ENGINEERING AEROSPACE NEWS

NEWSSpring 2013 | A publication from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University

AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

NEWS

ACHIEVEMENT This year, we acknowledge the many accomplishments of our students, faculty and staff.

� Dr. Junkins recruits the inaugural class of the Texas Institute of Advanced Studies, which brings National Academy members Drs. Needleman and Sreenivasan to our department

� Dr. Lagoudas named University Distinguished Professor � A few more of the many accomplishments of our students, faculty and staff are highlighted in this issue.

AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

Published three times a year by the Department of Aerospace Engineering in the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University to keep current and former students, industry and trade organizations, and friends of the department informed on the accomplishments and discoveries achieved by one of the nation’s most prominent departments of its kind.

Contact us:

Editor, Jan McHargDepartment of Aerospace Engineering3141 TAMU701 H. R. Bright BuildingCollege Station, TX 77843-3141979.845.0516

[email protected]

Subscribe:Aerospace Engineering News is distributed via email and is available online at https://aero.tamu.edu/news/newsletters. If you would like to be added to the distribution or removed from the list, please email [email protected].

Media:Information in this newsletter may be used for further distribution in its entirety or in part for print publication or on the web. Please attribute Aerospace Engineering Newsletter. Additional questions can be directed to Jan McHarg at [email protected].

InsIde thIs Issue

Putting an End to the Guessing GameEstimating the weight of helicopters during flight for military and medevac operations

Pop/OpArchitecture meets Aerospace

Visiting Scholars Join Aerospace Engineering

Texas A&M Team Earns Air Force Grant to Study Turbulence, Efficient Aircraft Design

Interdisciplinary Team Awarded NSF-EFRI GrantSynthesizing complex 3D structures from programmable, self-folding 2D elements

A message from the department head

Student Successes � F1Eye Spy Team Wins SUAS Competition � Aerospace Students Take a Tour of Bell Helicopter � IIT Kanpur / TAMU Exchange Program � Aerospace Engineering Ph.D. Student Wins Best Poster

Award

Faculty Achievements � Shryock, Srinivasa and Froyd win Frontiers in � Education’s 2011 Conference Benjamin Dasher Best Paper

Award � NASA Grant Awarded to Boeing-led Team for Wind

Tunnel Experiments � Dr. Saric and the Flight Research Laboratory Featured in

Aerospace America Magazine � Paper on Design Optimization of Morphing Structures

Featured in Journal � Professor Mortari Named AAS Fellow

Alumni News � Schaub and Junkins Awarded AIAA Martin

Summerfield Book Award

Giving � Aerospace Engineering Faculty Establish John and

Elouise Junkins Scholarship

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Photo by Andrew Kilzer

Rodney D. W. BowersoxProfessor and Interim Department Head

CHANGE This year is was one of remarkable change, a few notable examples are:

� Our Department Head Dr. Lagoudas named Senior Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering

� Dean Banks announces the 25,000 by 2025 vision to double the enrollment of the College of Engineering

CELEBRATIONThis year, we celebrate our alumni.

� We introduced the Distinguished Alumni Academy to recognize our most accomplished graduates.

� We celebrate100th anniversery of the birth of one of our earliest and most influential graduates Dr. Frank Malina.

TAMU graduate Frank Malina (1934) Goes Beyond! Pictured here with a Sounding Rocket – note the boots. Dr. Malina was the co-founder and 1st director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which recently landed the Curiosity Rover on Mars. He also became an internationally renowned artist and founder of the Leonardo Journal.

Welcome!As a major department within the Dwight Look College of Engineering, we are excited and proud to be among the top Aerospace Engineering programs in the United States. This year has been one of change, celebration and achievement. We are delighted to introduce this Newsletter to update our alumni, friends and colleagues of our progress.

PAST Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University has a long and productive history, where the first aeronautical courses were introduced in 1928 to prepare students for careers in modern aviation. This was the beginning of what became the Aeronautical Engineering Department, which was established in 1940. The name was later changed, in 1963, to Aerospace Engineering to broaden the scope to include astronautics as the Nation was in the midst of the space race and dreaming of exploring

the universe.

PRESENT Today, our students are offered a modern curriculum that is balanced across the three principal disciplines of Aerospace Engineering. The disciplines are Aerodynamics and Propulsion, Dynamics and Control, and Materials and Structures. We currently enjoy an enrollment of nearly 700 undergraduate and 150 graduate students. The undergraduate experience culminates with a capstone design, build and fly sequence, where, for the first time, our students choose between airplanes, helicopters, rockets and space missions. Extracurricular activities are also available, where Aggies design, build and fly solar planes, competitive airplanes, and satellites. In addition, opportunities exist for real-world experiences, such as study abroad, internships, co-ops, and departmental research.

Our graduate students and post-doctoral scientists are offered an advanced curriculum, exposure to current events through an active seminar series, and state-of-the-art research supported by the externally funded research programs of our faculty. This research supports assistantships, internships, and furnishes our laboratories with modern facilities, instrumentation and computing resources. Research topics include manned and unmanned aircraft, satellites and constellations, aerospace sciences, propulsion and energy, robotics and sensing, rotorcraft, hypersonic vehicles, autonomous morphing vehicles, advanced materials and structures, plus many more.

