University of Iowa professor and researcher Fred Stern received the 2018 David W. Taylor Medal for Notable Achievement in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, presented at the recent annual meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) in Providence, Rhode Island. This honor goes to an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of ship hydrodynamics and naval architecture.

Stern holds the George D. Ashton Professor of Hydroscience and Engineering at the UI, where he also is a professor of mechanical engineering with more than 35 years of experience teaching fluid mechanics and conducting sophisticated research in ship hydrodynamics. He also is a research engineer at IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering, an engineering research institute at the UI.

“This award is particularly meaningful to me because so many of my esteemed colleagues have received in the past,” Stern says. “I am truly humbled to be in such distinguished company.”

Stern’s expertise in experimental and computational ship hydrodynamics is world-renowned, particularly his integrated approach to research in which simulations provide guidance, experiments provide validation data, and simulations fill in sparse data. IIHR’s research facilities, including a state-of-the-art towing tank and wave basin, provide data for physics and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation, including test cases for CFD workshops and NATO Applied Vehicle Technology (AVT) working groups. 

CFDShip-Iowa URANS/DES (developed by Stern and his team) is known as one of the world’s best CFD codes for ship hydrodynamics. It has many functionalities, including next-generation high-fidelity/resolution V6, which enables two-phase sharp-interface; as well as direct numerical simulation (DNS) and large-eddy simulation (LES) using billions of grid points. Stern’s research also includes the development of verification and validation (V&V) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) methods, fundamental physics and ship performance, deterministic/stochastic shape/multi-disciplinary optimization, and fluid structure interaction, as described in his hundreds of peer-reviewed publications.

Stern served as chair/member of the International Towing Tank Conference (ITTC) and its CFD workshop committees, as well as the NATO AVT working group. He has collaborated with colleagues around the world; and he is an ASME fellow and a member of SNAME and the American Society for Engineering Education. Stern has received many honors, including UI Faculty Scholar (1993-96); Faculty Research Excellence (2012); Weinblum Lecturer (2012-13); and NATO STO AVT panel excellence awards (2016).