Reaching
for the skies
An engineering internship in Belgium offers modern
equipment, tight deadlines and international friends.
Photos by Michael Vergalla
Story by Yulia Medvedeva
in a down-to-earth internship
Mike Vergalla loves traveling, exciting summers and
studying fluid dynamics. That’s why a summer
internship at von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics
in Belgium was a great choice for him.
VKI is an international community of students that
hides on the southern border of Brussels right next
to a huge forest. Mike’s supervisor at VKI, Professor
Guillermo Paniagua, also supervised students from Italy, Hungary, Spain, Turkey,
Czech Republic, France, Germany, Portugal and Belgium. Mike was the first
American student Professor Paniagua mentored, but he had a chance to meet other
American students at VKI, and he says they all are brilliant. Mike enjoyed helping
his friends with their English skills.
At first the tasks Mike received at VKI were way beyond what he thought he
could accomplish. Eventually, he would complete the task to find that another
bold endeavor was waiting for him. “It was amazing how much you can accomplish
when pushed,” Mike says.
Professor Paniagua was impressed with Mike’s ability to simplify complex
problems: “During the whole time at VKI his enthusiasm remained unaltered,
helping to keep very good spirits among the group of students working hard during
the summer.”
As the flags on the rostrum show, students from
around the world study at VKI.
Mike had two coffee breaks a day. Espresso
helped to keep up with studying; coffee breaks
were a nice time to make friends and chat
about progress.
Michael Vergalla adjusts a pitot tube for
measuring pressure inside the low speed
wind tunnel during his internship at von
Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in
Brussels. A model of an Italian city with a
very old building was tested to assess the
repairs and renovations needed.
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From the lab…
1
2
4
3
5
1- Test setup for pressure sensitive paint experiments.
2 - Compressor blades of a Rolls-Royce turbo shaft engine.
3 - An experimental setup of proximity sensor to measure blade tip clearance.
4 - End-plate from a linear turbine test rig. The colors trace the flow past the tip of a turbine blade.
5 - Network of pressure sensors for the turbine test rig.
on Karman Institute provides the chance to learn while working in top level research projects,” Professor
Guillermo Paniagua says. “The environment among students and professors is very friendly, allowing
constant discussions in a relaxed atmosphere.”
“
Airbus A380, the largest commercial airliner capable of carrying 850 passengers, debuted at
the Le Bourget air show this summer. It completed its first flight in October with Singapore
Airlines. Mike’s generation of aerospace engineers will decide what engines will power
airliners that follow the A380 and Boeing 797.
Mike Vergalla was lucky to spend a day at the biannual international air show Le Bourget not far
from Paris. Le Bourget is a professional convention, and public is only allowed to enter on its last
day. Attending Le Bourget is a great opportunity to see trends in aerospace engineering.
…to Le Bourget...
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WORLDWIDE student18 Jan/Feb 2008 19

... and around
Europe
Sculpture in the Belgian Royal Gardens, one
of the landmarks of Brussels.
All the houses in Knokke-Heist, the town along the Belgian
coastline, must be painted white.
Flowers on the bank of Lake Como in Italy. In Belgium,
flowers are everywhere along the streets.
The needle and thread
symbolize the stitching
together of a new Milan.
A bar off the Grand Place in Brussels offers 2004
different beers at any given time.
The Atomium, the Eiffel tower of Brussels, is a 337 feet
tall magnified model of a molecule that offers
a panoramic view of the city.
Michael Vergalla is a senior student
studying Aerospace Engineering at
Florida Institute of Technology. He
was just getting to a point of small
conversations in French and ordering
beer in Flemish when his internship
at von Karman Institute for Fluid
Dynamics in Belgium ended.
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WORLDWIDE student20 Jan/Feb 2008 21
Mike’s experience
at VKI has already
helped him in his
classes back at home. His
report on the research he
did at VKI prepared him for
writing a graduate thesis.
Apart from being a
valuable hands-on academic
experience, the internship in
Brussels was his chance to
see the world. Mike traveled
to Netherlands, Italy and
France during his summer in
Belgium. He says he now has
a new outlook about events
occurring in his country and
abroad. “I was finally able to
viewtheUnitedStatesthrough
the eyes of other countries,
and it is a dramatic contrast to
what many Americans think.”
The only downside of
experience in Belgium were
difficulties in finding a job.
Mike wanted to work on
the weekends to have extra
money to spend. “It is much
harder to do that in a country
when you are not a citizen.”
Mike missed his family,
but three months at VKI
just wasn’t long enough. “I
wanted to stay because I still
had so much more to see and
learn.” ww