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Honeycomb Panel Buckling: An Exercise in Flight Vehicle Structures Course

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Design Courses 2, Aerospace Assets

Tagged Division

Aerospace

Page Count

11

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37246

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/37246

Download Count

342

Paper Authors

biography

Sanjay Jayaram Saint Louis University

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Dr. Sanjay Jayaram is an associate professor in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Department
of Saint Louis University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Central
Florida in 2004. He teaches control systems/mechatronics, space systems engineering and astronautics
related courses as well as engineering sciences courses. He has published several peer reviewed journal
and conference papers in these areas. His research areas are space systems, robust fault tolerant control,
nonlinear control, adaptive control, small spacecraft design, high performance spacecraft components,
mechatronics, real-time health monitoring, and diagnostic methodology.

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biography

Krishnaswamy Ravindra P.E. Saint Louis University

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Dr. K. Ravindra is currently a professor in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. He as the Associate Dean at Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology at Saint Louis University from July 2012 to June 2016. He served as interim dean from July 2010-June 2012. He served as the department chair of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Parks College from 1996-2009, and as Associate Dean and Interim Chair during 2009-10. Dr. Ravindra obtained a Ph.D., in Aerospace Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, a Master of Engineering degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, and a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) from the National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, India. His teaching experience is diverse which includes a number of courses in aerospace and mechanical engineering stems. He is a fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), an associate fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a member of American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). He is a member of Indo US Collaboration for Engineering Education consortium (IUCEE).His research interests is in fluid dynamics, active control of structures, and engineering education. He has published several technical papers in these areas. He has served in various capacities in the Aerospace Division of ASEE and the Saint Louis section of ASME. He is also a member of the Academic Affairs Committee of AIAA. In this capacity he has been organizing education sessions at AIAA SciTech Conference. He has attended and participated in various workshops and conferences related to Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network (KEEN) since 2010 and currently a co-PI for a grant from KEEN. In February 2011, he received the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers (MSPE) faculty of the year award. He is the recipient of Outstanding Faculty of the Year award, (twice) awarded by Association of Parks College Students. He is a registered professional engineer in New York State. He is an ABET evaluator.

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biography

Sridhar S. Condoor Saint Louis University

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Dr. Sridhar Condoor is a professor, KEEN fellow, a Coleman Fellow, and the editor of the Journal of Engineering Entrepreneurship.
He teaches sustainability, product design, and entrepreneurship. His research interests are in the areas of design theory and methodology, technology entrepreneurship, and sustainability. He is spearheading technology-entrepreneurship education at SLU via the Innovation to Product (I2P), iChallenge, entrepreneurship competitions, and funded research. He is the principal investigator for the KEEN Entrepreneurship Program development grants to foster the spirit of innovation in all engineering students.
Condoor has authored several books. Titles include Innovative Conceptual Design, Engineering Statics, and Modeling with ProEngineer. He has published several technical papers on topics focused on conceptual design, design principles, cognitive science as applied to design, and design education. VayuWind, a hubless wind turbine for urban environments, is one of his inventions. VayuWind deploys airfoils parallel to the rotational axis in such a way that, unlike other windmills, it rotates around a ring frame, leaving the central portion open for other uses. This enables VayuWind to extract wind power using existing structures such as commercial buildings and skywalks with minimal noise pollution.

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Abstract

In all undergraduate aerospace programs, there is at least one course devoted to flight vehicle structures. In such a course, honeycomb structure is discussed because of the high strength to weight ratio it offers. Besides teaching the theoretical background on simple bending and buckling of honeycomb structures, a simple experiment in buckling of sandwich panels is introduced to provide hands on experience to students who work in groups of 3 or 4. Furthermore, a computational analysis of the ​sandwich panel is also investigated. The analytical, experimental, and computational results are compared with each other. This exercise not only helps students to understand and appreciate how theoretical, computational, and experimental results compare but also an appreciation for statistical analysis of small samples ​of experimental data obtained by student groups. In this paper, a brief description of the project is presented, a detailed theoretical analysis procedure to compute buckling loads using both elastic equation (Euler’s formula) as well as inelastic equation and a simple buckling experiment using an aluminum alloy sandwich (honeycomb) test specimen is also described. The paper provides results to determine the buckling load along with comparison to associated theoretical and computational analysis predictions. ​ ​An assessment of the student feedback is also presented.

Jayaram, S., & Ravindra, K., & Condoor, S. S. (2021, July), Honeycomb Panel Buckling: An Exercise in Flight Vehicle Structures Course Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37246

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