Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Safran Seat Attachment System, Craig John Kimball, Tyler Bragg, Lynette Cox

Mechanical Engineering

This final design review (FDR) document outlines the senior design project being carried out by a team of mechanical engineering undergraduate students attending California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo for Safran Seats in Santa Maria, CA. The project originally was to design, build, and test a universal attachment to secure a widebody business class seat to seven aircraft models with different seat track geometry. The goal was to design, document, and create a finished product that fits design, weight, and manufacturing requirements, as well as passes static 9G FWD testing. Structural analysis, manufacturing analysis, FEA, and CAD assemblies will …

Miniaturized Ultraviolet Imager Phase Iii, Bradley D. Albright, Nicolas A. Armenta, Colin W. Harrop

Mechanical Engineering

This document details the work to date, June 9, 2020, done by the Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering senior project team, Miniaturized Ultraviolet Imager: Phase III (MUVI III), sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley – Space Sciences Laboratory (UCB SSL). MUVI III is the third senior project team of an ongoing design, MUVI: the prototype of a 2U sized CubeSat intended to capture aurora images in the ionosphere. The first team, MUVI I, finished development of the UV imager. The second team, MUVI II, designed the mirror mounting and deployable door mechanisms. The goal of MUVI phase III is to …

Three Axis Attitude Control System Design And Analysis Tool Development For The Cal Poly Cubesat Laboratory, Liam T. Bruno

Master's Theses

The Cal Poly CubeSat Laboratory (CPCL) is currently facing unprecedented engineering challenges—both technically and programmatically—due to the increasing cost and complexity of CubeSat flight missions. In responding to recent RFPs, the CPCL has been forced to find commercially available solutions to entire mission critical spacecraft subsystems such as propulsion and attitude determination & control, because currently no in-house options exist for consideration. The commercially available solutions for these subsystems are often extremely expensive and sometimes provide excessively good performance with respect to mission requirements. Furthermore, use of entire commercial subsystems detracts from the hands-on learning objectives of the CPCL by …

A Study Of The Utilization Of Panel Method For Low Aspect Ratio Wing Analysis, William Barton D. Newey

Master's Theses

This study demonstrates the applicability of using a modified application strategy of panel method to analyze low aspect ratio wings at preliminary design phases. Conventional panel methods fail to capture the leading edge vortex (LEV) that is shed by wings with low aspect ratios, typically below 2 depending on planform. This aerodynamic phenomenon contributes to a significant amount of the lift of these wings and the result is a drastic underestimation of the lift characteristics when analyzed by conventional panel method. To capture the effect of the leading edge vortex, a panel method code was used with an extended definition …

Design Of A Martian Communication Constellation Of Cubesats, Scott J. Pirkle

Master's Theses

Spacecraft operating on the Martian surface have used relay satellites as a means of improving communication capabilities, mainly in terms of bandwidth and availability. However, the spacecraft used to achieve this have been large spacecraft (1000s of kilograms) and were not designed with relay capability as the design priority. This thesis explores the possibility of using a CubeSat-based constellation as a communications network for spacecraft operating on the Martian surface. Brute-force techniques are employed to explore the design space of possible constellations. An analysis of constellation configurations that provide complete, continuous coverage of the Martian surface is presented. The stability …

Conceptual Design Of A South Pole Carrier Pigeon Uav, Kendrick M. Dlima

Master's Theses

Currently, the South Pole has a large data problem. It is estimated that 1.2 TB of data is being produced every day, but less than 500 GB of that data is being uploaded via aging satellites to researchers in other parts of the world. This requires those at the South Pole to analyze the data and carefully select the parts to send, possibly missing out on vital scientific information. The South Pole Carrier Pigeon will look to bridge this data gap.

