Graduate Student Spotlight: Balint Vanek

Balint Vanek, a Ph.D. student in Aerospace Enginering and Mechanics, is looking to control a phenomenon known as cavitation – where liquid forced to move fast around an object, like a propeller, vaporizes. The collapse of those vapor bubbles often damages the object. If designed properly, whole vehicles can be enveloped by a cavitation bubble, resulting in “supercavitation.” Under the study of AEM Professor Gary Balas, Vanek plans to develop advanced control algorithms to allow vehicles like submarines travel at incredibly high rates of speed through utilizing supercavitation, possibly upward of 200 mph.
“In the near future, we are going to be able to go as fast as the fastest racing cars underwater because of advances in supercavitation,” Vanek said.
While supercavitation may be best known for its military applications - due to Russia’s supercavitating Shkval torpedo and the US’s counter-torpedo – Vanek says there is some potential for commercial use in the future, like designing better hydrofoils for powerboats. There are also commercial implications for mining utilizing the principles of supercavitation. The research is exciting, Vanek says, in part because of its novelty.
“It’s a field which is very, very new, as most of the things we are doing for the first time anywhere.” Vanek notes. “It’s not something where you have all the methods and research in place, but here you can be at the forefront.”
Vanek says he plans to pursue a career in R&D.