Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Numerical Modeling Of Badminton Shuttlecock Trajectories, Lola G. Torres, Cassandra Pumphrey, Jadyn Peterson, Domenic Barsotti

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

The Trajectory of a badminton Shuttlecock can vary significantly when compared to a classic projectile motion, primarily due to aerodynamic drag. This project aims to model the flight of the shuttlecock using Newton's second law for gravitational and drag related forces, resulting in a nonlinear system of a first order differential equation. The given parameters include the shuttlecock mass, cross-sectional area, air density, as well as the drag coefficient, determining the overall magnitude of the drag force. The resulting initial value problem is solved numerically using a multitude of Runge_Kutta methods to compare the accuracy and stability across different computational …

Motion With Air Resistance, Gauge Mccain, Jacob Bealefeld, Francesca Wise

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

The motion of objects moving through air is influenced not only by gravity but also by air resistance, which affects the speed and acceleration of the object over time. This project examines the motion of a falling object by modeling it with an ordinary differential equation that accounts for both gravitational force and a resistive drag force proportional to velocity. Using Newton’s Second Law, a first-order differential equation is derived to describe how the velocity of the object changes as it falls. The solution of this equation demonstrates how the velocity increases initially and gradually approaches a constant value known …

Engineering Path Trajectories With Gravitational Fields, Eliane Dean, Aidan Hart, Isabel Noot, Nathan Browning, Valeria Villazon Fito

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

This project explores how vector calculus concepts play a role in aerospace engineering though spacecraft trajectory design. In particular, the notion of vector fields is used to model the gravitational force, whose work done is expressed through line integrals. By taking the curl of the gravitational field and showing it is zero, the field is recognised as conservative, implying that the work done by gravity is path independent. This property is conceptually linked to gravitational potential energy and the principle of energy conservation. The results are then applied to spacecraft motion, where engineers use energy-base methods to determine efficient trajectories …

Modelling Quadcopter Thrust And Torque Using Lu-Decomposition, Diya Patil

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

3 & 4 motor systems have been in the world of aviation in many different forms as the field grows and evolves. To understand the complexities of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and its stability, assessing the amount of thrust put into each motor can help generate the torque produced despite factors such as multidirectional movement. While a UAV does this multiple times a second, producing a simplified version of this calculation can aid in simpler models simulating UAV movement. Due to the popularity of the quadcopter drone, a simple algorithm depicting thrust through each spinning motor can aid in …

Feasibility And Performance Of Aerogravity Assists For Ceres Missions, Divinaa E. Burder

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

This work investigates the feasibility and performance of aerogravity assist (AGA) maneuvers for missions to Ceres, with emphasis on both interplanetary trajectory design and atmospheric flight dynamics. AGAs provide substantially greater turning capability than pure gravity assists by exploiting aerodynamic lift during atmospheric passes, thereby enabling greater heliocentric energy changes than pure gravity assists. To quantify these benefits, this study integrates a broad interplanetary trajectory search with high-fidelity atmospheric performance modeling. Candidate trajectories for launch years 2030–2050 are generated for multiple inner-planet encounter sequences using vehicles with lift-to-drag ratios (L/D) between 1 and 7. Atmospheric flight segments are simulated using …

Powered Parachute Vehicle For Crew Transportation On Mars, Louis J. Spier

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

To support possible future human presence on Mars where bases are likely to be spread apart, aerial vehicles could be used to transport crew and cargo between them. Designing and operating such a vehicle is very challenging because of the low atmospheric density on Mars compared to Earth, the logistics involved with transporting it to Mars, and the infrastructure necessary to operate it. This study discusses the problems involved with designing, building, and operating fixed-wing and powered parachute aircraft on Mars and presents a concept involving a powered parachute vehicle utilizing an inflatable parachute wing that can be packed together …

Global Time-Resolved Measurements Of Inlet/Isolator Unstart Induced By Mass Injection, Andrew N. Bustard, Benjamin L. Bemis, Aaron Marques, Matthew J. Zahr, Thomas J. Juliano

