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Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.

Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.

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Aerodynamic Stability of Small Bluff Bodied Vehicle

Description
Each year, the CanSat Competition organizers release aerospace based engineering mission objectives for collegiate teams to compete in. This year, the design is an aerodynamically stable probe that will descend from an altitude of 725 meters at a rate between 10-30 meters/sec until it reaches an altitude of 300 meters,…

Each year, the CanSat Competition organizers release aerospace based engineering mission objectives for collegiate teams to compete in. This year, the design is an aerodynamically stable probe that will descend from an altitude of 725 meters at a rate between 10-30 meters/sec until it reaches an altitude of 300 meters, where it will then release a parachute as its aerobraking mechanism as it descends at 5 meters/sec until it reaches the ground. The focus of this paper is to investigate the design of the probe itself and how slender body theory and cross flow drag affect the lift and aerodynamic stability of this bluff body. A tool is developed inside of MATLAB which calculates the slender body lift as well as the lift from the cross flow drag. It then uses that information to calculate the total moment about the center of gravity for a range of angles of attack and free stream velocities. This tool is then used to optimize the geometry of the probe. These geometries are used to construct a prototype and that prototype is tested by a drop test from a 6-story building. The initial tests confirm the calculations that the probe, bluff body, is stable and self-correcting in its descent. Future work involves more high-altitude and ground-level tests that will further verify and improve on the current design.
ContributorsMcCourt, Anthony Michael (Author) / Takahashi, Timothy (Thesis director) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05