Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Can The Timeframe Of Reported Uas Sightings Help Regulators?, Spencer Erik Pitcher, Kelly A. Whealan-George

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

Remotely controlled small aircraft, otherwise known as Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) or drones have started to impact the United States National Airspace System by interfering with the safe flight of aircraft. As the UAS industry continues its expected growth into the future, lawmakers, as well as regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the aviation community must be able to predict when there will be more UAS craft in the air that could cause an interruption to air traffic so that more resources can be allocated optimally to counter the threat of UAS craft. The purpose of this study …

Atmospheric Pressure Calibration To Improve Accuracy Of Transponder-Based Aircraft Operations Counting Technology, John H. Mott, Chuyang Yang, Darcy M. Bullock

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

In the United States, over 2,400 of the 2,941 non-primary National Plan of Integrated Airport System airports have limited means of establishing operations counts due to lack of available personnel. Precise counts of airport operations are helpful for allocating airport improvement funds, as well as for local and system planning. An emerging technology utilizing ADS-B position data to calibrate signal strength received from Mode C transponders, thereby capturing location information from over 90% of the aircraft operating in the National Airspace System, has successfully estimated operations counts at these non-towered airports with reasonable levels of accuracy. This paper evaluates the …

Tooling Design Modeling For Composite Fuselage Of Beechcraft King Air 250 Using Catia, Miazor Fidelis Ekom

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Aircraft’s constant operation in tough conditions necessitates the need for structural components of high strength yet low weight. Composite materials are being used as an alternative to conventional aluminum alloys because of their competitive strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios. In this paper, the detailed design procedure of a light-aircraft composite material fuselage tooling in three dimensions is shown. In its operation, the layup tools provide a surface for the composite part which is the correct shape of the part and is stable through the cure cycle, and also providing a means of indexing the part for the next manufacturing operation. This …

Viability And Application Of Mounting Personal Pid Voc Sensors To Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Cheryl Lynn Marcham, Scott Burgess, Joseph Cerreta, Patti J. Clark, James P. Solti, Brandon Breault, Joshua G. Marcham

Publications

Using a UAS-mounted sensor to allow for a rapid response to areas that may be difficult to reach or potentially dangerous to human health can increase the situational awareness of first responders of an aircraft crash site through the remote detection, identification, and quantification of airborne hazardous materials. The primary purpose of this research was to evaluate the remote sensing viability and application of integrating existing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) sensors with small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) technology to detect potentially hazardous airborne contaminants in emergency leak or spill response situations. By mounting the personal photoionization detector (PID) with volatile organic compound …

Numerical Reconstruction Of Spalled Particle Trajectories In An Arc-Jet Environment, Raghava S. C. Davuluri, Sean C. C. Bailey, Kaveh A. Tagavi, Alexandre Martin

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

To evaluate the effects of spallation on ablative material, it is necessary to evaluate the mass loss. To do so, a Lagrangian particle trajectory code is used to reconstruct trajectories that match the experimental data for all kinematic parameters. The results from spallation experiments conducted at the NASA HYMETS facility over a wedge sample were used. A data-driven adaptive methodology was used to adapts the ejection parameters until the numerical trajectory matches the experimental data. The preliminary reconstruction results show that the size of the particles seemed to be correlated with the location of the ejection event. The size of …

Comparison Of Theoretical And High-Fidelity Aerostructural Solutions, Jeffrey D. Taylor, Douglas F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

As contemporary aerostructural research in aircraft design trends toward high-fidelity computational methods, aerostructural solutions based on theory are often neglected or forgotten. In fact, in many modern aerostructural wing optimization studies, the elliptic lift distribution is used as a benchmark in place of theoretical aerostructural solutions with more appropriate constraints. In this paper, we review several theoretical aerostructural solutions that could be used as benchmark cases for wing design studies, and we compare them to high-fidelity solutions with similar constraints. Solutions are presented for studies with 1) constraints related to the wing integrated bending moment, 2) constraints related to the …

Characterization Of The Common Research Model Wing For Low-Fidelity Aerostructural Analysis, Jeffrey D. Taylor, Douglas F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