FUTURE For future Aggies, we offer summer programs, such as Camp Soar, where high-schools students spend one week at Texas A&M working with Aerospace Engineering students and faculty to gain an appreciation for the fundamentals of Aerospace Engineering through hands-on projects. Other opportunities include Aggieland Saturday, Physics Festival, Discover Engineering, and the Youth Adventure Program.

Aerospace Engineering News | 2

Helicopters offer versatility and ease of access that other modes of transportation cannot. From military operations to use in life-saving medical situations to transporting VIPs, more than 45,000 helicopters are in operation worldwide, making them as common a sight in the skies as airplanes.

But for helicopters - unlike airplanes - the weight and center of mass can change drastically during flight. In a battle situation, cargo or troops may enter or leave the aircraft rapidly. The pilot may not know precisely how the helicopter’s weight has changed, and he or she has little time to figure it out.

Putting an end to the

guessing gameEstimating the

weight of helicopters during flight

for military and medevac operations

by Tim Schnettler

“Currently there is a person whose job it is to estimate the weight of items coming on and off the aircraft,” say Texas A&M University aerospace engineering professor Jonathan Rogers. “They are very conservative because they have to be. A pilot’s precise knowledge of how much the helicopter weighs would benefit him greatly.

“Right now, with these estimates, the pilot doesn’t really know [the exact weight and mass center]. So when it comes to questions like, ‘Can I operate in certain conditions?’ and ‘Can I hover at a certain altitude?’ it is probably somewhat of a guessing game.”

Rogers and his students are working to create an avionics package that will

provide precise weight and mass center information to the pilot in real time.

To remedy this, Rogers and his students in the Helicopter and Unmanned Systems Laboratory (HUSL) are working to create an avionics package that will provide the precise weight and mass center information to the pilot in real time. By measuring the aircraft responses to the pilot’s control inputs, the onboard software package will estimate weight and mass center by using advanced computational methods.

“This will proved the information he or she needs to make better decisions. What we are going to do is take these helicopters and drop weights off them when they are flying and see if we can filter the sensor data and the control inputs,” Rogers says. “Using Kalman filters [an algorithm using a series of measurements observed over time] and potentially more advanced methods, we will attempt to, in real time, estimate the weight change that has taken place.”

By measuring the aircraft responses to the pilot’s control inputs, the onboard software package will estimate weight and mass center by using advanced computational methods.

Once that is determined, the avionics package would give the pilot an estimate of how much the helicopter weighs and where the mass center is located.

Early attempts at solving the engineering problemAlthough Rogers’ current project is new to Texas A&M, he says it has been tried in various simulations and it has proven effective.

When Rogers was conducting his postdoctoral research two years ago at the Georgia Institute of Technology, his adviser at the time proposed this system to a consortium of helicopter companies and to NASA, which partakes in a lot of rotorcraft research. But they were less than enthusiastic.

“They said you can never make it work in practice,” Rogers says. He found out later that at least two of the

helicopter companies were pursuing these initiatives internally.

Being spurned didn’t cause them to shut down shop. Instead, it only motivated them even more, and Rogers has brought that passion to succeed with him to Texas A&M and has instilled it in his students.

“Our attitude was, ‘Let’s do this and let’s make it work and show everybody that it can work in practice,’ “ Rogers says. “That is the beauty of having these helicopter vehicles that we have in the HUSL. We can take these ideas that everybody agrees work in simulation and show that they do work in practice.”

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Other benefitsThe operating costs for helicopters are much higher than those of fixed-wing aircraft, such as airplanes. Because of the conditions helicopters fly in as well as the loads placed on them, certain parts require replacement and repair more often than others.

Rogers contends that his research will help in the area of maintenance as well. Having exact weights, rather than just estimates, means that certain parts of the vehicle would not need to be replaced as often.

“There are certain life-limited parts in a helicopter that, based on how long it has flown, have to be replaced,” Rogers says. “If we can extend the lifetime of these parts, we can reduce operating costs. That would be one of the huge benefits.

Photographs by Jim Lyles

Dr. Jonathan Rogers, Assistant Professor of

Aerospace Engineering, leads the Helicopter

and Unmanned Systems Laboratory.

He brings experience in both government

and academia, and has contributed extensively to the field of guidance, navigation, and control

systems for autonomous vehicles.

Dr. Jonathan RogersAssistant Professor

[email protected]

husl.tamu.edu

Aerospace Engineering graduate student Nate Miller is designing autonomous helicopter flight control laws to enable a wide variety of UAV research projects at the Helicopter and Unmanned Systems Lab.


Pop/OpAerospace meets Architecture

Research in active materials and aircraft structural morphing recently intersected with the study of advanced architectural design and fabrication methods, resulting in a new kinetic art installation in the H.R. “Bum” Bright (HRBB) Building, home of the Dept. of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University. The morphing wall is a new adornment to the building’s south entrance.

The concept was originally envisaged by Darren Hartl, a Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) Research Assistant Professor in the department, and Gabriel Esquivel, Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Architecture. Hartl is the Director of Operations of the Texas Institute for Intelligent Materials (TiiMS) and Structures focusing on Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) technologies. Esquivel is an instructor and mentor in the Mitchell Lab, which specializes in advancing the methods of advanced digital design of architectural forms. The new morphing wall incorporates elements of both research efforts and required the entirety of the fall semester to design and fabricate.

