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KTH in collaboration with Brazil

Dan Henningson, KTH
Dan Henningson, Professor of Fluid Mechanics, Department of Engineering, KTH. Photography: Private
Publicerad 2020-11-26

Dan Henningson, Professor of Fluid Mechanics, Department of Engineering Mechanics, has been commuting between Stockholm and Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, for five years. The aim is to build a partnership with the ITA (Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica) in Sao Jose dos Campos, a city near Sao Paulo.

During past decade Brazil and Sweden have been building a long-term bilateral collaboration in aerospace & defence sector, especially for science, technology and innovation cooperation, establishing technical networks in prioritized areas and fostering knowledge transfer between the two countries, all in order to create and improve innovation ecosystems. In 2016 Dan Henningson  was selected by the program at ITA to perform research on laminar flow control technology for green aircraft together with Brazilian researchers lead by Professor André Cavalieri, from ITA (Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica). During five years of interaction with his fellow researchers from Brazil and Sweden, several research and development activities at low technology readiness level were performed, contacts were nurtured and networks created.

Dan Henningson, could you tell us more about this collaboration?
– The aim is to build a partnership with the ITA (Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica) in Sao Jose dos Campos, a city near Sao Paulo. That city is home to Brazil's aerospace industry and ITA is one of the best universities in Brazil. The collaboration came about when Saab financed three guest professorships at ITA via the organization CISB (The Swedish Brazilian Research and Innovation Center).

What did the activities look like?
– There are many competent researchers at ITA who complement our activities, we have had several joint doctoral students and managed to publish many good research reports in very good journals. We have also done joint experiments in one of their wind tunnels using model wings manufactured by Saab.

Will the collaboration continue?
There are an increasing number of resesrchers who are part of the collaboration and it will continue for at least another three years.

Text: Sofia Nyström