Other Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Hot Staging Module For Multistage Rockets, Nanami Whitman, Daniel Montano-Lobe

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Historically, the Akronauts Rocket Design Team builds and launches two-stage rockets that rely on black powder charges as a way of stage-separation. With a hot-staging module, the second stage is ignited while still connected to the first stage, and the thrust from the second stage induces separation. To prevent rotation of the sustainer during the booster stage, the sustainer motor and fins will be axially interlocked with the module in a similar manner to the Akronauts’ previous stage separation modules. This method would reduce the number of failure modes and reduce the number of components required for stage separation. This …

Materials Testing For Large Format 3d Printing, William Jenkins

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

An ABS Carbon Fiber blend was printed into single walled hexagons at a variety of settings on a Cincinnati BAAM large format 3D printer. These hexagons were then cut down into sheets and had tensile and flexural test samples cut out of them, in order for materials testing to be performed. Tensile strength, tensile strain, young’s modulus, flexural strength, deflection and elastic modulus were all determined. A desktop CNC machine and a planer were purchased for the manufacturing of these samples, and an efficient cutting procedure was designed and optimized. After all data collection concluded, this data was thoroughly analyzed, …

Short Strand Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polylactic Acid Filament For Additive Manufacturing, Dale Chenoweth, Lukas Seggi, Luke Phillips

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In this design project, the additive manufacturing filament of short strand carbon fiber (SSCF) reinforced polylactic acid (PLA) composite was developed. The micro-size, precision cut SSCFs were mixed with the PLA pellets through a melting homogenization process. Through this process the composite material block is cut and divided into pieces for ease of pelletizing. The material block pieces are then pelletized to be fed through the single screw extruder to develop the SSCF-PLA composite filament. The SSCF-PLA filaments were manufactured with a varying amount of SSCF ranging from 0.5% to 10% of the material block's weight. Development of a 1% …

Media Streaming In A High-Rate Delay Tolerant Network, Kyle Vernyi

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Audio and video streaming across delay tolerant networks are relatively new phenomena. During the Apollo 11 mission, video and audio were streamed directly back to Earth using fully analog radios. This streaming capability atrophied over time. The gradual conversion to digital electronics contributed greatly to this. Additionally, 21st century space systems face the new requirement of interconnectedness. Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) attempts to solve this requirement by uniting traditional point to point links into a robust and dynamic network. However, DTN implementations present bottlenecks due to low performance. High-Rate Delay Tolerant Networking (HDTN) is a performance-optimized DTN implementation. This work …

Liquid Engine External Pressurizer (Leep), Emily Armbrust

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project is to take the current liquid rocket engine test stand design and implement an external pressurant instead of utilizing the 2-phase oxidizer vapor to pressurize itself and the fuel. The purpose behind the design is because the team is limited with the current design concerning burn time due to the amount of propellant they can put in the tanks and the pressure it can reach. The initial pressure is currently not held since there is no external input of mass into the tanks, as the propellant is leaving. Adding an external pressurant allow for the …

Fuel System To Envelope Interface, James Campbell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

*NOTE THIS PROJECT IS CONFIDENTIAL*

In this project, I will investigate solutions to interfacing a fuel system with a fabric skin section

Application Of Laser Assisted Ultrasonic Nanocrystal Surface Modification On Aluminum And 3d Printed Titanium, Eman Hassan, Thomas Crouse

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

A novel surface treatment, laser assisted ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification (LA-UNSM), has proved effective in increasing surface hardness, and fatigue life. The objective of this research is to determine the effectiveness of this process on components created with additive manufacturing. To accomplish this, we investigated the effectiveness of LA-UNSM treatment on aluminum, a common 3d printed metal, and the effectiveness of LA-UNSM processing on 3d printed titanium. We first conducted our own literature review to assess the practicality of using this same treatment on aluminum. We then treated traditionally manufactured aluminum at varying levels of laser intensity to determine if …

Design Of Banner Tow Mechanism For Bush Plane, Kyle Ciarrone, Ivan Martin, Rishabh Gadi, Tyler Brandt

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The 2019-2020 AIAA DBF objective was to design, build, and test a banner-towing bush plane that carries wooden passengers and luggage. Senior members on the team undertook the creation of the banner tow mechanism subsystem as their senior design project on behalf of the design team due to the challenge of its mechanical design and the aerodynamic considerations regarding its placement and enclosure aboard the aircraft. The competition as well as access to campus resources were canceled due to COVID-19, so full testing and integration of the mechanism was not achieved. However, the engineering design process was experienced from the …

Environmentally Friendly Alternates To Chemlok 233 Adhesive Cement, Madeline M. Busch

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project was to determine and qualify suitable, environmentally friendly replacement(s) for the current Chemlok 233 adhesive cement used by UTC Aerospace. Chemlok 233 was discontinued by the manufacturer based on the availability of a hazardous solvent (Trichloroethylene – TCE). The Chemlok 233 Control and four Experimental alternates with similar properties were lab tested for adhesion strength in various UTC proprietary cement specifications. The specifications modeled Chemlok’s uses in the construction of pneumatic de-icers. Chemlok 2332 was selected for use in Cement A, and Chemlok 402 was chosen for use in Cement B based on their highest …

Magnus Effect In Duct Flow, Jesse S. Batko, Cameron W. Clarke, Kenneth W. Smith Jr.

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The following research paper details the preliminary research carried out by this team. The project was originally conceived to determine if Magnus Lift could be utilized in an unconventional way to assist rockets during takeoff. Several conceptual designs were proposed, but the idea was scrapped when it became apparent that the team would not be able to generate the desired lift without inducing significant amounts of drag and additional weight on a rocket. Instead, the team focused on researching an interesting topic that hasn’t been previously explored: Magnus lift on a cylinder within a duct.

An experimental procedure that could …

Magnus Effect In Duct Flow, Cameron W. Clarke, Jesse S. Batko, Kenneth W. Smith Jr.

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The following research paper details the preliminary research carried out by this team. The project was originally conceived to determine if Magnus Lift could be utilized in an unconventional way to assist rockets during takeoff. Several conceptual designs were proposed, but the idea was scrapped when it became apparent that the team would not be able to generate the desired lift without inducing significant amounts of drag and additional weight on a rocket. Instead, the team focused on researching an interesting topic that hasn’t been previously explored: Magnus lift on a cylinder within a duct. An experimental procedure that could …

Design Of The Structural And Propulsion Systems For The 2015 University Of Akron Rocket Team, Kyle W. Dehoff, Nicholas J. Hrusch

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

No abstract provided.