“The piece wasn’t a preconceived idea at all,” said Esquivel. “The design emerged from our research discoveries.” Hartl was enthusiastic about the collaboration. “In teaming with the design students, we were provided with a design challenge in which aesthetic goals can, at times, supersede quantified and purely functional objectives,” said Hartl, “This is also an opportunity to carry our technological solutions to a new and broader audience.” Esquivel’s students began collaborating with their colleagues in aerospace engineering during the spring 2012 semester, when they worked with Hartl to evaluate the structural integrity of composite materials they used

to create unconventional and multifunctional home exteriors.

The kinetic art concept was further encouraged by the department heads of Aerospace Engineering (Rodney Bowersox) and Computer Science and Engineering (Hank Walker), the two departments housed in HRRB.

The configuration and aesthetic of the morphing wall were completely designed by architecture students under the guidance of Esquivel. These students, who also collectively self-funded the majority of the project, made extensive use of the College of Architecture’s Digital Fabrication Facility at Texas A&M’s Riverside Campus to create the piece. The various offset surfaces that comprise the overall wall are constructed of layers of resin and a C-glass fiber weave. The colorful pattern is printed onto large sheets of paper that are layered in under the final layer of C-glass.

Nearly 30 individual morphing shape memory alloy components are installed throughout the wall, including star-like ‘flowers’ and various morphing flaps. SMA material was donated by

Pictured left to right in the group photo: Jorge Cruz, Kara Kewetz, Roberto Jaimes, Darren Hartl, Gabriel Esquivel, Daniel Whitten, Catalan Fearon, Erin Templeton, Dylan Weiser, Erica Duran

The Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study (TIAS) announced in October that six notable scholars accepted invitations to join Texas A&M during the 2012-13 academic year. The six individuals constitute the first class of scholars to join TIAS, an institute created to attract six to ten scholars annually to Texas A&M University; by 2018, it is anticipated the institute will attract 20 world-class scholars.

TIAS, led by Aerospace Engineering’s very own Dr. John Junkins, was established in December 2010 by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents to build on the growing academic reputation of Texas A&M and to provide a framework to attract top domestic and international scholars for at least yearly appointments. Each year TIAS invites a number of nationally and internationally prominent Faculty Fellows to pursue advanced study at TIAS in collaboration with faculty and student scholars at Texas A&M. The goal is to provide a stellar environment for research and scholarship with the Faculty Fellows having freedom to pursue their own research interests, as well as collaborate in disciplinary and multidisciplinary research.

Two of the TIAS scholars for the 2012-13 academic year will be contributing to the Department of Aerospace Engineering. We warmly welcome Alan Needleman, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering, University of North Texas and Katepalli R. Sreenivasan, University Professor, Department of Physics and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.

Join Aerospace EngineeringVisiting Scholars

Dr. Alan Needleman’s research interest is in material science, especially mathematical modeling of fracture, dislocations, and environmental effects on materials. His research is concerned with

improving understanding of multifunctional material properties. Needleman is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is the recipient of several top honors in his field. Following a more than 40 year career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Brown University, he recently joined the University of Texas. To read more about Dr. Needlman’s background, click here.

Needleman will collaborate with Amine Benzerga, Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering; Ray Arroyave, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering; and Haiyan Wang, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the Dwight Look College of Engineering.

Alan Needleman

Dr. Katepalli R. Sreenivasan is Senior Vice Provost for Science/Technology for the Global Network University, and Acting President and Provost for the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. He

is also a University Professor, Department of Physics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU. Sreenivasan was previously Director of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy), Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Physics and Engineering, and Director of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland. Sreenivasan is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He plays a significant role in the planning and development of NYU as a Global Network University. To learn more about Dr. Sreenivasan’s background, click here.

Sreenivasan will collaborate with Diego Donzis, Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering; Devesh Ranjan, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering; and Adonios Karpetis, Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering, in the Dwight Look College of Engineering, as well as several faculty members from the College of Science.

Katepalli R.Sreenivasan


Dynalloy and SAES-Getters. Daniel Whitten, a TiiMS Undergraduate Research Assistant and student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, designed and custom-built a 16-channel Arduino-based controller. Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform. Aerospace M.S. student Stephen Cornell assisted in fabrication of several of the SMA components.

Timed actuation of the morphing components creates a subtle illusion of motion from left to right. Named for the inspiration of Pop-up books and the pop art and ‘Op-Art’ movements, the creation known as “Pop/Op” creates “motion through overlapping layers, graphics and the moving elements,” said Esquivel. The wall is intended to be powered on a timed schedule and will be active during normal university business hours. The new installation is considered to be a permanent feature of the Bright building.

Pop/Op is a tribute to engineer/artist Frank Malina’34, who earned a Masters in Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M. Malina was one of the original rocket pioneers, and the co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory which he directed in the 1940’s. As an engineer, Malina conceived and directed the design, construction and testing of the United States' first successful high-altitude research rocket in 1945. He was also a kinetic artist who became internationally recognized as a pioneer of light and motion in art. He founded Leonardo, a research journal focusing on the interactions between contemporary arts, science and technology. His kinetic art is housed in collections at the Smithsonian Institution and art museums in Paris and San Francisco. Two pieces remain in the

permanent collection of Texas A&M University and are exhibited on the lower level of the MSC.

