Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Design Challenge
Winter 2021 - Spring 2021
Design Competition Results: 2nd Place (Results Page)
Work Field:
Senior Design Engineering Team
NASA Design Competition
Senior Design Engineering Team
NASA Design Competition
Roles:
3D Model Translation
Simulated Aerodynamic Analysis
Coding and Calculations
3D Model Translation
Simulated Aerodynamic Analysis
Coding and Calculations
This design challenge hosted by NASA tasks university students with designing an Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicle capable of safe operation in extreme weather conditions experienced by a select urban metro area. The designed aircraft must also adhere to conventional safety standards and regulations in addition to the additional criteria for safe urban flight.
More information regarding the design competition can be found here.
Three View Diagram
My engineering team was composed of five members. To accomplish our mission efficiently and complete the design by the provided deadline, work was divided amongst all members. Meetings were hosted multiple times a week to determine tasks, discuss progress, collaborate on work, and obtain team input on major design choices. Our final design was a tandem wing aircraft with coaxial propellers capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and fixed-wing cruise configurations.
Modeling and Aerodynamic Simulations:
One of my main responsibilities in this project was to translate dimensions and other geometric elements of our design from calculated numbers to a generated 3D model of our aircraft. OpenVSP, an aircraft geometry tool originally developed by NASA, was used to create models of the main aircraft and its propellers. These models utilized in simulated analysis to gather information about the aerodynamic performance such as the lift curves and drag polars. After this model was iterated upon and refined, it was exported for further aerodynamic analysis using FlightStream, a higher fidelity aerodynamic modeling software capable of integrating complex elements in its analysis such as high lift devices or compressible flow.
VTOL Configuration
Fixed-Wing Configuration
Early OpenVSP Model and Simulation
FlightStream Aero Simulation
Matlab Computations and Plot Generation:
To efficiently generate data about the aircraft's potential performance for different geometric parameters and configurations, I utilized MatLab code to streamline calculations using equations from researched written sources. Calculations I performed primarily revolved around power consumption in both flight configurations for varying propeller setups, payload, flight speeds, rates of climb, and more.
MATLAB Code Sample