To establish and maintain close ties between Stanford faculty and engineers in industry working in the general areas of fluid mechanics, propulsion, heat transfer, combustion, plasmas, computational methods, and laser-based diagnostics. The associated research groups perform both fundamental and applied research of relevance to the aerospace, energy, electronics, and process industries with a strong emphasis on coupled experimental and numerical studies. Funding from the affiliates program supports graduate student fellowships, initiation of innovative research projects, new faculty start ups, and cost-sharing for capital purchases.
All companies first join as a standard member.
Additional membership benefits at an additional fee are available by joining one of two Affiliates Interest Groups. Many of the member companies also provide additional grants to support specific research programs. Each member is assigned a faculty liason who acts as the company's contact for accessing the resources of the research group. The liason faculty member visits the company site at regular intervals to learn about the specific problems of interest to the company and to develop potential research ideas. There is an annual 3 day conference at which the year's research results are presented.