Hartl and Esquivel have also recently won a grant from the Texas A&M Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts to construct a second such piece in the spring semester. Their team will focus on a free-standing “sculpture” configuration and they plan to push the bounds of morphing and control even further, integrating such features as the ability of a passing viewer to use a smart-phone based interface to directly control the wall in real time. The participation of faculty and students from other departments such as Computer Science and Engineering is being discussed. “These collaborations are an indication of where architecture can go in combination with other disciplines,” said Esquivel. “This is taking architecture into a new territory that includes animation and robotics.”

The kinetic art project is an effort that parallels the joint engineering/architecture research toward

the development of “massively reconfigurable” self-folding structures based on origami principles. That work is supported jointly by the NSF and Air Force through the EFRI “ODISSEI” program, a ~$2M grant (NSF award 1240483) that includes Hartl as Senior Personnel.

It is the hope of the faculty and students involved in the creation of “Pop/Op” that those passing through HRRB enjoy this new fusion of engineering and art.

Group photo by Jan McHarg. All other photos by Communications, College of Architecture.

Big things often start in the smallest of ways. What began about a year ago with a trio of faculty members from a pair of Texas A&M University colleges scrawling notes on a napkin at Starbucks has resulted in a recent $2.2 million grant from the United States Air Force intended to help the government create more efficient aircraft.

Simon North, a professor in the Department of Chemistry, is teaming with Rodney Bowersox and Diego Donzis, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) researchers and professors in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, to pool their expertise in the project, which they credit for enriching a collaboration they hope will last long after this particular study is complete.

At a time when academic leaders nationwide are stressing the need for researchers to step outside their fiefdoms to create synergies across campus, North says the chemistry-aerospace engineering partnership appears to be a natural fit to execute the needs of the federal government. And although the researchers may be studying turbulence, they say the cross-college collaboration has been nothing but a smooth ride.

Texas A&M Team Earns Air Force Grant to Study Turbulence, Efficient Aircraft DesignTexas A&M Team Earns Air Force Grant to Study Turbulence, Efficient Aircraft Design

"This project is interdisciplinary in the true sense," North said. "There are many projects where individuals work on parts of a problem in isolation, and then everything is stitched together at the end. But we talk over lunch or coffee almost every day and give each other constant feedback. It's been fantastic and stimulating."

The grant, announced in July by the Air Force's Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), will fund the group's study of the complex interaction between turbulence and thermal non-equilibrium, where specific types of energy in molecules are at a different

temperature than their surroundings. By artificially raising the molecules' temperature -- a process which occurs naturally through the shock waves often present at hypersonic speeds -- and monitoring the effects on turbulence as they cool down to their surroundings, the researchers hope to better understand model turbulence flows, with the broad goal of providing the Air Force with the necessary information to build more efficient aircraft.

Bowersox notes that high-speed flights can cause molecules to get extremely heated, leading to chemical reactions. Heat is a hindrance in certain places -- such as the external surface of the aircraft, which it would degrade -- and beneficial in others, including the engine, because it translates to thrust.

By Vimal Patel

Texas A&M Aerospace Engineers Rodney Bowersox (left) and Diego Donzis (middle) are teaming up with Texas A&M chemist Simon North (rtight) on a $2.2 million Air Force grant to engineer more efficient aircraft. (Photos by Andrew Kilzer, Texas A&M Division of Research)

"So one question is, can we take the energy on the outside of the airplane being generated due to frictional heating, store that in the molecules and somehow release that energy into the engine to increase thrust efficiency?" Bowersox said. "There are lots of different applications. The next question is, what science do we need to understand in order to enable these types of applications? And that's where we all come in."

Bowersox specializes in studying the effects of thermal non-equilibrium, Donzis in large-scale computations and North in the intricate details of the chemistry. A fourth researcher -- William Hase, a professor in Texas Tech University's chemistry and biochemistry department who specializes in numerical computations -- also is involved in the project.

The Air Force grant also is helping to fund the group's analysis of possible new technological advances in strategies to generate and control turbulence. Specifically, the researchers are investigating a new concept to generate turbulence via photoexcitation -- the use of lasers to create thermal non-equilibrium -- to gauge the effects on turbulence.

"We are discovering new ways of generating turbulence," said Donzis, who serves as the principal investigator for the grant.

The professional relationship between North and Bowersox began around 8 years ago, when they met through a colleague and soon realized overlapping research interests. They are both co-directors of an aerospace engineering lab at Easterwood Airport, a facility known as the National Aerothermochemistry Laboratory at which some 15 to 20 students can be found working on any given day. Roughly a dozen of them, graduates and undergraduates, will work on the Air Force grant.

"Students in the lab are getting educational opportunities to learn things no one else in the world has seen before," Bowersox said. "So the research has a very positive impact on education."

Bowersox says the lab has benefited from more than $20 million in federal grant funding during the last 8 years, including a $10 million award from the National Hypersonics Center to study laminar-turbulent transition. The principal investigator on that grant is William Saric, a distinguished professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering.

To learn more about the Air Force project, visit Donzis' website at http://aero.tamu.edu/people/faculty/?id=529.

Aerospace engineering graduate students Brandon Pruski (left) and Chi Mai are two of the roughly two dozen students who work in the National Aerothermochemistry Laboratory, which houses one of two wind tunnels worldwide that can support fundamental research into boundary-layer stability at hypersonic speeds in a low-disturbance environment.

