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- All Subjects: Mechanical Engineering
- Genre: Masters Thesis
Description
The objective of this study is to estimate the variation of flight performance of a variable sweep wing geometry on the reverse engineered Boeing 2707-100 SST, when compared against the traditional delta wing approach used on supersonic airliner. The reason for this lies beneath the fact that supersonic orientations of wings doesn’t seem to work well for subsonic conditions, and subsonic wings are inefficient for supersonic flight. This would likely mean that flying long haul subsonic with supersonic wing geometry is inefficient compared to regular aircraft, but more importantly requires high takeoff/landing speeds and even long runways to bring the aircraft to hold. One might be able to get around this problem - partially - by adding thrust either by using afterburners, or by using variable geometry wings. To assess the flight performance, the research work done in this report focuses on implementing the latter solution to the abovementioned problem by using the aerodynamic performance parameters such as Coefficient of Lift, Coefficient of Drag along with its components specific to every test Mach number and altitude, along with the propulsion performance parameters such as thrust and thrust specific fuel consumption at different iterations of power settings of engine, flight Mach number and altitude in a propulsion database file to estimate flight performance using flight missions and energy-maneuverability theory approach. The flight performance was studied at several sweep angles of the aircraft to estimate the best possible sweep orientation based on the requirement of mission and an optimal flight mission was developed for an aircraft with swing wing capabilities.
ContributorsChaudhari, Bhargav Naginbhai (Author) / Takahashi, Timothy T (Thesis advisor) / Dahm, Werner J (Committee member) / Kim, Jeonglae (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
The desorption process is widely used in numerous fields such as drying, thermal energy storage, dehumidification, etc. but due to the long duration and low efficiency of the process, ultrasound has been widely used to enhance the desorption. There are a lot of studies carried out in this area but due to the experimentation time and cost computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations provide an effective and cheaper way to studying the desorption process. This research aims to develop a CFD model using ANSYS Fluent for the desorption of water from zeolite-13X in the presence and absence of ultrasound as experimentally done by Daghooghi-Mobarakeh et al. The simulation results show very good agreement (error less than 1%) with the experimental results for the desorption process without ultrasound. It was found later that it is not possible to simulate the ultrasound-assisted desorption due to the computational burden imposed by the very small time step required. Hence, to study the effect of pressure induced by ultrasound the pressure term in the simulation is added/subtracted by the pressure induced by the ultrasound to determine its effects. There is no change in the desorption curve because the induced pressure is 975 Pa which is less than 1% of the fluid pressure which is equal to 101325 Pa. Also, the effects of thermal conductivity, surface diffusion and its activation energy are explored. The increase in thermal conductivity and surface diffusion enhances desorption while an increase in activation energy decreases desorption rate.
ContributorsBalakrishnamurthi, Sarvesh (Author) / Phelan, Patrick Dr (Thesis advisor) / Huang, Huei-Ping Dr (Committee member) / Calhoun, Ronald Dr (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Regolith excavation systems are the enabling technology that must be developed in order to implement many of the plans for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) that have been developed in recent years to aid in creating a lasting human presence on the surface of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies. The majority of proposed ISRU excavation systems are integrated onto a wheeled mobility system, however none yet have proposed the use of a screw-propelled vehicle, which has the potential to augment and enhance the capabilities of the excavation system. As a result, CASPER, a novel screw-propelled excavation rover is developed and analyzed to determine its effectiveness as a ISRU excavation system. The excavation rate, power, velocity, cost of transport, and a new parameter, excavation transport rate, are analyzed for various configurations of the vehicle through mobility and excavation tests performed in silica sand. The optimal configuration yielded a 28.4 kg/hr excavation rate and11.2 m/min traverse rate with an overall system mass of 3.4 kg and power draw of26.3 W. CASPER’s mobility and excavation performance results are compared to four notable proposed ISRU excavation systems of various types. The results indicate that this architecture shows promise as an ISRU excavator because it provides significant excavation capability with low mass and power requirements.
