Texas A&M's Plans to Expand the PERL’s Lab Scope, Establishes EPRC
Dr. Eric Petersen of Texas A&M says the newly established Energy and Propulsion Research Consortium aims to foster research funding to support research.
At Turbo Expo 2025, Turbomachinery International caught up with Dr. Eric Petersen, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Turbomachinery Laboratory at Texas A&M, to hear about the latest updates at its recently opened Propulsion and Energetics Research Laboratory (PERL) and the university’s Energy and Propulsion Research Consortium, a new sister entity to the established Turbomachinery Research Consortium.
What are the latest updates on the PERL?
We have been building this facility over the last couple of years with support from the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. I am happy to announce that as of May 2025, it is now open for business. Currently, we are in the process of setting up our instrumentation center and diagnostics and control room, as well as testing and conducting shakedown activities for the facility itself. While we are not yet conducting large-scale experiments, we are testing the rooms and various capabilities of the facility in preparation for upcoming larger, more established projects that will be funded in this laboratory. We are very excited about expanding our scope to include high-pressure, energetic, and potentially dangerous experiments, all conducted in a controlled manner within this unique lab space.
Is there anything you want to highlight from a program or research standpoint?
At the Turbomachinery Laboratory, recent collaborations with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M have led to the hiring of several faculty members with expertise in thermofluids, propulsion, and combustion. This represents an area of new growth for us and aligns directly with the recently developed PEARL facility, as well as what we refer to as the Energy and Propulsion Research Consortium (EPRC). The EPRC is a sister entity to the established Turbomachinery Research Consortium (TRC). Our goal is to create a funding mechanism through various industry sponsors to support research projects focused on energy and propulsion, mirroring the successful format we have used for several decades through the TRC.