The NAL group, which includes (from left) Rodney Bowersox, Wade Eveland, Chi Mai, Diego Donzis, Nic West and Simon North.


different. In a simulation recently published by Hartl, mechanical engineer Richard Malak, and their colleagues, the sheet becomes an airfoil to steer a spacecraft to a landing on Venus, and then curls into a cylinder to roll on the planet’s surface.”

Elements will be programmed by specifying the locations and sequences of localized folding operations. Fold characteristics and locations will be of near-infinite variety and not limited to pre-engineered folds or joints. “In origami, one starts with a flat piece of paper, 2D, and folds it to realize a 3D shape, [for example] a crane. Our research involves sheets that can be programmed to fold on their own,” Malak said.

In the proposed system, the active layers are composed of a special type of metal that changes its shape when heated, called shape-memory alloy. Dr. Dimitris Lagoudas (Aerospace) has been testing and modeling these materials for the last 20 years. Dr.

Hartl has been involved in this research for the past decade. The Aerospace team has already begun designing and analyzing the forms and has produced two conference papers. Hartl noted, “the participation of undergraduate research assistants has already been essential.”

Going forward, the research team will create new theories and methods for multi-scale and multidisciplinary systems analysis and optimization, active materials modeling and structural analyses, computational folding algorithms for design synthesi, geometric modeling and visualization, and bio-inspired folding-based design synthesis methods. The combined design theory and methods will address a class of design problems – structures made from programmable self-folding active material elements – for which no methods presently exist.

A research team consisting of faculty from the Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Visualization departments at Texas A&M University was recently awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant through the Emerging Frontiers of Research and Innovation (EFRI) program. The four-year grant totals nearly $2 million with the objective to discover new techniques for synthesizing complex 3D structures from programmable, self-folding 2d elements. This will be made possible by the incorporation of layers that provide actuation capabilities.

The research team is led by principal investigator Richard Malak from Mechanical Engineering. Aerospace Engineering faculty include co-principal investigator Dr. Dimitris Lagoudas and senior

Interdisciplinary Team Awarded NSF-EFRI Grant

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Rolling Fold

personnel Dr. Darren Hartl. Other team members include co-principal investigaors Dr. Nancy Amato (Computer Science and Engineering), Dr. Ergun Akleman (Department of Visualization) and Dr. Daniel McAdams (Mechanical Engineering).

“I am honored to be part of the A&M research community and to contribute to its success,” Malak said. “I am also fortunate to be part of a research community of such diversity and quality ... It potentially is A&M’s greatest strength as an institution.” Hartl added, “It is the participation of faculty with design, mechanics, computational and visualization backgrounds that gives this work the potential to be truly transformative.”

An article, “Folding Frontier,” in ASEE Prism, the magazine of the American Society for Engineering

Education (ASEE) says, “Texas A&M is working with a material so complex that the engineers occasionally have to laugh at the difficulty of the task before them. In fact, they still have to invent it. But the computer models developed by aerospace engineer Darren Hartl show great promise for a sandwich of two sheets of shape-memory alloy — prestressed to fold in opposing directions — separated by an insulator. A switched resistor network pattern, like a programmable version of the defrosting wires embedded in an automobile’s rear window, will trigger the bending action. With no hinges limiting the position of creases, the massively foldable sheet could theoretically take one of an infinite variety of shapes, unfold, and then refold into something completely

If successful, the results of this research will constitute a substantial leap forward in engineering technology and knowledge, allowing engineers to design complex systems in fundamentally new ways.

Additionally, underrepresented students from the sixth through 12th grades will learn about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) topics through a robotics competition organized in partnership with National Instruments.

Further, the research team, in partnership with the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, is already working to produce live, interactive origami-themed STEM lessons that will reach more than 10,000 elementary-age school children across the country annually using a distance education framework.

EFRI was established in 2007 to serve a critical role in focusing the engineering community on important emerging areas in a timely manner. Each year, EFRI evaluates, recommends, and funds interdisciplinary initiatives at the emerging frontiers of engineering research and innovation. These transformative opportunities may lead to new research directions, new industries or capabilities that result in a leadership position for the country, and/or significant progress on a recognized National need or grand challenge.

For this year’s EFRI program, there were three topics of investigation: Flexible Bioelectronics Systems (BioFlex), Origami Design for the Integration of Self-assembling Systems for Engineering Innovation (ODISSEI), and Photosynthesis Biorefineries (PSBR). Texas A&M received two grants: this one on the ODISSEI topic and another under the PSBR topic. It is the only university in the country to receive multiple grants.

Synthesizing complex 3D structures from programmable, self-folding 2D elements Dimitris Lagoudas Darren Hartl

SMA film (Top)

SMA film (Bottom)

Elastomer

Elastomer

Elastomer

FILM DESIGN

MESH DESIGN (ALIGNED)

MESH DESIGN (STAGGERED)

SMA mesh (Top)

SMA mesh (Top)

SMA mesh (Bottom)

SMA mesh (Bottom)

Prestrain=H/2(two directions)

prestrain=H

prestrain=H

SMA Thin Film (biased directions shown)

SMA Thin Film (biased directions shown)

Compliant & Insulating Layer


student successes

FiEye Spy Team Wins SUAS Competition

On January 22, 2013, The BORDERS National Center for Border Security and Immigration, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, announced the winners of the Small Unmanned Aerial System (SUAS) Competition. The seven person undergraduate team named FlEye Spy team from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University is one of four teams selected. The other teams are from Oklahoma State University, St. Louis University, and Purdue University. The teams were selected for funding based on a design proposal submitted in December. Each team will receive up to $30,000 to construct a functioning SUAS based on their design. This award was sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Science and Technology (S&T).

