Masters student in Mechanical Engineering at Northeastern University
AIAA Fixed wing
Overview and Aim
We as a part of Northeastern's American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics(AIAA) strive to build an RC Aircraft from scratch and participate in SAE Aero competitions.
Description
We build our plane keeping in mind the requirements that are needed for the SAE competition.
The main objectives of the competition were
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The weight of the plane to be less than 50lbs
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Carry as many tennis balls as possible which resemble passengers of the aircraft
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An average luggage weight of 1/2 lb or more must be carried for each passenger to be carried
I was the only graduate student in the entire team and my contribution to the project was, helping the team in designing the components of the aircraft in SolidWorks.
I designed the fixture in joining the aircraft wing to the fuselage and making sure that the fixture doesn't fail due to the reaction forces on the fixtures.
Figure on the right shows the modelled fixture in SolidWorks(Highlighted part)
My work also included performing CFD analysis on the airfoils and to finalize the type of airfoil to be used for the aircraft so that maximum lift to weight can be achieved in ANSYS. I also performed the structural analysis of the wings using ANSYS.Performed hand calculations to make sure that the simulation results are accurate and can be verified.
I also operated laser cutting machine to machine all the components of the aircraft and assemble all of them together
Figures below shows some of the drawings of the aircraft and CFD simulations performed on the aircraft
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