Publications

The inner surface pressure of an axisymmetric inlet/isolator model was measured using anodized-aluminum pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) viewing through cast acrylic. Temperaturesensitive paint was utilized to correct for the PSP’s temperature sensitivity. The model was tested under Mach 5.7 flow at 𝑹𝒆 = 7.1 ×106 /m under conventional noise conditions. Transverse jet injection with jet-to-inlet mass-flow ratios up to 0.8 was used to induce unstart in the inlet/isolator. Background-oriented schlieren visualization of the inlet shocks was collected simultaneously with the PSP to determine when the inlet unstarted. Computational fluid dynamics results were used to determine off-wall flow structures and quantify approach …

Effect Of Solid Particle Size And Density On Incipient Motion In A Turbulent Boundary Layer, Robert Bryan

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Wind-blown sand and other instances of solid particles mobilized and suspended in gaseous turbulent boundary layers (TBLs) are seen in a wide variety of engineering contexts. An experimental framework was developed to study the incipient particle motion driven by external forcing within a turbulent boundary layer, which is provided by an airfoil section oscillating in the free-steam flow, resulting in a periodic disturbance in the near-wall region through production of synthetic large-scale structures at a fixed frequency. The incoming unsteady carrier-phase eddies were measured with a hot-film sensor upstream of a particle bed, and the particle motion was captured by …

Assessing Computer Vision Based Conflict Detection In Uas Traffic Monitoring Under Secure Communication Constraints, Fadjimata Issoufou Anaroua

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The rapid growth of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is creating a new low-altitude airspace ecosystem where drones, air taxis, service suppliers, communication networks, sensors, and ground-based monitoring systems must work together safely. Within this ecosystem, UAS Traffic Management (UTM) is expected to provide a digital framework for coordinating operations beyond traditional air traffic control. However, reliable integration also requires resilient monitoring methods that can detect non-cooperative aircraft, protect communication links, and maintain timely situational awareness under real-world constraints.

This dissertation examines how computer vision can support cooperative monitoring systems such as Remote ID and ADS-B …

Compact Cislunar Orbital Representation For Efficient Tracking In Cislunar Space, Mauro Palomo

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Expanding lunar missions require efficient, interoperable orbital tracking where existing methods fail to scale. Two-Line Elements (TLEs) lack applicability beyond geocentric regimes, while high-accuracy Orbit Ephemeris Messages (OEMs) require excessive data volumes and bandwidth to communicate. To support increased lunar traffic, this paper proposes the Compact Cislunar Orbital Representation (CCOR), providing a novel framework that strikes a balance between TLE level efficiency and OEM-level fidelity, ensuring multi-actor communication for missions in the cislunar region. By evaluating the framework across six diverse cislunar trajectories, this study demonstrates the CCOR’s robustness and ability to compress thousands of OEM state vectors into a …

Experimental-Motion-Driven Cfd Investigation Of Slosh Dynamics In Propellant Tanks Of Spacecraft And Launch Vehicles, Priyanshu Savaliya

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Liquid sloshing in partially filled propellant tanks can generate transient forces and moments that affect spacecraft and launch vehicle stability, guidance, and control. This research develops a one-way experimental-to-Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) integration framework to investigate free-surface slosh behavior under realistic excitation conditions.

The overarching goal of this thesis is to develop and evaluate a one-way experimental-motion-driven computational framework for predicting liquid slosh response in a partially filled cylindrical tank. Rather than relying on idealized sinusoidal inputs, this work uses experimentally measured actuator-feedback motion as the prescribed excitation for high-fidelity CFD. The central objective is to establish the experimental and …

Numerical Investigation Of Shock-Induced Deformation Of Bubble-Laden Droplets, Juan Roldan

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Rain impact can be a source of surface erosion on hypersonic vehicles, and the severity of each impact depends on droplet velocity, mass, and final shape, all of which are set by how the droplet breaks up under shock loading. Real droplets are expected to carry entrained non-condensable gas (NCG) nuclei from their formation. This dissertation investigates whether the purely mechanical, pressure-driven response of these nuclei, independent of vaporization, is large enough to measurably alter the internal pressure field and early deformation of a shock-loaded droplet.

