AE Brown Bag Seminar
Friday, March 14
11:00 a.m.
Guggenheim 442
Pizza Served
Samuel Erben
Helen Foster
Jack Herman
Nicholas McFadden
Raja Veeramacheneni
Ellen Wang
Eli Young
Kevin Zhang
Samuel Erben
Title:
The Design and Testing of a Bipropellant Propellant Feedsystem
Abstract:
With the goal of more than doubling the current collegiate record for a bipropellant vehicle, the Yellow Jacket Space Program’s next vehicle, Vespula, challenged the club with a significant increase in fluid system complexity and operational requirements. This presentation will break down the development of Vespula’s active propellant management along with the test data reduction that led to procedural and component iteration, ultimately resulting in a robust and safe vehicle.
Faculty Advisor:
Helen Foster
Title:
LEFM and the Discrete Asperity Closure Model
Abstract:
From the Stone Age to the groundbreaking technological era we live in today, fracture of materials has always occurred. However, as technology becomes more advanced, the more catastrophic this problem becomes, as is evident anytime you turn on the news nowadays. As engineers, we are constantly coming up with new ideas on how to “improve” designs, but with each new, largely untested, design comes the risk of unexpected failure. Thus, the necessity for fracture mechanics. Fracture mechanics is a way to analyze behavior of materials undergoing loading. The difficulty in this research is that there are so many combinations in which a structural body can be loaded, with even more ways in which a material can deform. The area in which my research has been conducted thus far has been in linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM). The goal of my research this past year has been to get a thorough base understanding of the governing theory of LEFM including topics on stress intensity factor, energy release rate, the three modes of loading, plastic zone behind crack tip, etc . . .. I plan on progressing this research into related, more complex, topics such as plasticity, nonlinearity, and viscoelasticity. The area of research I’m specifically interested in, and that I want to continue with post-grad, is in analyzing compressive underloading in fatigue crack growth. It has been widely observed and validated that tensile overloading, a process where you significantly overload the tensile stress acting on the surface of a body while undergoing variable cyclic loading, leads to crack closure due to the discrete asperity model. In the past, only tensile overloading has been analyzed when making crack propagation prediction models, with compressive underloads being ignored as negligible. However, it is more recently being shown through experimentation that compressive underloads actually speed up crack growth, and thus are not negligible. The long-term goal of this research is to derive models that can accurately predict material behavior under any type of loading, which would lead to more safety and reliability in the aerospace industry.
Faculty Advisor:
Professor George Kardomateas
Jack Herman
Title:
Using real-world tests to validate high gravity slosh-damping correlations in rocket.
Abstract:
Despite continuing research on rocket propellant sloshing, questions remain at the fundamental and applied levels. This lab aims to answer some of these questions through launching sloshing payload on sounding rockets to assess fluid structure in a relevant environment. The payload houses a container partially filled with an opaque liquid as a stand in for rocket propellant. Two line-lasers arranged in a cross on the surface are distorted according to the shape of the liquid’s surface. During the launch, a camera will record the deformation of the lasers. Additionally, DP sensors record the hydrostatic pressures at four points at the bottom of the container. The laser deformation and hydrostatic pressure data can be used to model the surface of the liquid. In combination with IMU, temperature, and pressure data from additional sensors, the forces explicitly caused by sloshing dynamics can be identified. These observations will be used to validate models assessing fluid structures in high gravity dynamic environments.
Faculty Advisor:
Professor Alvaro Romero-Calvo
Nicholas McFadden
Title:
Investigation of Hydrogen Flame Usage in Industrial Applications
Abstract:
Hydrogen has potential in many industries as an energy carrier, including commercial and residential food processing. Unlike hydrocarbons, hydrogen can be generated from a wide spectrum of energy sources and can be used to diversify the transport of energy as well as provide an alternative to hydrocarbon fuels. Hydrogen thermal processing (combustion) devices would ideally operate in a similar manner to their hydrocarbon gas-powered progenitors and offer comparable heat output/efficiency performance. There are several characteristics and challenges associated with hydrogen flames that need to be overcome in order to make a hydrogen-powered cooking economy viable and safe. The primary challenge with using hydrogen for combustion is its flame stability characteristics and the dangers posed by pre-mixing it with air. This project investigates an experimental system that introduces low pressure hydrogen into a combustion chamber to produce a stable and self-sustaining flame. Many experiments were conducted in order to make the burner design produce a self-sustaining flame, and several configurations were found to be viable in this regard. Once the flame stability of these designs was guaranteed, many diagnostic measurements were taken to characterize the behavior of the flames. Early tests were carried out to gauge flame temperature to ascertain the effects of thermal NOx on total NOx production. A gas analyzer was used to record the NOx emissions from the system, with a basis of comparison being the same system burning methane instead of hydrogen. The flame characteristics for fixed volumetric flowrate and fixed energy output of 2000W will be compared and the potential of thermal NOx formation and emissions performance of both flames will be analyzed. Furthermore, this project presents hydrogen as a viable alternative fuel for food processing applications (compared to currently widely used natural-gas powered cooking appliances) in a manner that eliminates carbon emissions from combustion while mitigating many of the concerns regarding hydrogen as an energy carrier in a cost-effective manner.