Members of the A&M “FlEye Spy” SUAS team include Brandon Baker, Jason Bolen, Steven DeHoog, Alexander Herring, Christopher Maguire, David Lerohl, and Colton Sandman. The Graduate Teaching Assistant is Yogesh Babbar and the faculty advisors are Col. Wayne Lutz, USAF Ret and Dr. Thomas Strganac.

The seven students are congratulated for the initiative, energy and creativity provided. The team used this project as part of the AERO 401 / AERO 402 Aircraft Capstone Design Course sequence that takes a team through conceptual-preliminary design, wind tunnel testing and analysis, flight vehicle fabrication, and flight tests. Representatives from Homeland Security will visit A&M in April to witness the flight.

Aerospace Students Take a Tour of Bell Helicopter

Dr. Jonathan Rogers, Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University’s Department of Aerospace Engineering, and some of his Aerospace Engineering students paid a visit to Bell Helicopter in Ft. Worth, Texas on Friday, January 11, 2013. The group consisted of undergraduate students from Roger’s 401/402 Aerospace Vehicle Design course, as well as three of his graduate students and two undergraduate researchers.

The group was treated to a tour of the MV-22 Flight Test Aircraft and Bell’s Advanced Composites Manufacturing Center. Briefings were giving by V-22 test pilot Dan Webb, Director of Research Andy Thomas and Director of Advanced Concepts Dudley Smith, and the students were able to get an inside look around in an actual V-22 Osprey.

While there, the students briefed their Critical Design Review (CDR) presentation to six of Bell’s Tech Fellows. Dr. Rogers said, “it was an outstanding experience for our students, and they provided extremely positive feedback. It was unique for them to get ‘hands-on’ time with those that develop, fly and manufacture the aircraft all in one day.”

The visit was coordinated by Chad Sparks ’96, a member of the Aerospace Engineering Department’s Advisory Board.

student successes

IIT Kanpur / TAMU Exchange Program

Texas A&M University Aerospace Engineering students participated in an exchange program with students from the Indian Institute of Technology this past summer. Five students from IIT Kanpur studied at Texas A&M University in College Station, while five students from A&M studied at IIT Kanpur.

Students were able to work on projects under the guidance of world-renowned aerospace engineering faculty at both institutions. “Doing research at IIT Kanpur was an amazing experience. I really enjoyed being immersed in the IIT culture,” says Texas A&M Aerospace student Sachin Subramanian.

Projects worked on at IIT Kanpur included the areas of effect of filler volume fraction on fracture behavior of glass particle filled epoxy composites, social issues in contemporary Indian women’s memoirs, and dynamics and performance analysis of helicopters. Michael Young, a Texas A&M Aerospace student, says “I never thought I would learn so much, not just about aero engineering, but the people as well. Best experience of my life so far!”

Projects worked on at Texas A&M included the areas of open loop simulation of control of helicopter, uncertainty propagation in hypersonic reentry model, modeling of piezoelectric effects, modeling of turbulence, and feedback motion planning of UAVs.

Time was also given for the exchange students to travel and explore places many of them had never seen before. Texas A&M students took in Delhi, India, the Taj Mahal in Agra, and Lucknow and tourist attractions in the state of Rajasthan. Kanpur students were treated to the sights of Houston and NASA Johnson Space Center, the George Bush Libray and the San Antonio Riverwalk.

The annual exchange program has sparked an interest in students from both universities to pursue research at the “other” institution. It also created an avenue for Indian students interested in attending Texas A&M to meet American students and begin relationships before they arrive in the United States, and vice versa.

Aerospace Engineering Ph.D. Student Wins Best Poster Award Shamik Basu, a PhD graduate student working under Dr. Amine Benzerga in Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, was awarded the Best Poster award at the ASME-IMECE 2012 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition held in Houston on November 9-15, 2012. Basu’s area of research is to experimentally study the effect of strain history, stress states and anisotropy on ductile fracture in various structural metals and alloys.

The poster titled “The influence of micron-scale voids on the path-dependence of steel fracture” was presented at the ASME Society-wide Micro & Nano Technology Forum on November 13, 2012. This forum brings together ASME members and others from different disciplines/divisions with a focus on micro and nano-scale phenomena and processes. Over 200 posters were presented with the best posters receiving recognition awards sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the ASME Materials Division.

The annual conference focuses on today's technical challenges, research updates and breakthrough innovations that are shaping the future of engineering. The Congress convenes engineers, scientists and technologists of all disciplines for the purposes of exploring solutions to global challenges and for the advancement of engineering excellence worldwide.


Not pictured, Dr. Thomas Strganac and Yogesh Babbar

Faculty achIevements


NASA Grant Awarded to Boeing-led Team for Wind Tunnel Experiments

Two Aerospace Engineering faculty at Texas A&M University are part of a team led by The Boeing Company that was recently awarded $1.2M from NASA. Drs. Edward White and Rodney Bowersox will receive $590k to use the Oran W. Nicks Low-Speed Wind Tunnel for experiments on how active flow control can mitigate dynamic stall on helicopter blades. The experiments will focus on blades operating in the transonic regime. The flow control actuators will be designed by Advanced Fluidics, LLC, and integrated by TAMU and Boeing.