ContributorsGreen, Marko (Author) / Marvi, Hamid (Thesis advisor) / Emady, Heather (Committee member) / Lee, Hyunglae (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
The hexagonal honeycomb is a bio-inspired cellular structure with a high stiffness-to-weight ratio. It has contributed to its use in several engineering applications compared to solid bodies with identical volume and material properties. This characteristic behavior is mainly attributed to the effective nature of stress distribution through the honeycomb beams that manifests as bending, axial, and shear deformation mechanisms. Inspired by the presence of this feature in natural honeycomb, this work focuses on the influence of the corner radius on the mechanical properties of a honeycomb structure subjected to in-plane compression loading. First, the local response at the corner node interface is investigated with the help of finite element simulation of a periodic unit cell within the linear elastic domain and validated against the best available analytical models. Next, a parametric design of experiments (DOE) study with the unit cell is defined with design points of varying circularity and cell length ratios towards identifying the optimal combination of all geometric parameters that maximize stiffness per unit mass while minimizing the stresses induced at the corner nodes. The observed trends are then compared with compression tests of 3D printed Nylon 12 honeycomb specimens of varying corner radii and wall thicknesses. The study concluded that the presence of a corner radius has a mitigating effect on peak stresses but that these effects are dependent on thickness while also increasing specific stiffness in all cases. It also points towards an optimum combination of parameters that achieve both objectives simultaneously while shedding some light on the functional benefit of this radius in wasp and bee nests that employ a hexagonal cell.
ContributorsRajeev, Athul (Author) / Bhate, Dhruv (Thesis advisor) / Oswald, Jay (Committee member) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Automation has become a staple in high volume manufacturing, where the consistency and quality of a product carries as much importance as the quantity produced. The Aerospace Industry has a vested interest in expanding the application of automation beyond simply manufacturing. In this project, the process of systems engineering has been applied to the Conceptual Design Phase of product development; specifically, the Preliminary Structural Design of a Composite wing for an Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV). Automated structural analysis can be used to develop a composite wing structure that can be directly rendered in Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) and validated using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). This concept provides the user with the ability to quickly iterate designs and demonstrates how different the “optimal light weight” composite structure must look for UAV systems of varied weight, range, and flight maneuverability.
ContributorsBlair, Martin Caceres (Author) / Takahashi, Timothy (Thesis advisor) / Murthy, Raghavendra (Committee member) / Perez, Ruben (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Recent years, there has been many attempts with different approaches to the human-robot interaction (HRI) problems. In this paper, the multi-agent interaction is formulated as a differential game with incomplete information. To tackle this problem, the parameter estimation method is utilized to obtain the approximated solution in a real time basis. Previous studies in the parameter estimation made the assumption that the human parameters are known by the robot; but such may not be the case and there exists uncertainty in the modeling of the human rewards as well as human's modeling of the robot's rewards. The proposed method, empathetic estimation, is tested and compared with the ``non-empathetic'' estimation from the existing works. The case studies are conducted in an uncontrolled intersection with two agents attempting to pass efficiently. Results have shown that in the case of both agents having inconsistent belief of the other agent's parameters, the empathetic agent performs better at estimating the parameters and has higher reward values, which indicates the scenarios when empathy is essential: when agent's initial belief is mismatched from the true parameters/intent of the agents.
ContributorsChen, Yi (Author) / Ren, Yi (Thesis advisor) / Zhang, Wenlong (Committee member) / Yong, Sze Zheng (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
In this thesis, the problem of designing model discrimination algorithms for unknown nonlinear systems is considered, where only raw experimental data of the system is available. This kind of model discrimination techniques finds one of its application in the estimation of the system or intent models under consideration, where all incompatible models are invalidated using new data that is available at run time. The proposed steps to reach the end goal of the algorithm for intention estimation involves two steps: First, using available experimental data of system trajectories, optimization-based techniques are used to over-approximate/abstract the dynamics of the system by constructing an upper and lower function which encapsulates/frames the true unknown system dynamics. This over-approximation is a conservative preservation of the dynamics of the system, in a way that ensures that any model which is invalidated against this approximation is guaranteed to be invalidated with the actual model of the system. The next step involves the use of optimization-based techniques to investigate the distinguishability of pairs of abstraction/approximated models using an algorithm for 'T-Distinguishability', which gives a finite horizon time 'T', within which the pair of models are guaranteed to be distinguished, and to eliminate incompatible models at run time using a 'Model Invalidation' algorithm. Furthermore, due the large amount of data under consideration, some computation-aware improvements were proposed for the processing of the raw data and the abstraction and distinguishability algorithms.The effectiveness of the above-mentioned algorithms is demonstrated using two examples. The first uses the data collected from the artificial simulation of a swarm of agents, also known as 'Boids', that move in certain patterns/formations, while the second example uses the 'HighD' dataset of naturalistic trajectories recorded on German Highways for vehicle intention estimation.