The Carrier Pigeon will be a small unmanned aerial vehicle that will carry a 30 TB solid-state hard drive …

Design, Validation, And Verification Of The Cal Poly Educational Cubesat Kit Structure, Nicholas B. Snyder

Master's Theses

In this thesis, the development of a structure for use in an educational CubeSat kit is explored. The potential uses of this kit include augmenting existing curricula with aspects of hands on learning, developing new ways of training students on proper space systems engineering practices, and overall contributing to academic capacity building at Cal Poly and its collaborators. The design improves on existing CubeSat kit structures by increasing accessibility to internal components by implementing a modular backplane system, as well as adding the ability to be environmentally tested. Manufacturing of the structure is completed with both additive (Fused Deposition Modeling …

Thermal Modeling And Testing Of The Blue Thermal Vacuum Chamber, Madeline R. Jensma

Master's Theses

The Blue Thermal Vacuum Chamber (TVAC) located in the Space Environments Laboratory at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), may be used for thermal vacuum testing of test articles that fit with in the semi cylindrical test section that has a radius of approximately 18 cm and a length of 61 cm. The potential test articles include CubeSat systems and subsystem. The Blue TVAC can also be used for educational and research purposes. The goal of this thesis project is to develop a thermal model of the Blue TVAC to predict and analyze the thermal response of …

A Study Of The Standard Cirrus Wing Lift Distribution Versus Bell Shaped Lift Distribution, William H. Bergman

Master's Theses

This thesis discusses a comparison of the differences in aerodynamic performance of wings designed with elliptical and bell-shaped lift distributions. The method uses a Standard Cirrus sailplane wing with a lift distribution associated with the induced drag benefits of an elliptical distribution (span efficiency = 0.96) as the basis of comparison. The Standard Cirrus is a standard class sailplane with 15-meter wingspan that was designed by Schempp-Hirth in 1969. This sailplane wing was modeled and analyzed in XFLR5, then validated against existing wind tunnel airfoil data, and Standard Cirrus flight test data. The root bending moment of the baseline wing …

3-D Printed Hybrid Propulsion Solutions For Smallsat Lunar Landing And Sample Return, Stephen A. Whitmore

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Development And Application Of Elliptic Blending Lag K-Omega Sst Standard And Wall-Distance-Free Turbulence Model, Wenjie Shang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

In recent decades, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become the most widely used technology to understand the fundamental complex fluid dynamics of turbulent flows as well as for modeling of turbulent flows in industrial applications. In industrial applications, the widely used methodology is to solve Reynolds-Average Navier-Stokes Equations (RANS) equations in conjunction with a turbulence model since it strikes a balance between accuracy and computational cost compared to other high fidelity approaches namely the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS), There are a large number of turbulence models proposed in past five decades, majority of them are …

Thermal Transport Across The Interface Between Liquid N-Dodecane And Its Own Vapor: A Molecular Dynamics Study, Eric Bird, Jesus Gutierrez Plascencia, Zhi Liang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

There Are Two Possible Thermal Transport Mechanisms at Liquid-Gas Interfaces, Namely, Evaporation/condensation (I.e., Heat Transfer by Liquid-Vapor Phase Change at Liquid Surfaces) and Heat Conduction (I.e., Heat Exchange by Collisions between Gas Molecules and Liquid Surfaces). using Molecular Dynamics (MD) Simulations, We Study Thermal Transport Across the Liquid-Vapor Interface of a Model N-Dodecane (C12H26) under Various Driving Force Conditions. in Each MD Simulation, We Restrict the Thermal Energy to Be Transferred Across the Liquid-Vapor Interface by Only One Mechanism. in Spite of the Complex Intramolecular Interactions in N-Dodecane Molecules, Our Modeling Results Indicate that the Schrage Relationships, Which Were Shown …

Congressional Committee Resources On Space Policy During The 115th Congress (2017-2018): Providing Context And Insight Into Us Government Space Policy, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Article 1 of the US Constitution assigns the US Congress numerous responsibilities. These include creating new laws, revising existing laws, funding government programs, and conducting oversight of these programs' performance. Oversight of US Government agency space policy programs is executed by various congressional space policy committees including the House and Senate Science Committees, Armed Services, and Appropriations Committees. These committees conduct many public hearings on space policy, which invite expert witnesses to testify on US space policy programs and feature debate on the strengths and weaknesses of these programs. Documentation produced by these committees is widely available to the public, …

Wind Tunnel Wake Generator, Carl Pickl, James L. Rutledge, Marc D. Polanka, Brian Crabtree, Christopher Harkless

