About

Jack Edwards is the Angel Family Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NC State University. His long-term goal is to develop efficient and accurate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques for conducting large-scale simulations of complex flows relevant to important engineering problems. He teaches at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, including courses such as Computation of Reacting Flows, Aerodynamics II, and Computational Aerodynamics. Dr. Edwards emphasizes good practices in computer coding and brings in examples from his own work on high-speed flows to his teaching. His research area focuses on the versatility of CFD tools across various engineering fields, leading to work opportunities in government and industry laboratories. Outside of his academic pursuits, he enjoys spending time with his family, playing guitar, and watching ice hockey.

Research topics

• Physics
• Mechanics
• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Atomic physics
• Aerospace engineering
• Thermodynamics
• Optics
• Engineering
• Meteorology

Selected publications

• Numerical Simulation of Scramjet Combustion in Thermo-Chemical Non-Equilibrium Within an Arc-Heated Direct Connect Facility

  2026-01-08

  articleSenior author

  Thermal nonequilibrium (TNE) effects are expected to influence scramjet combustion under both high-altitude flight and arc-heated ground-test conditions, where vibrational relaxation times are long. Building on previous numerical studies of an ethylene-fueled, cavity-assisted scramjet combustor driven by the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign ACT-II arc tunnel, a two-temperature thermal nonequilibrium capability is implemented and verified within NCSU’s in-house reacting flow solver, REACTMB, and subsequently applied to this configuration. The formulation couples vibrational energy to a limited subset of dissociation reactions while retaining the baseline finite-rate chemistry framework. Results show that thermal nonequilibrium alters flame structure and delays chemical progress relative to a thermal-equilibrium formulation while maintaining a sustained flame and comparable downstream product levels. These findings highlight the sensitivity of scramjet combustion behavior to nonequilibrium effects even under simplified vibration–chemistry coupling.

  PublisherDOI

• Plasma Proteomics Across Three Generations of Mass Spectrometry Instruments: Lessons for Biofluid Method Optimisation

  PROTEOMICS · 2026-04-15

  article1st authorCorresponding

  In biomarker discovery phases clinical proteomics provides large-scale identification and quantification of proteins in donor samples. For these studies plasma is the most frequently used biofluid, as it reflects both physiological and pathological states of the circulating proteome. However, the vast dynamic range of proteins in plasma remains a significant challenge, where low-abundance biomarkers are suppressed by high-abundance proteins, despite substantial technological improvements. Often the focus of improving outcomes in plasma proteomic workflows are within the biofluid's sample preparation, although adjusting MS methods dramatically improves detection and sampling of lower abundance proteins. Herein we have benchmarked various liquid chromatography (LC) and data-independent acquisition (DIA) methods across three generations of mass spectrometry instruments: timsTOF Pro (2017), Orbitrap Eclipse (2020), and Orbitrap Astral (2023). This study explored 27 combinations of LC-MS methods across 200 hours of instrument acquisition time, encompassing varying LC and MS settings. While each instrument generation significantly improved performance, each instrument also revealed a unique and different tuneable range to improve performance in plasma samples, highlighting the benefit of investing in plasma-specific method development for any mass spectrometer. We also evaluated the detection and quantification capabilities of each instrument via a unique approach of mixing paired platelet poor plasma (PPP) and platelet rich plasma (PRP), introducing linear contamination markers for quantitative assessment. This approach tested each instrument's sensitivity to detect low-abundance peptides and evaluated their quantitative accuracy. Lastly, we performed testing of the Orbitrap Astral's parallel ion processing capabilities with the aim of improving low-abundance protein identifications using gas-phase enrichment (GPE). More specifically, we show that optimisation of MS2 AGC targets and injection time enhanced GPE of low-abundance peptides, improving detection in plasma samples.

  PublisherDOI

• Numerical Simulation of Oxygen-Enhanced Combustion in an Arc-Heated Scramjet Facility

  AIAA Journal · 2026-01-26

  article

  Large-eddy simulations of the operation of an axisymmetric isolator–combustor configuration experimentally tested in an arc-heated combustion facility and equipped to study the influences of secondary oxidizer injection are presented in this work. Oxygen enrichment may have benefits in enabling stable scramjet operation at higher altitudes and higher Mach numbers. Inflow conditions are generated from computations of flow within the arc heater—results that compare predictions with laser spectroscopy and wall pressure measurements are reported. Predictions show good agreement with experimental wall pressure measurements for cases with pure [Formula: see text] injection and with air injection. Both the use of air and [Formula: see text] as the oxidizing agent can enable stable dual-mode operation, but the thrust potential is less for air injection. Injection of 19% of the fuel into the combustor rather than into the isolator leads to a reduced shock train length and an increase in stream thrust. The flame transitions from a non-premixed flamelet-like structure nearer to the injectors to a combination of non-premixed and rich-premixed structures in the wakes of the injectors. Most of the heat release occurs under locally non-premixed conditions.