ContributorsBhagwat, Mohit Mukul (Author) / Yong, Sze Zheng (Thesis advisor) / Berman, Spring (Committee member) / Xu, Zhe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Accurate knowledge and understanding of thermal conductivity is very important in awide variety of applications both at microscopic and macroscopic scales. Estimation,however varies widely with respect to scale and application. At a lattice level, calcu-lation of thermal conductivity of any particular alloy require very heavy computationeven for a relatively small number of atoms. This thesis aims to run conventionalmolecular dynamic simulations for a particular supercell and then employ a machinelearning based approach and compare the two in hopes of developing a method togreatly reduce computational costs as well as increase the scale and time frame ofthese systems. Conventional simulations were run using interatomic potentials basedon density function theory-basedab initiocalculations. Then deep learning neuralnetwork based interatomic potentials were used run similar simulations to comparethe two approaches.
ContributorsDabir, Anirudh (Author) / Zhuang, Houlong (Thesis advisor) / Nian, Qiong (Committee member) / Jiao, Yang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Additively Manufactured Thin-wall Inconel 718 specimens commonly find application in heat exchangers and Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) for space vehicles. The wall thicknesses in applications for these components typically range between 0.03-2.5mm. Laser Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) Fatigue standards assume thickness over 5mm and consider Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) as conventional heat treatment. This study aims at investigating the dependence of High Cycle Fatigue (HCF) behavior on wall thickness and Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) for as-built Additively Manufactured Thin Wall Inconel 718 alloys. To address this aim, high cycle fatigue tests were performed on specimens of seven different thicknesses (0.3mm,0.35mm, 0.5mm, 0.75mm, 1mm, 1.5mm, and 2mm) using a Servohydraulic FatigueTesting Machine. Only half of the specimen underwent HIP, creating data for bothHIP and No-HIP specimens. Upon analyzing the collected data, it was noticed that the specimens that underwent HIP had similar fatigue behavior to that of sheet metal specimens. In addition, it was also noticed that the presence of Porosity in No-HIP specimens makes them more sensitive to changes in stress. A clear decrease in fatigue strength with the decrease in thickness was observed for all specimens.
ContributorsSaxena, Anushree (Author) / Bhate, Dhruv (Thesis advisor) / Liu, Yongming (Committee member) / Kwon, Beomjin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Inspired by the design of lightweight cellular structures in nature, humans have made cellular solids for a wide range of engineering applications. Cellular structures composed of solid and gaseous phases, and an interconnected network of solid struts or plates that form the cell's edges and faces. This makes them an ideal candidate for numerous energy absorption applications in the military, transportation, and automotive industries. The objective of the thesis is to study the energy-absorption of multi-material cellular structures. Cellular structures made from Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS) a thermoplastic polymer and Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) a thermoplastic elastomer were manufactured using dual extrusion 3D printing. The surface-based structures were designed with partitions to allocate different materials using Matlab and nTopology. Aperiodicity was introduced to the design through perturbation. The specimens were designed for two wall thicknesses - 0.5mm and 1mm, respectively. In total, 18 specimens were designed and 3D printed. All the specimens were tested under quasi-static compression. A detailed analysis was performed to study the energy absorption metrics and draw conclusions, with emphasis on specific energy absorbed as a function of relative density, efficiency, and peak stress of the specimens to hypothesize and validate mechanisms for observed behavior. All the specimens were analyzed to draw comparisons across designs.
ContributorsVarma, Rajeshree Pawan (Author) / Bhate, Dhruv (Thesis advisor) / Shuaib, Abdelrahman (Committee member) / Nian, Qiong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021