NAPOLITANO

ITALY (see also List of Individuals)

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2.6.1928 Napoli/I - 23.7.1991 Denver CO/USA

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Luigi Gerardo Napolitano graduated in 1952 from the University of Naples as an aeronautical engineer and there also gained his PhD title. He then moved for some years to the Institute of Aerodynamics of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, NY to return in 1960 as aerodynamics professor to the Naples University. He was the vice-president of the Italian Rocket Society, president of the International Astronautical Federation and he acted as a Council Member of Associazione Italiana Aerotecnica. Napolitano was a Corresponding Member of the prestigious Accademia dei Lincei from 1990. He died while attending a space conference in the USA.

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Napolitano was a distinguished representative of the Italian aeronautical school. During his career, he contributed to aerothermochemistry, aerodynamics, gas dynamics, non-Newtonian gas dynamics, thermodynamics, magneto-fluid dynamics, heat transfer, applied mathematics, and advanced propulsion. His 1956 paper relates to an exact solution for the boundary layer flow with a pressure gradient and the effect of fluid injection on the boundary layer development. In 1957, he investigated the turbulent interaction among several gas jets. He also analyzed in collaboration with his mentor Antonio Ferri (1912-1975) the flow features at the nose of a pointed body of revolution, as is typical with airplanes or rockets. In 1958 Napolitano investigated the mixing characteristics of a fluid initially at rest. Most of the works conducted in the 1960s were summarized in the 1969 book on the hypersonic boundary layers. A summary work was finally published in 1988 on the recent progress in space aerodynamics.

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_{Napolitano, L.G. (1956). Soluzioni esatte per lo strato limite laminare in presenza di gradiente assiale di pressione e di iniezione di fluido. L'Aerotecnica 36(2): 132-141.}

_{Napolitano, L.G. (1957). Interazione turbolenta di due correnti costitute da gas diversi. L'Aerotecnica 37(6): 301-310.}

_{Napolitano, L.G., Ferri, A. (1957). The axisymmetric supersonic flow near the nose of a pointed body of revolution. Journal of Aeronautical Sciences 24: 900-904.}

_{Napolitano, L.G. (1958). Incompressible mixing of a shear flow with fluid at rest. Journal of Aeronautical Sciences 25(7): 444-450.}

_{Napolitano, L.G. (1969). Hypersonic boundary layers. von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics: Rhode-Saint-Genèse.}

_{Napolitano, L.G., ed. (1988). 30 years of progress in space. Pergamon Press: Oxford. http://www.lgnsociety.it/inglese/home_inglese.htm P}