The droplet and surrounding gas are modeled with a compressible, diffuse-interface, axisymmetric Eulerian framework …

Optimal Integrated Cfd-Gnc Model For Drag-Based Reentry Dynamics, Sebastian Lopez

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This research focuses on optimizing the control of a drag-maneuvering, Starship-class re-entry vehicle by closely integrating high-fidelity aerodynamic data derived from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations, specifically using StarCCM+. The aerodynamic models, tailored to the unique geometry of a drag-maneuvering body, are seamlessly incorporated into a guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) framework. This integration enables closed-loop CFD simulations with real-time control feedback, allowing for direct analysis and optimization of vehicle stability, trajectory, and control demands throughout the re-entry process.

Building upon the work of Gaglio and Bevilacqua, this advanced CFD-GNC model introduces high-order aerodynamic effects, such as aerodynamic moments and …

Noise-Optimized Routes For Air Taxi, Waleed Raza

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Community noise is a primary barrier to the public acceptance and deployment of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) air taxi operations. This dissertation develops a coupled siting, routing, and noise optimization framework that links vertiport placement to its downstream acoustic consequences, demonstrated through a Daytona Beach case study. Candidate vertiports are screened and selected using accessibility, safety, demand, and feasibility criteria, and the selected sites form a directed network of 20 routes. Each trajectory is evaluated with a physics-based acoustic pipeline reporting Lmax, SEL, and EPNL at school, hospital, and residential receptors, showing that received exposure …

Advancing Sensing And Structural Health Monitoring Of Non-Conventional Space Structures, Scott Bender

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Future lunar and deep-space missions will require new structural concepts that reduce mass while maintaining reliability. Two technologies that have received significant attention are inflatable habitats and additively manufactured structures; however, challenges remain in their characterization, validation, and long-term monitoring. This dissertation investigates methods to improve the testing and sensing of these non-conventional aerospace structures through the use of advanced photogrammetry and embedded distributed fiber-optic sensors. A color-filtering digital image correlation technique was developed to isolate orthogonal strain directions in woven inflatable structures, providing improved characterization of biaxially loaded softgoods. In addition, methods were developed to embed distributed fiber-optic sensors …

Cohesive Zone Modelling Of Fiber–Matrix Interface In Composite Materials, Arjun Myadam

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Carbon Fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) are widely used in aerospace, automotive, and structural applications due to their high specific strength, stiffness, and design flexibility. Their mechanical performance is critically governed by the fiber–matrix interface which controls stress transfer and directly influences damage initiation, crack propagation, and fracture behaviour. The interface properties are quantified through the Interfacial Shear Strength (IFSS) and fracture energy, both serving as key indicators of composite integrity. Effective interfacial bonding is therefore essential to the composite’s strength. Nanoscale fiber surface modifications provide a promising approach to enhance interfacial bonding and can also impart multifunctionality. These multifunctionalities can …

Direct Ink Writing Of Functional Fiber/Granular Composites, Zhuoyuan Yang

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Direct ink writing provides a versatile manufacturing route for fabricating functional fiber and granular composites with controlled architecture, tunable interfaces, and customized material distributions. Fiber reinforced composites offer high stiffness, strength, fatigue resistance, and functional anisotropy, while granular composites provide scalable access to particle based structures with high material efficiency and broad resource compatibility. However, the additive manufacturing of these composite systems remains challenging. For fiber based composites, precise control of fiber placement, matrix impregnation, interfacial bonding, and freestanding deposition is difficult to achieve during printing. For granular composites, stable particle flow, controllable packing, binder infiltration, and shape retention are …

Robust Real-Time Uav Target Tracking With Onboard Vision-Based Yaw Control, Rylan Malarchick, Jose Castelblanco, Enrique Amaya, Carmen Dimario, Graysen Brinkman, Chirag Kumar, Kiwon Yoon, Sajid Berhane

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

Autonomous tracking of agile unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) presents significant challenges for real-time perception and control systems. This work presents AIRHOUND (Autonomous Intelligent Rotorcraft for Hostile Object Unified Navigation and Detection), a UAV platform implementing vision-based yaw tracking through a modular ROS2 software architecture. The system employs YOLOv8 object detection optimized with NVIDIA TensorRT for embedded deployment on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin companion computer. Detected targets are processed through a geometric tracking module that converts pixel coordinates to angular yaw errors using pinhole camera intrinsics, with a proportional controller generating rate-limited yaw commands. These commands are streamed to a PX4 …

Meeting The Moment With Ai-Employer Informed Education, Brent Terwilliger, John Faraca