Faculty Advisor:
Professor Tim Lieuwen
Raja Veeramacheneni
Title:
Neural Network Controller for Quadcopter UAVs
Abstract:
Neural networks provide a data-driven alternative to traditional control methods for UAVs with nonlinear, unknown system dynamics, such as quadcopters. This project explores training a neural network in MATLAB/Simulink to model the quadcopter's response and then developing a controller based on that model - eliminating the need for precise system identification or manually tuned controllers. The learned model captures key flight dynamics and is used to design an inverse neural network to compute the required thrust inputs for a given trajectory. Initial work focuses on altitude control (collective thrust), testing Feedforward Neural networks (FFN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks on a Simulink quadcopter model. This seminar will discuss the motivation, methodology, current progress, challenges encountered, and broader implications of machine learning-based flight control in adaptive and autonomous aerial systems.
Faculty Advisor:
Dr. Jonnalagadda V. R. Prasad
Ellen Wang
Title:
Assembly, Integration, and Test of the Green Propulsion Dual Mode (GPDM) CubeSat
Abstract:
The Green Propulsion Dual Mode (GPDM) mission, funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, is a satellite research and technology demonstration. It will be the first mission to showcase a satellite using a single “green” liquid propellant—AF-M315E (ASCENT)—to power both high-thrust chemical monopropellant and high-efficiency electric thrusters. This technology will enable CubeSat-class spacecraft to achieve greatly improved propulsive flexibility, combining high thrust for rapid maneuvers with high efficiency for extended operations while still carrying a meaningful payload. The GPDM spacecraft is a 6U CubeSat, with its bus structure, flight software, and avionics designed, manufactured, integrated, and tested at the Space Systems Design Laboratory.The GPDM mission is currently in the integration phase, a culmination of the past two years of development. This crucial period requires writing assembly, integration, and test procedures (AITP) and building engineering prototype units for testing, before assembling flight hardware, and performing final checkouts. This research supports the development of technology capabilities that will allow for the usage of trajectories which have thus far been difficult to achieve by CubeSats due to propulsive limitations.Faculty Advisor:
Professor Glenn Lightsey
Eli Young
Title:
Understanding Performance of Rotating Detonation Engines with Efficient Computation
Abstract:
Pressure gain combustion (PGC) devices like rotating detonation engines (RDE) offer significant efficiency gains over traditional combustion engines. Various computational and experimental studies have been conducted to further our understanding of PGC technology, however there are still deficiencies in our understanding that have prevented PGC devices from entering widespread use. Comparison of various studies has shown that different detonation wave modes may result from nominally identical setups. To help address this question, a computational study of an RDE was conducted across various operating conditions, with particular interest in identifying ranges of variables that correspond to different steady state behaviors. A two-dimensional model of an RDE, with an idealized injection system was studied. The system was simulated in OpenFOAM, and performance trends were analyzed. This lecture focuses on the benefits of RDEs in rocket propulsion, the simulation setup optimized for sampling a large range of performance variables, the post processing workflow used, and the key results from this work.
Faculty Advisor:
Professor Timothy Lieuwen
Kevin Zhang
Title:
Automation of Thrust Calibration in Vacuum Chamber Test Facilities
Abstract:
Having the ability to calibrate thrust measurements is a critical part of collecting reliable data, providing a way not only to have accurate values, but also to adjust for factors such as thermal drift. Currently, a series of known weights is tied to a potentiometer and connected to the back of a thruster, allowing a DC motor to load or unload the weights individually. Before and after each test, these weights are loaded and unloaded to bound the experimental data, but the process is done manually by a toggle switch. This can take some time and requires constant attention, so I have implemented a way to automated this process, which I will discuss in my presentation.
Faculty Advisor:
Professor Mitchell Walker