My senior design project was based on the requirements given by the Vertical Flight Society's High Speed Vertical Takeoff & Landing Aircraft Design Competition (as detailed in the link provided above). The main requirements that made the project unique were:
The aircraft shall be able to takeoff and land vertically
The aircraft shall be able to fly at 450 KTAS at 20,000 ft in elevation
The aircraft shall have a mission Radius of Action of 500 nm
For this project, I was mainly responsible for CAD design, structural testing, and running flow simulations. Additionally, I was in charge of designing the system requirements for avionics and other specific structural subsystems.
In terms of design, I designed the landing gear, tail, and control surfaces to meet the vehicle requirements and specifications. I also aided in the design of the fuselage and interior structural frame.
In terms of simulations, I conducted flow simulations using Star-CCM+ and Finite Element Analysis using SolidWorks' built in FEA capabilities. These simulations helped characterize the performance of the aircraft and also ensured that we properly met the structural requirements and FOS required for the aircraft.
Aside from the technical-mechanical engineering work, the project heavily relied on systems engineering and following the regular systems engineering project lifecycle, beginning with a proposal, followed by a PDR and a CDR report and presentation.
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