Publications

As artificial intelligence transforms aviation, aerospace, and autonomy-related sectors, higher education must adapt to meet evolving workforce demands. This session shares emerging findings from a nationwide study led by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, focused on employer perceptions of AI adoption, responsible use, and workforce preparedness in domains including uncrewed systems, space systems, robotics, and advanced air mobility. Based on a structured survey and follow-up interviews, the presentation explores how organizations are using AI tools, from generative platforms to enterprise systems, and defining effective and inappropriate use in operational contexts. Participants will gain insight into critical concerns (e.g., data privacy, compliance, security, …

Leveraging Information Theory And Ecological Network Analysis To Monitor Communication Networks In A Student Aerospace Team, Christine Sessions

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Effective communication is a critical component of successful collaboration in group projects and team settings. However, systematically tracking and analyzing team communications can be challenging, especially in complex, multi-member teams such as those found in the aerospace industry. This paper explores an information-theoretic approach that leverages encoding techniques and graph theory to analyze communication networks within a university’s multi-year, student-led cubesat design project (Project COMET). By utilizing Shannon Entropy as a measure of information flow, encoding communication patterns, and analyzing Ecological Network Analysis parameters, this research aims to understand how an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University student project team evolves over the …

Contributions To Ship-Airwake-Rotor Coupling Characterization Using Controlled Forcing, Guillermo Mazzilli

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Shipboard helicopter operations occur within a highly unsteady environment referred to as the dynamic interface (DI), encompassing the coupled effects of the ship airwake, rotor wake, flight dynamics, and pilot response. A central aspect of the DI is the aerodynamic interaction between the ship airwake and the rotor wake, which degrades handling qualities and increases pilot workload, yet the underlying mechanisms governing ship-rotor coupling remain insufficiently understood. The ship-rotor aerodynamic coupling was examined using two canonical ship geometries, the NATO-GD and SFS2, together with a controlled experimental framework, the airflow-and-blade-frequency (ABF) system, which independently varied wake momentum flux and unsteady …

Aerodynamic And Acoustic Modeling For Evtol Rotor Noise Prediction, Daniella Bezuidenhout, Anastasios S. Lyrintzis, Vladimir V. Golubev

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis presents the development and validation of a methodology for predicting total acoustic emissions from a one-fifth scale electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) rotor in both hover and edgewise flight conditions. The approach couples sectional two-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (2D-RANS) airfoil simulations with rotor loading predictions from the Comprehensive Hierarchical Aeromechanics Rotorcraft Model (CHARM), tonal noise calculations using the acoustic solver PSU-WOPWOP, and broadband noise predictions from the UCD-QuietFly framework. Boundary-layer inputs traditionally obtained from the viscous-inviscid solver, XFOIL, were replaced with higher-fidelity 2D-RANS results from OpenFOAM to better capture low-Reynolds-number flow physics, including laminar-turbulent transition and laminar separation …

Adaptive Control Combined With Integral Concurrent Learning For Trajectory Tracking Near Asteroids, Alvaro Diaz Rodrigo

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Close-proximity operations in the vicinity of Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are essential for scientific studies and possible future planetary-defense missions. Unlike motion around large celestial bodies, spacecraft dynamics near small, rotating asteroids are dominated by weak, highly irregular gravity fields. While full characterization of an asteroid’s shape enables high-fidelity gravitational modeling, such information is typically unavailable in realistic mission scenarios, and in-situ exploration is often required. As a result, the forces acting on the spacecraft cannot be modeled accurately in advance, leading to significant uncertainty in the equations of motion and challenging guidance and control strategies. To address these challenges, the …

Digital Twin–Oriented Certification Architecture For Advanced Air Mobility, Daniel Pleffken

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) systems introduce certification challenges associated with distributed propulsion, increasing software reliance, and tightly coupled architectures. These characteristics evolve within regulatory environments that are still adapting to emerging vehicle concepts. While digital engineering practices are increasingly adopted during system development, certification workflows remain largely document-centric, limiting lifecycle traceability and consistent reasoning about change impacts as designs and regulatory interpretations evolve. This paper proposes a Digital Twin–oriented certification architecture that integrates regulatory knowledge, system representations, Means of Compliance (MoCs), and verification artifacts within a unified model-based environment. The architecture is organized around four elements: regulatory structuring, Model-Based Systems …

