Aerospace Engineering Projects
Hands-on experience in propulsion, flight dynamics, aerodynamics, structures, and orbital mechanics
Propulsion & Turbomachinery
Flagship Project
High-Bypass Turbofan Engine Senior Design
11:1
Bypass Ratio
333 kN
Takeoff Thrust
9+3 stages
vs 13–14+8 (GE90/GE9X)
55:1
Overall Pressure Ratio
- Led end-to-end design of a 74,770 lbf high-bypass geared turbofan (Atlas-85X) for a tactical airlifter RFP
- Built and validated a MATLAB cycle tool against AEDsys with <1% error, then led turbomachinery design across the fan, LPC, HPC, and HPT/LPT
- Drove the 9+3 stage layout vs. 13–14+8 in GE90/GE9X, meeting all thrust and TSFC targets
- Design met all RFP requirements; team placed top 2 in the senior design class with the shortest takeoff distance
Flight Dynamics & Controls
DC-8 PID Controller Design
- Designed PID controllers for DC-8 longitudinal and lateral-directional dynamics from linearized state-space models
- Held AOA overshoot under 4% and verified zero steady-state error analytically via the Final Value Theorem
- Validated all controllers in MATLAB with step response simulations confirming stability margins and transient specs
Quanser Aero PID Control Design
- Tuned PID pitch controller on physical Quanser Aero hardware via QUARC real-time control
- Achieved 4.12% overshoot and 1.18s peak time with gains kₚ = 8, kₑ = 3.1, kᵢ = 5
- Identified second-order plant model (ζ = 0.0452, ωₙ = 2.18 rad/s) from experimental step response
- Improved phase margin from 3.68° to 87.5°, confirmed via Bode analysis in MATLAB
Aircraft Stability & Control Simulation
- Built a closed-loop 6-DOF flight simulation in MATLAB/Simulink from computed stability and control derivatives
- Validated pitch, roll, and yaw mode eigenvalues against prescribed damping and frequency specifications
- Exported maneuver trajectories to FlightGear for real-time 3D visualization of simulated flight
Experimental Aerodynamics
Wind Tunnel Drag Study: Flap Deflection
- Performed a wake survey on a NACA 4412 wing at five flap deflection angles in a subsonic wind tunnel
- Extracted drag coefficients from downstream velocity deficit profiles via momentum integral in MATLAB
- Compared measured Cᴰ values against theoretical predictions to validate wake survey methodology
Structural Analysis
Aircraft Wing Structural Analysis
- Modeled full wing assembly in Fusion 360 — spars, ribs, stringers, and skin panels
- Transferred geometry to FEMAP, applied aerodynamic loading, and solved with NX Nastran
- Validated mesh quality with Jacobian > 0.6; confirmed 0.15 in peak tip displacement
- Identified front spar root as peak stress location, consistent with cantilever bending theory
Orbital Mechanics
TDRS-M Orbital Mechanics and Trajectory Design
- Simulated LEO-to-GEO transfer for TDRS-M via Hohmann transfer and phasing maneuver
- Computed delta-V budgets, transfer times, and propellant consumption via Tsiolkovsky equation
- Validated orbital parameters against NASA’s published mission profile
- Visualized full trajectory in a 3D ECI reference frame using MATLAB
Systems & Decision Tools
Database Application for Aircraft Fleet Selection
- Built a MATLAB App Designer GUI for querying and comparing aircraft by multiple performance parameters
- Integrated a live Excel backend — records update without modifying application code
- Generated dynamic bar charts and scatter plots based on the active filtered selection
- Reduced data retrieval time by ~25% compared to manual spreadsheet workflows
Engineering Design
LEGO Airplane Design & Engineering Documentation
- Designed a twin-engine LEGO airplane in BrickLink Studio with T-tail empennage and tricycle landing gear, selecting parts from the full LEGO library to approximate real aircraft geometry
- Produced a 17-page SolidWorks engineering drawing package with multiview orthographic projections, dimensional annotations, and ANSI-standard title blocks
- Generated a photorealistic rendering of the completed model composited over a runway background