A characterization of the Common Research Model (CRM) wing for low-fidelity aerostructural optimization is presented. The geometric and structural properties are based on the CAD geometries and finite-element models for the CRM wing and the undeflected Common Research Model Wing (uCRM). Three approximations are presented for the elastic axis from previously-published studies on wing boxes similar to the uCRM, and approximations of the flexural and torsional rigidity are presented from a previously-published study using the uCRM wing. The characterization presented in this paper is intended to be used within low-fidelity aerostructural analysis tools to facilitate rapid design optimization and exploratory …

Sensitivity And Estimation Of Flying-Wing Aerodynamic, Propulsion, And Inertial Parameters Using Simulation, Jaden Thurgood, Douglas F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

This paper explores the difficulties of aircraft system identification, specifically parameter estimation, for a rudderless aircraft. A white box method is used in conjunction with a nonlinear six degree-of-freedom aerodynamic model for the equations of motion in order to estimate 33 parameters that govern the aerodynamic, inertial, and propulsion forces within the mathematical model. The analysis is conducted in the time-domain of system identification. Additionally, all the parameters are estimated using a single flight rather than a series of shorter flights dedicated to estimating specific sets of parameters as is typically done. A final flight plan is developed with a …

Performance Of A Dual Plane Airfoil Model With Varying Gap, Stagger, And Decalage Using Pressure Measurements And Particle Image Velocimetry, Salome Kenneth Nunes

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The dual-plane airfoil has been adopted in the design of aircraft wings, wind turbine blades, and propellers. The purpose of this research is to investigate the most important design parameters of a dual-plane airfoil model for the best aerodynamic performance, such as gap, stagger, and decalage. The dual-plane airfoil model was designed using the S826 profile. A mechanical mechanism with electrical actuator control is particularly designed to alter the gap and stagger smoothly, as well as the angle of attack (AOA) for each airfoil. It results in a gap range of 1.38c to 2.17c, a stagger range of -0.75c to …

Hybrid Models As Transdisciplinary Research Enablers, Andreas Tolk, Alison Harper, Navonil Mustafee

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Modelling and simulation (M&S) techniques are frequently used in Operations Research (OR) to aid decision-making. With growing complexity of systems to be modelled, an increasing number of studies now apply multiple M&S techniques or hybrid simulation (HS) to represent the underlying system of interest. A parallel but related theme of research is extending the HS approach to include the development of hybrid models (HM). HM extends the M&S discipline by combining theories, methods and tools from across disciplines and applying multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary solutions to practice. In the broader OR literature, there are numerous examples of cross-disciplinary approaches in …

A Multi-Agent Semi-Cooperative Unmanned Air Traffic Management Model With Separation Assurance, Yanchao Liu

Industrial and Systems Engineering Faculty Research Publications

This paper presents an air traffic management framework to enable multiple fleets of unmanned aerial vehicles to traverse dense, omni-directional air traffic safely and efficiently. The main challenge addressed here is separation assurance in the absence of full coordination and communication. In this framework, each fleet is independently managed by a routing agent, which progressively plans the non-overlapping move-ahead corridors for vehicles in the fleet by solving a nonlinear optimization model. The model is artfully designed so that agents of different fleets need not engage in complicated multilateral communications or make guesses about external vehicles’ flight intents to maintain effective …

Spacecraft Informatics, K. L. Yung, Lida Xu, Chris Zhang

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Molten Regolith Electrolysis Processing For Lunar Isru: Financial And Physics Analysis Of Spacex Starship Transportation, Cheyenne Harper

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of the following research is to explore molten regolith electrolysis (MRE) methodology for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) of Highlands lunar regolith, to be explored during the initial Artemis missions. An analysis of potential commercial launch providers for MRE-equipment based on technology-readiness level (TRL), payload mass support, and $ USD/kg payload price is provided. SpaceX is ultimately proposed as a launch provider of MRE equipment following multi-factorial analysis, with the SpaceX Starship human landing system (HLS) variant proposed for supporting MRE payload. Finally, customers of regolith-derived oxygen, aluminum, and silicon are distinguished to form the business case for operating …