Thermoacoustic Effects Of A Variable Equivalence Ratio In A Single Element Methane Combustor, Carter Green

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Combustion instability is one of the leading factors in limiting the progress and innovations of liquid rocket engines and power plants. Under certain operating conditions, unsteady heat release and acoustic wave interactions can couple and lead to instabilities, such as self-sustaining pressure oscillations, that can lead to reduced combustor performance and potentially hardware damage. In this project, the thermoacoustic effects of controlling the equivalence ratio of a single-element natural gas combustor were modeled and analyzed. The project used Fidelity Pointwise for meshing, ANSYS Fluent for modeling, ERAU VEGA HPC for computing, and MATLAB for acoustic analysis. A numerical model of …

Numerical Study Of Nutrient Mixing In Trabecular Bone In Microgravity, Disuse And Normogravity, Sagar Gharti

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Mechanical loading is known to regulate bone remodeling by driving interstitial fluid flow which stimulates cells and drives nutrient transport within the trabecular network. In microgravity, the absence of mechanical stimulation or loading suppresses convective flow processes, causing diffusion-driven nutrient mixing and renewal, and accelerated bone loss. This thesis investigates how oscillation frequency and trabecular bone density jointly control nutrient mixing and wall shear stress within trabecular cavities.

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) framework is developed in STAR-CCM+ using a soft-cap oscillation model that mimics cyclic compression. Three idealized trabecular morphologies are simulated across different frequencies to represent microgravity or …

Numerical Investigation Of Rotor-Gust Acoustic Interactions Using The Overflow Cfd Solver, Jordan Mills

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The rapid expansion of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) necessitates high-fidelity modeling to predict and mitigate the noise signatures of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft within dense urban landscapes. A critical unknown in community-noise certification is the aeroacoustic response of rotors to unsteady inflow conditions. This research addresses this gap by investigating the aerodynamic and acoustic behavior of a representative rotor subjected to time-harmonic inflow disturbances. By establishing a robust numerical framework, this thesis quantifies the relationship between periodic atmospheric gusts and their impact on rotor performance, unsteady blade loading, and subsequent sound radiation. The research consists of a …

Safety-Aware Trajectory Generation For Increased Autonomy In Advanced Air Mobility, Edison Alberto Martinez Samaniego

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) envisions highly automated aircraft that will enable short and medium range transportation. Unlike conventional aviation, these vehicles are expected to operate closer to populated areas and with increased levels of autonomy, making safe operation under abnormal or degraded conditions a critical requirement. Failures or performance degradation can reduce the maneuvering capability of an aircraft, causing trajectories planned under nominal conditions to become dynamically unfeasible.

This thesis presents a trajectory generation and replanning framework designed to maintain safe and feasible flight under reduced flight envelope conditions for a lift+cruise eVTOL aircraft. A unified control architecture based on …

Quantification Of The Depth-Of-Field In A Self-Aligned Focusing Schlieren System, Alexander Ephraim

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis investigates self-aligned focusing schlieren (SAFS) as a step toward future volumetric and quantitative measurements of three-dimensional compressible flows. Conventional schlieren imaging provides valuable visualization of density gradients, but it records only a line-of-sight projection and therefore does not directly resolve the spatial distribution of structures through the depth of the flowfield. SAFS addresses part of this limitation by introducing depth sensitivity, but its depth response has not been well characterized quantitatively. To help lay the foundation for future volumetric and quantitative SAFS methods, this work addresses two related problems. First, calibrated quantitative schlieren imaging is applied to an …

Adaptive Methods Of Resident Space Object Identification For Space Situational Awareness, Evan Pavetto-Stewart

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

One of the fundamental tenets of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is the detection and sub sequent identification of Resident Space Objects (RSOs) within unresolved optical space imagery. This function is vital to the documentation and tracking of RSOs in their respective operational orbits, knowledge that is necessary for collision avoidance efforts and Space Domain Awareness (SDA) applications. In previous work, development was begun on a MATLAB program called RSOID to fulfill this purpose by accepting a collection (or ’collect’) of unresolved imagery and outputting a sequence of RSO locations (called a ’tracklet’) that can be used to determine the RSO’s …