Student Air Vehicle Design and Analysis - A Systems Engineering Model Based Approach

Abstract

Traditional university aircraft design education involves application of design and analysis tools and methods from any number of excellent design texts available worldwide. The focus of the student design effort is typically a team air vehicle design where students organize along traditional disciplines lines to design and analyze and sometimes build an air vehicle to meet mission requirements. Textbook tools and methods are applied, by hand or implemented using design codes provided with the text book, available in-house or on line and/or purchased commercially. Instructors usually lecture on overall design methods and tools but most students prefer to focus on single traditional discipline areas. As a result few students really learn design from a multi-discipline perspective. The issue is exacerbated when design codes are provided and learning can take a back seat to crank turning. In an attempt to improve individual student learning of multi-discipline aircraft design fundamentals, students at the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin are required to write their own spreadsheet design tool called Student Air Vehicle Evaluation (SAVE) as their first project assignment. SAVE is then used exclusively throughout the rest of the course for air vehicle sizing and performance analysis. Individual modules are written as weekly homework assignments and applied to team design tasks. Modules are based on traditional zeroth and first order text book methods which, when linked together, produce realistic vehicle sizing, performance and trade study results. SAVE also supports the UT initiative on System Engineering model based design where student teams submit physics-based models to verify their designs meet requirements. Although individual student learning of overall design tools and methods still varies, integration of SAVE into the course has improved overall learning of air system design fundamentals while substantially shortening student design cycle time.