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Establishment of an Aerospace Engineering Laboratory to Foster Education and Research

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Conference

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual On line

Publication Date

June 22, 2020

Start Date

June 22, 2020

End Date

June 26, 2021

Conference Session

Laboratory Courses and Programming in the Aerospace Curriculum

Tagged Division

Aerospace

Page Count

15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--34584

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/34584

Download Count

796

Paper Authors

biography

Adeel Khalid Kennesaw State University

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Adeel Khalid, Ph.D.
Professor
Aerospace Engineering Program
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Office: 470-578-7241

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Abstract

A new AERO (Aerospace Engineering and Research Organization) Laboratory is created at a state university. The university currently offers a minor in Aerospace Engineering. Minor is available to students majoring in all disciplines of engineering and sciences. To earn a minor, students are required to take five Aerospace Engineering classes including a senior design capstone project. By the time students finish their minor, they are well versed in Aerospace concepts and are on a path to either pursue graduate degrees in Aerospace engineering or a career in the Aerospace industry. The AE minor has grown in popularity over the past few years. To support this growth, the school established an AERO lab in the summer of 2019. This lab provides a platform for students and faculty to collaborate on hands-on projects, conduct aerospace and related research and use the facilities for educational purposes. Various Aerospace related equipment dispersed in labs around the campus was consolidated and brought into one space and new equipment was acquired for the AERO lab. The lab now houses motion actuated flight simulators, several 3D printers including an industrial printer, hot wire cutting machine, and a 5 axis milling machine. Student projects are also showcased in the lab. Additionally, the AE lab is equipped with a low speed wind tunnel, a wind turbine and a gas turbine engine test bench. It is expected that the addition of this lab will boost further interest in the Aerospace program and as a result make it a more attractive engineering school for current and future students. In this paper, the use of this lab for the purpose of conducting various undergraduate research studies is discussed. Topics include but are not limited to wind turbine blade design using wind tunnel; gas turbine engine parametric cycle analysis using an engine test bench; aircraft wing design optimization using CAD software, 3D printing, milling and wind tunnel testing; helicopter swashplate design and fabrication using 3D printing; aircraft winglet optimization using CAD, wind tunnel, hot wire cutting and 3D printing; and model fixed and rotary wing aircraft design and fabrication for student design competitions. Summaries of various design projects is discussed and student feedback in terms of the efficacy and usefulness of the AERO lab is collected and presented. Usefulness of the lab for the local AIAA student chapter and the Aerial Robotics Team are also discussed.

Khalid, A. (2020, June), Establishment of an Aerospace Engineering Laboratory to Foster Education and Research Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34584

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