Integrated Design, Manufacturing and Analysis of Airfoil and Nozzle Shapes in an Undergraduate Course

Abstract

To strengthen student interest in aerospace engineering including manufacturing and utilize the known benefits of active, project- based learning, a new undergraduate course on airfoil and nozzle design and manufacturing is under development at the University of California Davis. The course will demonstrate the air flow around airfoils at high speeds by using a water table experiment. The water table utilizes the hydraulic analogy and is a much simpler and cheaper setup than a wind tunnel. The students will learn about computational design of airfoils and nozzles, sustainable manufacturing, and experimental testing with self-made models. These models highlight capabilities of different manufacturing processes (in particular turning, milling, water jet cutting, and wire extrusion as additive manufacturing process) to produce specific shapes, dimensions and surface qualities. Special regard is given to process planning, costing, energy, post-processing and waste. The dimensional accuracy will impact the results in the water table experiments. From this, the students can understand that both analytical modeling and experimentation are necessary to solve engineering problems.