Systems Engineering and Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Commons^™

Performance Of Adaptive Wingtips On A Tailless Supersonic Business Jet, Khushi Piparava

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

The growing interest in supersonic business travel has renewed focus on efficient, low-drag configurations that can achieve high performance while maintaining stability and structural integrity. This research investigates the aerodynamic and structural implications of adaptive folding wingtips on a tailless supersonic business jet (SBJ) concept designed under the SkyBreaker senior design program. Using a conceptual aerodynamic model based on linearized supersonic theory, the Polhamus leading-edge suction analogy, and an empirical compression-lift correlation, the study evaluates how varying wingtip droop angles influence lift, drag, lift-to-drag ratio (L/D), and static stability. The analysis was performed parametrically in MATLAB, using geometry inputs derived …

Development Of A Cost-Effective Daq For Measuring Brake Performance In Race Cars, Adrin Alias

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This project explores the feasibility of creating a cost-effective data acquisition (DAQ) system for high-speed, real-time brake performance testing of Formula SAE racecars. The research addresses the limitations of the current MoTeC DAQ system currently employed by the team, which is costly and time-consuming to set up for on-car testing. The team will use a brake dynamometer for steady-state comparisons of different brake pad compounds (senior design project), but evaluating real-world performance requires on-car testing. By systematically comparing various hardware platforms, sensors, communication protocols, and storage solutions, this project aims to balance cost-efficiency with reliability and performance. The research evaluates …

Topology-Driven Performance Analyses In Consensus Algorithms For Multi-Agent Systems, Brandon Ayala

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

This thesis presents a simulation-based analysis of consensus algorithms in multi-agent systems, focusing on how network topology influences convergence performance. Both first-order and second-order linear consensus dynamics were examined across a variety of network configurations, including undirected and directed versions of cycle graphs, star graphs, minimum spanning trees, and fully connected graphs. In addition to standard consensus problems, leader-follower network structures were introduced to explore the impact of leader placement on convergence behavior, and extensions to multi-leader systems were analyzed to study robustness and convergence under multiple reference inputs. Graph-theoretic properties such as connectivity, degree distribution, and Laplacian eigenvalues were …

Development Of A Design Tool For Tow-Steered Composite Structures With Machine Learning-Assisted Modeling, Bangde Liu

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Fiber-reinforced composites (FRCs) are widely used in aerospace, automotive, and other engineering applications due to their lightweight characteristics and superior mechanical properties. Traditional FRCs employ a fixed fiber orientation in each layer, and while different layup sequences can tailor performance, the mechanical properties remain spatially uniform. Tow-steered composites, which enable fibers to follow curvilinear paths, offer the potential for spatially varying stiffness and strength, improving structural performance.

This dissertation addresses key challenges in modeling and designing tow-steered composite structures, including the lack of commercial design tools, the high computational cost of design optimization, and the need to efficiently evaluate manufacturing …

Development Of A 3d Printed Optimization-Driven Aeroelastically Scaled Wind Tunnel Model For High Aspect Ratio Flying Wings, Mikaela K. Leevy

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Design optimization coupled with 3D printing and parametric CAD offers a unique approach to investigating flutter phenomena by creating low-cost iterative aeroelastic wind tunnel models. Recently, there is an interest in studying flutter phenomena at low air speeds in flying wing configurations. The X-56 experimental flying wing was designed to investigate flutter phenomena and flutter suppression, which makes the X-56 a logical choice for the full-scale model. The goal of this work is to optimize, physically print, and geometrically characterize a scaled aeroelastic wind tunnel model. The 18% reduced scale X-56 model was optimized by matching the mode shapes to …

Optimizing Multi-Agent Network For Target Localization Through Mutual Information Maximization, Bibek Adhikari

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

A multi-agent network is a system comprising multiple interacting agents that coexist collaboratively within a networked, autonomous environment. The thesis addresses the target localization problem using a multi-rover network, described as autonomous agents, using an information-theoretic distributed control framework. The objective of the mission, through the integration of the particle filter representation of the posterior probability distribution of the target state and the observable, is to compute control input to arrange agents’ locations, maximizing the mutual information between the target’s position and sensor measurements. Consequently, the method leads to future observation which minimizes the future uncertainty of the target state. …

Numerical Simulation And Optimization Of Fin Configurations For Enhanced Heat Sink Performance In Aluminum And Copper Materials, Rimpy Singh

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

The constant evolution of data centers and high-power electronic systems has raised critical challenges in heat dissipation and thermal management. Single-phase immersion cooling, where electronic components are submerged in a thermally conductive but non-electrically conductive liquid (dielectric liquid), offers improved heat dissipation capabilities and emerges as a promising alternative to traditional air-cooling methods, which often fail to meet the thermal demands of densely packed, high-power systems. This study investigates and compares the thermal performance of aluminum and copper heat sinks with fin thicknesses of 0.33 mm and 0.54 mm, respectively, using finite element analysis based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) …