The project will include substantial improvements to the Low-Speed Wind Tunnel to increase its maximum speed to Mach 0.5 (385 mph). The tunnel typically operates up to Mach 0.25 and its current speed record is Mach 0.33. Higher speeds are necessary to explore why helicopter rotors fatigue quickly in high-speed forward flight and how active flow control might prevent this. Measurements will include dynamic pressure readings for unsteady lift and pitch moment and high-resolution particle image velocimetry for off-body flow visualization. Achieving the higher speed will make use of the newly installed 3000 horsepower wind-tunnel motor and will require other mechanical and electrical upgrades over the next 18 months.

Bowersox White

Shryock, Srinivasa and Froyd win Frontiers in Education's 2011 Conference Benjamin Dasher Best Paper AwardDr. Kristi Shryock, Assistant Department Head for Undergraduate Programs and Outreach and Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, Dr. Arun Srinivasa, a professor in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, and Dr. Jeffrey Froyd, a Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station research professor in Engineering Student Services and Academic Programs at Texas A&M University won the Benjamin Dasher Best Paper Award that was submitted at the 2011 Frontiers in Education Conference.

The trio authored the paper, “Developing instruments to assess first-year calculus and physics mechanics skills needed for a sophomore statics and dynamics course” (http://fieconference.org/fie2011/papers/1058.pdf).

In the paper Shryock, Srinivasa, and Froyd addressed concerns that some engineering faculty members have: students taking some core sophomore engineering

sciences courses are not prepared when it comes to mathematics and mechanics-based physics. The authors used input from faculty members teaching statics and dynamics to construct learning outcomes and two instruments to assess mathematics and physics preparation. They administered the instruments near the beginning of the statics and dynamics course and analyzed the data. Now, faculty members can obtain a better understanding of the background of their students, giving them a clearer idea of how students are prepared for the pivotal sophomore course in several engineering disciplines.

Shryock joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 2005. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering at Texas A&M and her Ph.D. in interdisciplinary engineering from Texas A&M.

Srinivasa joined the Mechanical Engineering Department in 1997. He received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Froyd began his career at Texas A&M in 1999 as a visiting professor in the Electrical Engineering Department. He received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and his master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota.

Shryock, Srinivasa, and Froyd accepted the award at the FIE Conference in October 2012 in Seattle, Washington.

Shryock Froyd Srinivasa

Dr. Saric and the Flight Research Laboratory Featured in Aerospace America Magazine

Aerospace Engineering professor Dr. William Saric and the Texas A&M University Flight Reserach Lab are featured in an article in October 2012’s “Aerospace America” magazine. The story, “Green Engineering: Fighting Friction, Smoothing Flow” highlights the research being conducted on wing laminar flow control.

“In two separate research initiatives – one a NASA Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) project and the other an AFRL-funded effort with Lockheed Martin and Texas A&M – Saric’s team has experimented to suppress the most unstable cross-flow wavelengths in different flight and wing conditions.

“Their approach has been to interfere with those unstable waves by inducing waves of other wavelengths along the span using two different techniques. The team’s experiments have used wind tunnels and the laboratory’s own Cessna O-2 testbed, fitted to carry a 30-deg swept airfoil section perpendicularly under its wing. The initial results have been promising.”

To read the article in its entirety, go to https://aero.tamu.edu/sites/default/files/images/news/Aerospace%20America%20Oct%202012.pdf.

Paper on Design Optimization of Morphing Structures Featured in Journal

A recent research article coauthored by Dimitris Lagoudas and Darren Hartl was recently featured as the cover article in the journal "Smart Materials and Structures," which is the leading journal for the active materials and adaptive structures community. Lagoudas holds the John and Bea Slattery Chair in Aerospace Engineering, while Hartl is a TEES Assistant Research Professor with the department. Together they lead the Texas Institute for Intelligent Materials and Structures (TiiMs), a TEES research center. Stephen Oehler, a recent masters graduate and current structures analyst for Boeing Research and Technology, was lead author.

The paper, which demonstrates a new framework for the optimized design of morphing structures, also includes contributions from Richard Malak of the Mechanical Engineering Department. This work represents the initiation of a new collaborative effort between the two departments related to the design of morphing aerostructures. The journal "is dedicated to technical advances in smart materials, systems and structures, including materials, sensing and actuation, optics and electromagnetics, structures, control and information processing". The paper highlighted specifically considers the design of morphing chevrons for installation in jet engine exhaust flows for the purposes of selectively mixing fluid streams and reducing aircraft noise.

Lagoudas has been working in the area of smart material modeling and analysis for the past 20 years and has been working with Hartl since 2002. Their research team continues to develop new and enhanced methods for addressing the behavior of

smart and multifunctional materials at the nano-, micro-, and macro-scales, including implementation into aerospace applications.

To access the article, click go to http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0964-1726/21/9/094016.

Lagoudas Hartl


Schaub and Junkins Awarded AIAA Martin Summerfield Book Award

Hanspeter Schaub, a graduate of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, and Dr. John Junkins, Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering, were named recipients of the AIAA Martin Summerfield Book Award for their textbook “Analytical Mechanics of Space Systems, 2nd Edition.”

