Aerospace engineering

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Welcome to the Department of Aerospace Engineering.

Aerospace Engineering deals specifically with aircraft and spacecraft, as well as any other types of machines that can fly. Topics within aerospace engineering include, but are not limited to, aerodynamics, structural dynamics, fluid mechanics, orbital mechanics, flight dynamics, propulsion, and control systems. These topics can be applied to missiles, space structures, satellites, and all aspects related to atmosphere and space flight.

Aerospace engineers design, develop, and test aircraft, spacecraft, and missiles and supervise the production of these products. Those who work with aircraft are called aeronautical engineers, and those working specifically with spacecraft are astronautical engineers. Aerospace engineers develop new technologies for use in aviation, defense systems, and space exploration, often specializing in areas such as structural design, guidance, navigation and control, instrumentation and communication, or production methods. They also may specialize in a particular type of aerospace product, such as commercial aircraft, military fighter jets, helicopters, spacecraft, or missiles and rockets, and may become experts in aerodynamics, thermodynamics, celestial mechanics, propulsion, acoustics, or guidance and control systems.

Areas of study

File:F-l3 lift fan.jpg

X-35B lift fan; the VTOL propulsion system is designed and manufactured by Rolls-Royce plc

General Prerequisites

• Basic Mathematics - differentials, integrals, basic mechanics, vector algebra, matrices and matrix manipulation, total derivative (for mass and momentum equations, among others)
  • Calculus
  • Differential Equations
• Thermodynamics/Heat Transfer - Zereoth, First, Second and Third Laws, Enthalpy, Entropy, Clausius Inequality and ??, Steady State Equation, Modelling Gas Turbines/Engines, Conduction, Convection, Radiation (Black Body, Grey Body)
  • Engineering Thermodynamics
• Circuits/Electronics
• Physics - Forces, Gravity Equation
  • Gravity

Statics

• Structural Analysis
• Mechanics - Friction on a surface, Rolling bodies, Stability, Pure/Damped/Forced Harmonic Motion, Orbits (reaching orbit, geostationary point, changing orbit, escape velocity)
  • Solid Mechanics

Fluid mechanics

• Aerodynamics - Derivation of shear stress on a fluid, perfect gas equation, Bernoulli equation, Langrangian and Eulerian reference frames, control volumes and control surfaces, Conservation of mass up to 3-d, balance of momentum equations up to 3-d, Aerofoils, Circulation, Mach Number & Reynolds Number, laminar and turbulent flow, Propulsion & Turbomachinery
  • Aerodynamics
  • Jet Propulsion
  • Rocket Propulsion

Aircraft Structures

• Basic Strength of Materials
• Aircraft Structures - Basic
• Aircraft Structures - Advanced
• Structural Analysis
• Recent Topics

Materials Science

• Material Classes - Metals, Ceramics, Composites, Polymers, Ionic and Covalents
• Material Microstructure
• Properties of Materials - Strength, Stiffness, Young's Modulus, Elasiticity and Modulus of Elasticity, Hardness, Toughness, Electrical Properties?
• Materials Selection
• Material Processes - Annealing, Quenching, Precipitation Hardening, Case Hardening
• Failure - Fatigue, Creep, Fracture, Case studies (aircraft)
• Composites - matrix and fibers, explanation of directional properties, case studies (carbon fibre, kevlar, fibreglass)
  • Material Science

Aircraft Design

• Basic Aircraft Performance - Air density at altitudes, Perfect Gas equation,
• Dynamics and Control - Control Surfaces,

Aviation engines

• Hydraulic gas dynamics - characteristics of gas flowing through
• Theory of impeler machines - profiling blades of compressor and turbine, multi-stage compressor and multi-stage turbine
• Theory of jet engines - modelling turbojet engines
• Construction of jet engines

Computational Fluid Dynamics

• Introduction
• Principles
• Solver Types
• Grid Generation

Aeroelasticity

• Introduction
• Static Aeroelasticity
• Dynamic Aeroelasticity
• Flight Testing

Rover Design

• Rover Mission Analysis and Design

Department news

The Aerospace Department is concerned with the technology that constitutes of Aeronautical and Astronautical engineering.

Topics

‘Blended wing’ craft prototype

• Topic:Fluid mechanics
• Topic:Aerodynamics
• Topic:Aeronautics
• Topic:Astrodynamics
• Topic:Orbital mechanics
• Topic:Statics
• Topic:Engineering mechanics
• School:Mathematics
• Topic:Electrotechnology
• Topic:Turbomachinery
• Topic:Control engineering
• Topic:Aircraft flight control systems
• Topic:Aircraft structures
• Topic:Materials science
• Topic:Solid mechanics
• Topic:Aeroelasticity
• Topic:Avionics
• Topic:Reliability engineering
• Topic:Noise control
• Topic:Flight testing

External links

• Personal Air Vehicle Page at Cafe Foundation (in affiliation with NASA)
• Open avionics
• Aerospace Engineering - Students
• Boeing's electric plane using fuelcells.
• OpenAvionics
• American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Projects at Standford's Aerodynamics Design Group
• A Project to create a supersonic homebrew rocket

Books

• Research opportunities in advanced aerospace concepts

• Astrodynamics

Videos

• MIT 16.01 Unified Engineering - Video Lecture

• MIT 16.885J Aircraft Systems Engineering - Video Lecture

Related news

• (2008) 'Avoiding wind tunnels, computer simulations pave way for hypersonic flight'
• April 26, 2007 - Paper on hyperdrive system wins award at conference and is examined by US Government researchers...[1]
• March 27, 2007 - NASA seeks research proposals.
• March 20, 2007 - Private company to launch rocket.