Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Inlet Shape Considerations For Split-Wing Electric Distributed Propulsion, Kurt Vonderhaar Papathakis

Master's Theses

This thesis aims to uncover preliminary design relationships for an inlet of a split-wing electric distributed propulsion regional airliner. Several aspects of the inlet design were investigated, including: the overall thickness of the airfoil section with respect to the chord, inlet throat area, and lip radius. These parameters were investigated using several angles of attack and mass flow rates through the fan. Computational fluid dynamics, with a 2^nd Order turbulence model was used and validated against World War II era data from NACA, as those studies were the most pertinent wind tunnel data available. Additionally, other works by Boeing, …

Hybrid Rocket Motor Scaling Process, Joseph B. R. Vanherweg

Master's Theses

Hybrid rocket propulsion technology shows promise for the next generation of sounding rockets and small launch vehicles. This paper seeks to provide details on the process of developing hybrid propulsion systems to the academic and amateur rocket communities to assist in future research and development. Scaling hybrid rocket motors for use in sounding rockets has been a challenge due to the inadequacies in traditional boundary layer analysis. Similarity scaling is an amendment to traditional boundary layer analysis which is helpful in removing some of the past scaling challenges. Maintaining geometric similarity, oxidizer and fuel similarity and mass flow rate to …

Structural Micrometeoroid And Radiation Shielding For Interplanetary Spacecraft, Jared Allen Ruekberg

Master's Theses

This paper focused on two significant space forces that can affect the success of a spacecraft: the radiation and micrometeoroid environments. Both are looked at in the context of the region of space between Earth and Mars. The goal was create reference environments, to provide context to results of environmental modeling, and to provide recommendations to assist in early design decisions of interplanetary spacecraft. The radiation section of this report used NASA's OLTARIS program to generate data for analysis. The area of focus was on the radiation effects for crewed missions, therefore effective dose equivalent was the metric used to …

Wind Oscillator For Power Genration, Rs Vewen Ramasamy

Masters Theses

This thesis describes in detail the design, mechanical, electrical and software considerations in developing a working model for the non-conventional wind power converter called Wind Oscillator. This was based on the concept developed and patented by Tianshu Liu in the paper “Wind Oscillator and Rotor for Power Generation”[1]. In order to verify the practicality of this idea, a working model of the Wind Oscillator was designed, built and tested in the Western Michigan University wind tunnel facility. LabVIEW data acquisition and photogrammetry was performed on the model so as to evaluate the power generated by the Wind Oscillator and to …

Tesseract, Edgar Uribe, Vanessa Faune

Mechanical Engineering

PolySat is a student-run, Cal Poly research program in which students develop small satellites, known as CubeSats, to be sent into space. Since the start of the program in 2000, PolySat has developed eight 10cm x 10cm x10cm CubeSats. Recently, the team has developed two satellites of double, and triple, that size for NASA-KSC & AI-Solutions and the National Science Foundation. The recent volumetric expansion has been driven by high demand for further satellite functionality, which necessitates large power generation capabilities. To remain competitive in the growing CubeSat industry, PolySat must develop a platform that can provide enough power to …

The Creation, Analysis, And Verification Of A Comprehensive Model Of A Micro Ion Thruster, Maxwell J. Bodnar

Master's Theses

A computational model of the micro-ion thruster MiXI has been developed, analyzed, and partially verified. This model includes submodels that govern the physical, magnetic, electrostatic, plasma physics, and power deposition of the thruster. Over the past few years, theses have been conducted with the goal of running tests and analyzing the results; this model is used to understand how the thruster components interact so as to make predictions about, and allow for optimization of, the thruster operation. Testing is then performed on the thruster and the results are compared to the output of the code. The magnetic structure of the …

Validation Of A Cfd Approach For Gas Turbine Internal Cooling Passage Heat Transfer Prediction, Daniel G. Wilde

Master's Theses

This report describes the development and application of a validated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling approach for internal cooling passages in rotating turbomachinery. A CFD Modelling approach and accompanying assumptions are tuned and validated against academically available experimental results for various serpentine passages. Criteria of the CFD modelling approach selected for investigation into advanced internal cooling flows include accuracy, robustness, industry familiarity, and computational cost.