AFIT Patents

A wake generator for placement in a wind tunnel between a wind source and a test object includes a first frame member having a first track formed thereon, where the first track has a shape including a first side that is substantially rounded and a second side that is substantially flat. The wake generator may include a mounting plate disposed within a perimeter of the first track, where the mounting plate is rotatable relative to the first frame member about a first axis. The wake generator may also include a plurality of bars slidably engaged to the mounting plate and …

Delaying Flow Separation Using Piezoelectric Actuators, Kenechukwu Okoye

Honors Theses

Flow separation causes aircraft to experience an increase in drag degrading their aviation performance. The goal of the study was to delay flow separation on an airfoil by embedding a high-frequency translational piezoelectric actuator along the surface of the airfoil. This study investigated the extent to which the high-frequency translational piezoelectric actuator displaces the flow separation downstream or prevents it altogether utilizing a fog-based flow visualization experiment. The actuators with two actuation surfaces were embedded on the suction surface of an Eppler 862 airfoil model and placed in a low-speed wind tunnel. Dry ice fog streams were injected into the …

High Powered Rocketry Emphasizing Dual-Deployment Recovery Systems, Mckayla J. Hoskin

Honors College Theses

This paper outlines the overall project completed by MACH during the 2019-2020 school year to fulfill the requirements for EGR 498 and EGR 499 as well as the honors thesis requirements. The scope of the paper covers the design and construction of a high powered rocket as per the requirements set by the NASA Student Launch Competition, with a focus on components of dual-deployment recovery systems. Brainstorming, design, optimization, testing, re-design, and components of a high powered rocket are all discussed, though final testing remains incomplete due to complications from COVID-19. Simulation results and launch predictions are included to compensate …

Heat Transfer Measurements And Enhancement For Materials And Processes In Polymer Extrusion Based Additive Manufacturing, Hardikkumar Mangaldas Prajapati

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a burgeoning method for manufacturing over the subtractive manufacturing methodologies. Among the various method of polymer additive manufacturing the fused deposition modeling (FDM) also known as 3D printing is the most popular technique. In this technique, a rastering extruder dispenses a thermoplastic material on to a bed at a temperature greater than its glass transition temperature to build the part. Due to the additive nature of the process, AM introduces several challenges related to functional properties such as strength, thermal conductivity, etc of the eventual part. Measurement of thermal conductivity of additively manufactured polymer samples in …

Reinitiation Mode Study Of Highly Irregular Detonation, Nandakumar Vijayakumar

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The propagation of detonation waves is governed by their stability characteristics. Interest in highly unstable detonation grew when early experiments revealed limits of operation to be directly proportional to the stability of detonation. This research focuses on reinitiation pathways of highly irregular self-sustaining detonation. This is an important aspect of stability which is not yet fully understood, while many possible mechanisms have been proposed in the literature. First, a one-dimensional instability model simulation was performed using a global one-step chemistry mechanism to understand the different unstable modes by increasing the activation energy of a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. The …

Measurement And Optimization Of Thermal Transport Phenomena For Weld Strength Improvement In Polymer Extrusion Based Additive Manufacturing, Darshan Babu Ravoori

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Additive manufacturing (AM) processes involve layer-by-layer addition of material to fabricate a 3-dimensional part. AM offers significant design and manufacturing flexibility compared to traditional manufacturing approaches. The major challenge in polymer-based additive manufacturing (AM) is that printed parts often have poor thermal/structural properties. These properties depend on weld strength of filaments and which intern depends on the degree of healing/neck growth between deposited polymers. The major contribution of this dissertation is understanding the importance of heat transfer during the printing process on the polymer neck growth and presented with techniques to improve the thermal and structural strength of finished part. …

Design And Optimization Of Thermal Management Approaches In Data Center Applications, Rajesh Kasukurthy

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In the present day to day life, Internet of Things (IOT) is everything, i.e., Internet and telecommunication is needed for almost every task of our life, which require data centers. These data centers provide various facilities such as, data processing, storage, transmission, maintenance, operations etc., To perform these tasks, a huge amount of power is consumed, which in turn generates large amount of heat. As these data centers are to be made operational throughout the year, cooling of data centers is of utmost importance. The continued increase in heat flux at the chip level due to new and robust technology …