A Finite Difference Model For Induced Hypothermia During Shock, Dylan S. Lyon

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The modified Fiala model from Westin was implemented with conditions for circulatory shock and hypothermia. The purpose is to model Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation (EPR), a procedure for inducing hypothermia in patients. Cold tissue temperatures reduce metabolism exponentially, greatly extending the window of anaerobic metabolic activity before permanent deoxygenation damage. EPR in patients undergoing hypovolemic shock can preserve the patient until primary surgical care and blood transfusions are attainable., thereby increasing survival rates. The main applications of EPR are military in-situ stabilization for transit to clinical care and extending the survivability of patients requiring prolonged surgery before blood transfusion. The …

Localization Algorithms For Gnss-Denied And Challenging Environments, Chizhao Yang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this dissertation, the problem about localization in GNSS-denied and challenging environments is addressed. Specifically, the challenging environments discussed in this dissertation include two different types, environments including only low-resolution features and environments containing moving objects. To achieve accurate pose estimates, the errors are always bounded through matching observations from sensors with surrounding environments. These challenging environments, unfortunately, would bring troubles into matching related methods, such as "fingerprint" matching, and ICP. For instance, in environments with low-resolution features, the on-board sensor measurements could match to multiple positions on a map, which creates ambiguity; in environments with moving objects included, the …

Computational Studies For Extending Understanding Of Complex Droplet Breakup Mechanisms, Caroline Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Conventional methods of classifying droplet breakup are evaluated in the context of unique variation in environmental and droplet fluid conditions. Most characterization is developed for subsonic speeds and Newtonian fluids, so this study extends understanding on how these forms change to a span of applications outside these conditions. Presented examples include the impact effects on hypersonic vehicles travelling through precipitation, where even smallest of rain drops at such speeds can cause damage. Before the droplet even reaches the vehicle, it interacts with the detached bow shock that leads it. Another example of exceptional recent concern is risk of viral transmission …

Simulating Ejecta Blown Off The Lunar Surface Due To Landing Spacecraft Using The Mercury N-Body Integrator, Isabel Rivera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The experiences of the Apollo lunar landings revealed the danger lunar dust can pose to surrounding hardware, outposts, and orbiting spacecraft. Future lunar missions such as the Artemis program will require more information about the trajectories of ejecta blown by landers to protect orbiting spacecraft such as the Lunar Gateway. In this paper, we simulate lunar lander ejecta trajectories using the Mercury N-body integrator. We placed cones of test particles on the Moon at the North Pole, South Pole, and Equator with various ejection speeds and angles. The results show that particles ejected at speeds near the Moon's escape velocity …

Experimental Study Of A Liquid Fuel Bluff Body Flame At Elevated Pressures, Karam Paul

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this research was to operate a bluff body flame holder with the objective of stabilizing a flame at elevated pressures over a range of equivalence ratios. The ability to have a ground-based test rig capable of maintaining stable flames at high pressures and temperatures is critical in understanding flames present in modern jet engines and gas turbine technologies. The facility was reconfigured multiple times and the resultant flame was imaged within the optical test section. A converging nozzle was utilized to choke the flow and vary the operating pressures up to 5 atm. By regulating mass flow …

Motor Control System For Near-Resonance High-Cycle Fatigue Testing, Samer K. Armaly

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research project develops a low-cost high-cycle fatigue (HCF) testing system comprised of an AC motor, variable frequency drive (VFD), eccentric cam, and feedback controller. The system acts as a forced harmonic oscillator leveraging mechanical resonance to vibrate a specimen at a frequency required to induce the testing's strain amplitudes.

This system depends highly on the material being tested. As such, the controller incorporates material characteristics. A frequency sweep measures the strain amplitude to characterize the specimen. Additionally, other measurements such as acceleration can be used as a proxy control variables for strain. A function converts the control variable to …

Optimization Of A Wing Supporting A Coaxial Rotor For Multiple Flight Conditions, Tadd Yeager

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Rotor-powered drones continue to grow in popularity in private and government sectors. The use of these drones in challenging environments and in high stakes applications calls for a certain level of robustness and redundancy. Often, these drones are equipped with sets of paired coaxial rotors, which not only improve the performance of the vehicle, but also ensure that a failure of one motor does not constitute the failure of the whole vehicle. Some applications such as extraterrestrial exploration, which use these coaxial rotors, can benefit from a wing shaped rotor arm to reduce drag and increase lift, extending mission lifetime. …