex and MS Word formats, from here: https://mechmining.uq.edu.au/files/10565/ISSW35_abstract%20template_LaTeX_and_MSWord.zip

Note 1: it is necessary to also copy-and-paste the text from your abstract into the text field provided on the EquinOCS form. Do not worry about images or formatting for this step.

Note 2: details of the full paper template will be provided once abstract submission closes.

Presentation type

When you submit your abstract, you will be requested to select a category from the list below. For each topic there is an option for "oral presentation" or "poster"; please choose the appropriate option from the list below:

• Atmospheric Entry
• Blast Waves
• Chemical Kinetics
• Chemically Reactive Flows
• Detonation, Combustion and Ignition
• Diagnostics and Flow Visualization
• Facilities and Instrumentation
• High Enthalpy Gas Dynamics
• Medical and Biological Applications
• Multiphase Flows
• Nozzle Flows and Supersonic Jets
• Numerical Methods
• Plasmadynamics and Magnetohydrodynamics
• Propulsion
• Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability
• Shock Induced Surface Chemistry Interactions
• Shock Wave Interaction with Various Media
• Shock Wave Reflection, Interaction, and Focussing
• Shock Waves in Dense Gases
• Shock Waves in Internal Flows
• Shock Waves in Liquids
• Shock Waves in Rarefied Gases
• Shock Waves in Solids
• Shock/Boundary Layer Interaction
• Shock-Vortex Interaction
• Supersonic and Hypersonic Flows

We look forward to seeing you in Brisbane in 2025,

The ISSW35 Local Organising Committee