Experimental data from NASA HOST (HOt Section Technology), Texas A&M, and University of Manchester tests are compared to RANS CFD results generated using Fluent v14.5 in order to benchmark a CFD modelling approach.

Capability of …

Electric Commuter Multicopter, Marley Hunter Miller, Blake Sperry, Ike Sheppard, Olliver Fredrick Kunz, Sam Juday, Alex O'Hearn, Kyle Seth Kruse, Arthur Norwood, Jarrell Washington

Mechanical Engineering

This document describes the design, analysis, and overall goals of the Electric Commuter Multicopter (ECM) Senior Project. It was presented by Bob Addis and Bill Burner to the senior mechanical engineering class of 2015 at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. The progress and development of the project are described in detail and to an extent that an individual or group with similar aspirations can construct their own multicopter or expand upon this one. The goal of this project is to create an Ultralight, as defined by FAA Part 103, commuter multicopter vehicle capable of transporting an individual to and from …

Analysis Of Vibroacoustic Properties Of Dimpled Beams Using A Boundary Value Model, Kyle R. Myers

Dissertations

Attention has been given recently to the use of dimples as a means of passively altering the vibroacoustic properties of structures. Because of their geometric complexity, previous studies have modeled dimpled structures using the finite element method. However, the dynamics of dimpled structures are not completely understood. The goal of this study is to provide a better understanding of these structures through the development of a boundary value model (BVM) using Hamilton's Variational Principle. The focus of this study is on dimpled beams, which represent the simplest form of a dimpled structure.

A general model of a beam with N …

Design Of Synthetic Jet Actuator For Flight Control Of Small Uav, Priyanka Pagadala

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The main idea of this project is to develop a prototype SJA - Synthetic Jet Actuator to embed into a small UAV with modified Glauert wing cross-section for Active Flow Control. Apart from lift enhancement, drag reduction, or separation control, etc; LCO suppression might be possible by modifying the boundary layer through the use of these actuators. For initial investigation, a wing section with span of 12.4 cm and chord of 14 cm was fabricated and tests were conducted in the subsonic wind tunnel at the free stream velocities of 5 and 10 m / s. From these experiments, lift …

Sensor Fusion And Obstacle Avoidance For An Unmanned Ground Vehicle, Gurasis Singh

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

In recent years, the capabilities and potential value of unmanned autonomous systems (UAS) to perform an extensive variety of missions have significantly increased. It is well comprehended that there are various challenges associated with the realization of autonomous operations in complex urban environments. These difficulties include the requirement for precision guidance and control in conceivably GPS-denied conditions as well as the need to sense and avoid stationary and moving obstructions within the scene. The small size of some of these vehicles restricts the size, weight and power consumption of the sensor payload and onboard computational processing that can accommodated by …

Sense And Avoid Uas Project Final Design Report, Katie Peticolas, Cesia Cazares, Trevor Elsbree, Courtney Smith, Herberth Elie Navas

Biomedical Engineering

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Mixing In A Magnetohydrodynamic (Mhd) Microfluidic Cell By Numerical Simulations, Fangping Yuan, Kakkattukuzhy M. Isaac

Collaborative Research: Actively Controllable Microfluidics with Film-Confined Redox-Magnetohydrodynamics -- Video and Data

No abstract provided.

Flexsar A High-Quality, Flexible, Cost-Effective, Prototype Sar System, Mark Jensen, Chad Knight

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

The FlexSAR radar system was designed to be a high quality, low-cost, flexible prototype instrument. Many radar researchers and practitioners desire the ability to efficiently prototype novel configurations. The resulting cost and time required to modify existing radar systems is a challenging hurdle that can be prohibitive. The FlexSAR system couples an RF design that leverages connectorized components with digital commercial of the shelf (COTS) cards. This design allows for a scalable system that supports software defined radio (SDR) capabilities. This paper focuses on the RF and digital system design discussing the advantages and disadvantages. The FlexSAR system design objective …

Small Swap 3d Imaging Flash Ladar For Small Tactical Unmanned Air Systems, Alan Bird, Scott A. Anderson, Michael Wojcik, Scott E. Budge