  PublisherDOI

• Correction: High-Order Flux Reconstruction for the Implicit Large Eddy Simulation of an Axisymmetric Scramjet Combustor

  2026-01-12

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Stable low diffusion flux splitting schemes on unstructured meshes

  Journal of Computational Physics · 2025-10-02 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Numerical Simulation of Scram-Mode Operation of an Axisymmetric Combustor in an Arc Tunnel

  Journal of Propulsion and Power · 2025-03-11 · 4 citations

  article

  Large-eddy simulations of scram-mode operation of an axisymmetric inlet–isolator–combustor configuration experimentally tested in the ACT-II arc-heated combustion tunnel are presented in this work. A 32-species ethylene oxidation mechanism including nitric oxide decomposition reactions is used for most calculations; sensitivities due to the use of a 43-species model are also assessed. Numerical flame stabilization under conditions of the experiment (Mach 4.5 inflow, equivalence ratio of 0.82) is a sensitive function of the rate of energy release within the combustor. This can be altered by changes in the inflow oxygen atom composition (using values obtained from simulations of the arc heater itself) and the choice of reaction mechanism, but even with these controls, it was found necessary to threshold the pressure level supplied to the reaction rates to achieve stable supersonic combustion within the unit. The results presented show a strong sensitivity to these controlling factors in that good agreement with experimental trends can be obtained for specific combinations, but the prescription is not unique. The predictions show that scram-mode operation occurs under lean premixed conditions, characterized by a predominance of CO, little formation of [Formula: see text], an appreciable temperature rise, and an OH signal that rises substantially before increases in the formation rates of the major combustion products.

  PublisherDOI

• Constrained Turbulent Boundary Layer Generation Using Scale-Resolving Methods

  2025-01-03

  article

  This work presents the development and testing of constraining methods for forcing a scale resolving approach (wall-resolved large-eddy simulation (WRLES), wall-modeled LES (WMLES), hybrid large-eddy simulation / Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (LES-RANS), etc.) to track a known mean flow solution. This mean flow solution could come from a higher fidelity approach (e.g. DNS), from a lower-fidelity approach (RANS) or even from experimental data. The initial applications are toward hypersonic boundary layer turbulence and turbulence generation within hypersonic and supersonic wind tunnels, but the ideas proposed could easily be generalized to support many activities in which trusted-source mean flow data is available. The results show that the proposed constraining approach is very effective in enabling the time-mean flow extracted from a LES-based approach to closely track a target mean flow solution, but the generated turbulence is less intense in comparison to a target turbulent kinetic energy distribution and is sensitive to the inflow forcing method for lower Reynolds number boundary layers.

  PublisherDOI

• Numerical Simulation of Oxygen-Enhanced Combustion in an Arc-Heated Direct Connect Scramjet Facility

  2025-01-03

  article

  Large-eddy simulations of operation of an axisymmetric isolator-combustor configuration experimentally tested at the University of Illinois’s ACT-II arc-heated combustion facility and equipped to study the influences of secondary oxidizer injection are presented in this work. Oxygen enrichment may have benefits in enabling stable, more efficient scramjet operation at higher altitudes and higher Mach numbers. Inflow conditions for the large-eddy simulations are generated from computations of flow within the arc heater – validation studies that compare predictions with laser absorption spectroscopy and wall pressure measurements are reported. Isolator-combustor LES results show that oxygen enrichment enables robust dual-mode operation at conditions that cannot maintain a flame without secondary oxidizer injection. Computational predictions show good agreement with experimental wall pressure measurements for cases with pure O2 injection but do not accurately predict the response when the O2 stream is shut down. Predictions show that the use of air as the oxidizing agent (for the same overall injectant mass ratio) can also enable stable dual mode operation, but the thrust potential is much less than with O2 injection. An analysis of the flame structure shows that CO is the dominant reaction product – levels are particularly high when pure O2 is the secondary oxidizer. The flame transitions from a non-premixed flamelet-like structure nearer to the injectors to a rich-premixed structure in the wakes of the injectors. Most of the heat release occurs under rich-premixed conditions.

  PublisherDOI

• Data-Driven RANS Modeling of Hypersonic Shock / Boundary Layer Interactions

  2024-01-04 · 3 citations

  article

  This paper presents the development and testing of a variable structure factor (shear stress anisotropy) model used to modify the Menter SST turbulence model to render it more accurate for hypersonic shock / boundary layer interactions (SBLIs) The model is constructed using ‘exact’ distributions of the structure factor extracted from prior LES-type simulations of several canonical hypersonic SBLIs (axisymmetric cylinder / flare interactions, impinging shock interactions, and crossing shock interactions) and is based on an equation-learning neural net method. The output is a flow-dependent model that replaces the constant value of the structure factor (0.31) that is used in the Menter SST formulation. Testing a suite of hypersonic SBLIs cases shows the new formulation provides significant gains in accuracy to the extent of axial separation and peak heat transfer for stronger interactions. The model does not perform quite as well for weaker interactions, producing results very similar to Menter’s baseline (BSL) model.

  PublisherDOI

• Multi-resolution analysis of partially-stirred reactor models for subgrid turbulence / chemistry interactions

  Computers & Fluids · 2024-03-08 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R21CA134250

  NIH · $347k · 2011

• UNS: Collaborative Research: Turbulent Flame Structure of Cavity Stabilized Reacting Shear Layers: Effects of Flow Compressibility, Heat Release, and Finite-rate Kinetics

  NSF · $174k · 2015–2019

Frequent coauthors

• Ashok Gopalarathnam

  25 shared

• Jung‐Il Choi

  24 shared

• Robert A. Baurle

  Langley Research Center

  22 shared

• Christopher P. Goyne

  University of Virginia

  20 shared

• Michael Ol

  Folder Media

  16 shared

• Robert D. Rockwell

  University of Virginia

  16 shared

• James C. McDaniel

  15 shared

• Andrew D. Cutler

  George Washington University

  15 shared

Labs

• Mechanical and Aerospace EngineeringPI

Awards & honors

• Angel Family Distinguished Professor