Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Rocket Motor Nozzle, Corey Hillegass

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For this honors research and senior design project, the authors will research, analyze, and manufacture a rocket motor nozzle for the Akronauts rocket design team. This research and design project will improve how the rocket design team will decide and manufacture nozzles going forward. The impact of this improvement allows the rocket design team to take steps toward being self-sustaining by manufacturing student designed parts as opposed to commercially bought parts. This will not only be successful in increasing student impact on future designs, but also provides a technical challenge for the authors and will present as an impressive feat …

Aircraft Hydraulic Systems - Fundamentals, Nihad E. Daidzic

Aviation Department Publications

Aircraft hydraulic systems are essential non-propulsive power systems. Hydraulic power systems are used to power major functional aircraft systems, such as flight controls (primary and secondary), friction braking, nose gear steering, thrust-reversers, operating heavy cargo doors, etc.

Expendable 3d Printed Rescue Drone, Matthew Chapman, Nathan Knutty, Matthew Chapman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project team designed a 3D printed, expendable drone capable of flying for 80 minutes with a 5 lb payload in order to deliver rescue supplies to individuals in distress.

In-Flight Wingtip Folding: Inspiration From The Xb-70 Valkyrie, Gaétan X. Dussart, Mudassir Lone, Ciaran O'Rourke, Thomas Wilson

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Wingip folding can be used to extend aircraft wingspan, allowing designers to take advantage of reduced induced drag whilst respecting ground operational limitations. Such devices can also be used in-flight for a variety of other benefits including load alleviation and flight control. The majority of in-flight folding research takes inspiration in past developments made on the XB-70 Valkyrie, which used the folding devices for stability and lift performance benefits. In this paper, the authors investigate the capabilities of the folding wingtip system and potential scaling to large civil aircraft. Manufacturing details are used to size the actuators whilst the aerodynamic …

The Kentucky Re-Entry Universal Payload System (Krups): Sub-Orbital Flights, James Devin Sparks

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

The Kentucky Re-entry Universal Payload System (KRUPS) is an adaptable testbed for atmosphere entry science experiments, with an initial application to thermal protection systems (TPS). Because of the uniqueness of atmospheric entry conditions that ground testing is unable to replicate, scientists principally rely on numerical models for predicting entry conditions. The KRUPS spacecraft, developed at the University of Kentucky, provides an inexpensive means of obtaining validation data to verify and improve these models.

To increase the technology readiness level (TRL) of the spacecraft, two sub-orbital missions were developed. The first mission, KUDOS, launched August 13th, 2017 on a Terrier-Improved Malamute …

Design Of Shape-Conforming Nosecone For Optimal Fluid Flow From Transonic To Supersonic Range, Anna Tombazzi

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Modern flight vehicles, such as rockets, missiles, and airplanes, experience a force caused by forebody wave drag during the flight. This drag force is induced when the frontal point of each vehicle breaks the pressure wave during flight. Efforts to reduce this wave drag force to improve flight efficiency include modifying the nosecone profile of the flight vehicles to lower the drag force.

This project revolved around creating a design to make the transformation of nosecone shapes from a ¾ Parabolic profile to a ½ Power Series profile possible, mid-flight. Using a novel nosecone assembly, shape memory alloys (SMAs) and …

High Altitude Ballooning And The Effect Of Temperature On Balloon Ascent Rate, Christopher D. Young

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Abstract

High Altitude Ballooning and The Effect of Temperature on Balloon Ascent Rate.

Christopher Young

High-altitude balloons are unmanned balloons, usually filled with helium or hydrogen, that after release, ascend into the stratosphere, generally attaining an altitude of between 60,000 to 100,000 feet. The balloon payload includes scientific experiments on organisms, equipment to study radiation, temperature, ultra- violet radiation, and pressure. The balloon flights and experiments are logged by means of video devices and are tracked from the ground through multiple tracking devices. The effect of temperature on the ascent rate of the balloon could change how the balloon expands …

Some Considerations For Regional Airline Operations On Contaminated Runways., Nihad E. Daidzic

Aviation Department Publications

No abstract provided.