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

The Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL), working with Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and industry leaders Advanced Scientific Concepts (ASC) and Hood Technology Corporation, has developed a small SWAP (size, weight, and power) 3D imaging flash ladar (LAser Detection And Ranging) sensor system concept design for small tactical unmanned air systems (STUAS). The design utilizes an ASC 3D flash ladar camera and laser in a Hood Technology gyro-stabilized gimbal system. The design is an autonomous, intelligent, geo-aware sensor system that supplies real-time 3D terrain and target images. Flash ladar and visible camera data are processed at the sensor using a custom digitizer/frame …

Single Wavelength Lidar Retrieval Algorithm Of Particulate Matter Concentration Using Celis (Compact Eyesafe Lidar System), A 1.5 Μm Elastic Lidar System, Alan W. Bird, Kori D. Moore, Michael Wojcik, Robert Lemon

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

CELiS (Compact Eyesafe Lidar System) is an elastic backscatter light detection and ranging (lidar) system developed for monitoring air quality environmental compliance regarding particulate matter (PM_k) generated from off-road use of wheeled and tracked vehicles as part of the SERDP (Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program) Measurement and Modeling of Fugitive Dust Emission from Off-Road DoD Activities program.

CELiS is small, lightweight and easily transportable for quick setup and measurement of PM_k concentration and emissions. CELiS operates in a biaxial configuration at the 1.5μm eyesafe wavelength with a working range of better than 6 km and range …

Gradient Projection For Interrupted Sar Using The Polar Format Algorithm, Ross Deming, Chad Knight, Jake Gunther

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

We present an efficient and computationally simple approach for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging in cases when the radar data have gaps, due to missing pulses and/or notches in the frequency band. Our method is a simple variation of gradient projection, in which the search path in each iteration is obtained by projecting the negative-gradient of the L1 norm onto a hyper-plane defining solutions which are consistent with the data. The computations are not complicated since the L1 gradient is simply equal to the sign() of the pixels in the image. Computational efficiency is obtained by incorporating the polar format …

Demonstration Of Co2 Ch4 And Pm Detection Using Differentia Absorption Lidar (Dial) Development Of Advanced Air Monitoring Technology For Alberta, Michael Wojcik, Blake Crowther, Robert Lemon, Prasad Valupadas, Long Fu, Bonnie Leung, Zhang Yang, Quamrul Huda, Allan Chambers

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

Rapid expansion of the oil and gas industry in Alberta, including the oil sands, has challenged the Alberta Government to keep pace in its efforts to monitor and mitigate the environmental impacts of development. The limitations of current monitoring systems has pushed the provincial government to seek out advanced sensing technologies such as satellite imagery and laser based sensors. The Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) of Utah State University, in cooperation with Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA), has developed North America’s first mobile differential absorption lidar (DIAL) system designed specifically for emissions measurement. This instrument is housed inside …

Clutter Suppression Interferometry System Design And Processing, Chad Knight, Ross Deming, Jake Gunther

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

Clutter suppression interferometry (CSI) has received extensive attention due to its multi-modal capability to detect slow-moving targets, and concurrently form high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the same data. The ability to continuously augment SAR images with geo-located ground moving target indicators (GMTI) provides valuable real-time situational awareness that is important for many applications. CSI can be accomplished with minimal hardware and processing resources. This makes CSI a natural candidate for applications where size, weight and power (SWaP) are constrained, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and small satellites applications.

This paper will discuss the theory for optimal CSI …

Computational Aerodynamic Analysis Of A Micro-Ct Based Bio-Realistic Fruit Fly Wing, Joshua Brandt, Graham Doig, Naomi Tsafnat

Aerospace Engineering

The aerodynamic features of a bio-realistic 3D fruit fly wing in steady state (snapshot) flight conditions were analyzed numerically. The wing geometry was created from high resolution micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) of the fruit fly Drosophila virilis. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses of the wing were conducted at ultra-low Reynolds numbers ranging from 71 to 200, and at angles of attack ranging from -10° to +30°. It was found that in the 3D bio-realistc model, the corrugations of the wing created localized circulation regions in the flow field, most notably at higher angles of attack near the wing tip. Analyses …