The Summerfield Book Award is named in honor of Dr. Martin Summerfield, founder and initial editor of the Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics series of books published by the AIAA. The award is presented to the author of the best book recently published (within the last five years) by the AIAA.


Professor Mortari Named AAS Fellow

Dr. Daniele Mortari, professor of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been elected a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society (AAS). AAS fellowship is conferred in recognition of “significant and unique contributions to astronautics, space science, space engineering, space education and outreach, and to AAS.”

During his tenure at Texas A&M, Mortari has made significant contributions to the field of Astrodynamics, especially in the areas of Spacecraft Attitude and Orbit Estimation, Attitude Sensor Data Processing, Applied Mathematics, and most notably, Satellite Constellation Design.

Dr. Mortari has received many honors and awards from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society, NASA, and AAS, including the AAS Best Paper Award in 2010. For the past several years he has been serving as Associate Editor for the AAS Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronics Systems, and the

International Journal of Navigation and Observations.

Dr. Mortari has supervised more than 30 PhD and Masters, several of whom are university professors and researchers in various institutes in the US and abroad. He has published extensively, with more than 60 journal articles, and 160 conference papers, while he has also contributed several chapters in textbooks already in print, and a couple of upcoming textbooks as primary author on Spacecraft Attitude Determination and Orbit and Attitude Dynamics.

Dr. Mortari says, “The nomination is a big honor for me... Just to see my name next to those of giants such as Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Richard H. Battin, and Frank Borman, to name a few.”

alumnI news

Drs. Junkins and Schaub received this award on January 8 at the 51st AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Grapevine, TX.

Aerospace Engineering Faculty Establish John and Elouise Junkins Scholarship

In the realm of aerospace engineering, the name John Junkins is highly regarded. From the rank of distinguished professor and regents professor at Texas A&M University to being a member of the National Academy of Engineering, Junkins’ reputation precedes him.

The kicker is that Junkins, who also holds the Royce E. Wisenbaker Chair in Engineering, almost didn’t end up in academics. Like many young men, Junkins had visions of being a standout on the football field. Growing up in the football-crazy state of Georgia helped fuel his passion for success on the gridiron. But the guiding hand of his high school football coach helped push Junkins to focus more on his academics, and a budding superstar in the field of aerospace engineering was born.

Now, the faculty of Texas A&M University’s Department of Aerospace Engineering has established the “John and Elouise Junkins Scholarship” to honor Junkins for his contributions to the department. The endowment will provide one or more scholarships to undergraduate students pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering. Several gifts to fund the endowment have already been received, and additional gifts are being sought from former students and friends of the department.

Junkins, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, joined the faculty at Texas A&M in 1985 as the first endowed chair holder in the Dwight Look College of Engineering. Since joining the faculty at Texas A&M, Junkins has advised more than 100 graduate students with more than 45 of them completing their Ph.D.s.

He currently serves as the director of the Land Air and Space Robotics (LASR) Lab and is also director of the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study (TIAS), which was established in December 2010 to build on the growing academic reputation of Texas A&M and to provide a framework to attract top scholars from throughout the nation and abroad for appointments of at least a year. Junkins is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and has received Outstanding Alumnus Awards from Auburn University and the University of California at Los Angeles.

You can make an online donation to the John and Elouise Junkins Scholarship or donate by check. Note the “John and Elouise Junkins Scholarship" in the check's memo line and mail it to the Texas A&M Foundation, 401 George Bush Dr., College Station, TX 77840.

GIvInG


Aerospace Engineering Annual Awards Banquet

May 1, 2013 @ 6:00 p.m.Welcome Reception at 5:30 p.m.

Memorial Student Center, Room 2400, Texas A&M University

Cost is $22 per person, $15 for studentsALL tickets MUST be purchased in advance!

No tickets will be sold at the door.

Please RSVP and purchase tickets by April 22nd at engineeringnetwork.tamu.edu/AEROspring2013

For any questions, contact Jan McHarg at [email protected] or 979.845.0516 or Laura Olivarez at [email protected] or 979.845.2685.

You are cordially invited to attend the

May 1, 2013 @ 8:00 a.m.H.R. Bright Building,

Room 124Texas A&M University

We look forward to seeing you and hope that you will be able to attend!

Please RSVP by April 22nd at engineeringnetwork.tamu.edu/

AEROspring2013

For any questions, contact Jan McHarg at [email protected] or 979.845.0516

or Laura Olivarez at [email protected] or 979.845.2685.

Spring 2013Critical Design

Review

Department of Aerospace EngineeringDr. Rodney Bowersox, Interim Department Head701 H.R. Bright Building3141 TAMUCollege Station, TX 77843-3141979.845.7541

aero.tamu.edu

ON THE FRONT COVER: Pegasus I Unmanned Air System (UAS) which was designed by students in AERO 401/402 and built and operated by graduate and undergraduate student research assistants in the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. John Valasek. The Pegasus UAS are a family of vehicles which are designed specifically for flight testing optical sensors and payloads, and advanced control laws and architectures for both external and academic customers. All Pegasus flights are conducted at the Unmanned Flight Laboratory, located at the Riverside Campus of Texas A&M. Pegasus I has been flying for more than one year, and Pegasus II will make its first flight in March 2013. Additional Pegasus vehicles are planned. Photograph by Igor Kraguljac

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