¶ Introduction
I first was introduced to SAE Aero through a number of friends involved at the club. While I was working with the folks in UAS on their project, I was intrigued by the idea of a plane with a fixed cargo hold. Because of my prior experience at UAS, I moved in as Aero Lead, working with a very competent team in designing and validating the airfoil design to be used on the plane.
¶ Aero Team
¶ Simulation
Choosing the airfoil of an aircraft involved multiple factors. The speed at which the it flies, the space available, and desired performance characteristics all are considered when determining what airfoil use in our application. The previous team had selected an airfoil to use, so we elected to modify their implementation. The first thing to do was to determine its performance characteristics. This was completed in XFLR5. It has a straightforward interface that gives good rough numbers for back-of-the-napkin calculations in determining essential wing performance metrics. Here is one simulation of our design:
¶ Verification
Testing the configuration was challenging, and we had many learning experiences. During this entire process, the lockdown prompted by COVID-19 was in full swing. Meeting up to start manufacturing the wings was not an option for our team, so in the meantime we decided to learn the basics of ANSYS Fluent. ANSYS Fluent (Fluent) is a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software capable of modeling fluid flows within, around, and through designs. Initialy, the aim was to verify the XFLR5 results in Fluent. This was my first time using any CFD software, so all learning was from the ground up. Countless YouTube videos later, I ran a simulation first with an abstracted model of our aircraft. Here are our results for velocity and pressure monitors:
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¶ Final Thoughts
Desiging and conducting simulations of the wing was a great opportunity to learn new techniques and skills. Additionally, it led to real advances in our design and introduced me to the world of CFD, which exposed how much more I can learn. I take pride in both the high and low points of my journey, because I managed to learn a complex software and implement it into the design process.
¶ President
In the summer of 2021 I moved into the role of President of SAE Aero. I'm excited to continue the awesome work that we do, and I can't wait to see what we can accomplish!