Professor Emeritus

Education

Princeton University
PhD ’61

Rensselaer Polytechnic University
MME ’51
BME ’50

Professional Service

• American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fellow
• American Physical Society
• Sigma Xi
• Tau Beta Pi
• Pi Tau Sigma
• The Combustion Institute
• The American Society of Engineering Education, Member
• American Association for the Advancement of Science

Biography

Professor Sichel received the Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1950 and 1951. From 1951 to 1954 he worked as a development engineer for The General Electric Company. From 1954 to 1956, while in The Army, he worked as an engineer at The Army Chemical Center in Edgewood, MD. IN 1956 he then went to Princeton University where he was awarded The Guggenheim Fellowship. He completed the requirements for a PhD in aeronautical engineering in 1961.

Professor Sichel joined the faculty of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at The University of Michigan in 1961 and was promoted to the rank of Professor in 1968. His current research interests include the numerical simulation and modeling of gaseous, dust and spray detonation phenomena, the group combustion of sprays, combustion and explosion of dust air mixtures, and supersonic combustion. He has been the principal or co-principal advisor for over 35 doctoral students from 1961 to present.

He has been a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Air Breathing Propulsion and Propellants and Combustion Committees. He has been a member of the Program Committees for 21st – 27th Symposium (International) on Combustion and the 13th – 16th International Colloquium on the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems. He was an associate editor of the AIAA Journal from 1998 to 2004. He is a Fellow of AIAA and The American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the recipient of The Cybulski Medal from the Polish Academy of Sciences for research in combustion (1995), and of the A.K. Oppenheim Prize (1995) awarded at The International Colloquium on the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems. Dr. Sichel is the author or co-author of more than 100 articles and papers.

POSITIONS HELD AT U-M

• 1998- Present – Professor Emeritus, Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan
• 1968-1998 – Professor, Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan
• 1964-1968 – Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan
• 1961-1964 – Assistant Professor, Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan
• Spring 1959 – Part-time Instructor, Naval Air Turbine Test Station, Trenton, N.J.
• Summer 1957 – Aerodynamics Design Engineer, General Electric
• 1954-1956 – Mechanical Engineering Assistant, U.S. Army Chemical Corps.
• 1951-1954 – Development Engineering, General Electric, Schenectady, New York
• Test Engineer, General Electric Company, equivalent of one year during RPI Coop Program.

Awards

• N.Y. State Regents Scholarship., (1946-1950)
• Guggenheim Graduate Fellowship in Propulsion (Princeton University), (1956-1958)
• The University of Michigan Distinguished Service Award (1964)
• The Stephen S. Atwood Engineering Achievement Award (Univ. of Michigan, highest award granted by the College of Engineering, 1985)
• Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, (1986)
• Recipient of the A.K. Oppenheim Prize at The Fifteenth International Colloquium of the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems, (1995)
• Recipient of the Cybulski Medal from The Polish Academy of Sciences for research in combustion (1995)
• “Best Scientific Paper Award” to Dr. D.A. Jones” from Materials Research Laboratory in Australia for the joint paper
• “Numerical simulations of detonation transmission” by E.S. Oran, D.A. Jones and M.Sichel, p. 267-297, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A, v.436, (1992)
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (1998)