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 (Wikibook)
- Differential Equations (Wikibook)
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 (Wikibook)
Circuits/Electronics
Physics - Forces, Gravity Equation
- Gravity (Wikibook)

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 (Wikibook)

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

Wikibooks

Aircraft Structures

Aircraft Systems

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)

Wikibook

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 - modeling turbojet engines
Construction of jet engines