Author Archives: crsimpson

Lessons from Gene Kranz's "Failure Is Not An Option"

FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION is an overview of Gene Kranz’s time as a controller with the newly formed Mecury Program to the last Apollo mission. He describes the growth of a burgeoning new space program, the success and the failures, and the men and women that took America to the moon.

The dedication of Gene’s team and his resolve to be TOUGH and COMPETENT following the Apollo 1 disaster that claimed the lives of Ed White, Roger Chaffee, and Gus Grissom are exemplary of a leader. His resolve to forge his team from mere engineers to operators is incredible. His resolve paid off when he and his team helped bring home Apollo 13 alive and safe. Time and time again Gene makes critical decisions based on his extensive preparation, the implicit trust he has for his fellow controllers, and his gut. A new group of young controllers seems to join the old with each mission. With each mission the young become old with their experience in the trenches.

Several lessons that can be gained:

  • Preparation: “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”-John Wooden. Gene’s team was more than a group of engineers. They were operators. They knew the system and their spacecraft extensively inside and out.
  • Trust: If you don’t trust your team to make the right decisions then why do they work for you? There was an implicit bond of trust between Gene, his underlings, and his peers.
  • Mentorship: One day you will be replaced. If the system is to run smoothly  you have to encourage individual growth while showing them the ropes.

What does this mean for me?

In Dr. O’Neill’s laboratory we often face critical, time-constrained decisions. My ability to answer them is a reflection of my capabilities. In my current down-time I am focused on improving my CAD, Orbit Analysis, and Coding knowledge.

 

 

 

CODER 2016: Panelist/Presentation/Experience

I presented Tuesday at the Center for Orbital Debris Education and Research on “CubeSat Network for Prediction and Tracking of Orbital Debris.” The key points:

  1. Conceptual Stage of Development
  2. LIDAR ~700W and CubeSat ~200 W
  3. Assuming UV laser, 355 nm, resolution of 1 mm would require a 2 m telescope diameter for a range of 5 km

Presentation is attached here: simpson_v2

Several topics that are of interest specifically to my presentation:

  • Research that suggests that the satellite operators that do not follow good practices will be the primary source of new collisions in the future. Roger Thompson, The Aerospace Corporation, spoke to this on my panel.
  • Space is about to get a lot more crowded. To put it in context their have been 56 launches this year. SpaceX filed for 4400 satellites with the FCC Wednesday.
  • There is a strong need for knowledge of conjunctions and good covariance analysis. I.E. there seems to be the need for secondary analysis for conjunction warnings from JSpOC. On my panel Don Greiman, Schafer Commercial Space Situational Awareness Team, spoke to this from the commercial side and Ryan Shepperd as analysis in-house for Iridium.

Talk about a huge learning experience. I hope to take what I’ve learned back to The University of Alabama and disseminate this knowledge among our academic community. I also plan to stay in touch with the contacts I’ve made to help expand my horizons.

SMDWG Award

I recently received an award for $750 from the Space and Missile Defense Working Group (SMDWG). I have recently completed research on “Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Aided Analysis of a Single-Stage Suborbital Rocket with a Six Degree of Freedom (6DOF) Solver,” that could have an impact on missile design. I was a runner-up for the SMDWG Graduate Fellowship Program.

Presenter for CODER 2016 Workshop

CODER is the Center for Orbital Debris for Education and Research. CODER is having a Workshop and accepted our, Dr. O’Neill and I, abstract for CubeSat Network for Orbital Debris Tracking and Prediction. I will be a presenter for the Space Situational Awareness Session. Here’s the link for my session and bio: CODER 2016 Sessions

The conference is hosted at the University of Maryland on November 15-17. If you’re headed to the conference hope to see you there!

 

Grade Distribution Plot Creation

Currently, I’m a graduate teaching assistant for Aerodynamics 1 and Aerospace Structures at the University of Alabama. After grading homework, quizzes, and exams I usually input the data into an Excel file. After a bout of procrastination I created a grade distribution plot for my classes.

I used MATLAB to pull the grades out of an Excel file, count the number of occurrences for each grade, and then plot the distribution. I created an Excel sheet that creates random grades so as to avoid using any of my students’ information. I already know the possible range of grades so these are hard-coded. I’ll post updates to the code throughout the semester.

Areas of future work:

  • Updating the way Excel files are called. Using the currentgradesheet variable will cause the error the second time it is called because it will use the first file name it contains.
  • Changing possible grades into a user input or created from the range of grades uploaded from Excel.
  • Tracking student data: being able to call a student’s name and seeing their grade history. This might take another function and a lot more time than I want to spend using MATLAB.

I have no problems with you using my code: just be sure to reference me.

Grade Distribution Plot Routine:

Code and Output in .pdf Format

Gulfstream G-V CAD Update (Or: “Who Wants to be a CAD Monkey?”)

To see previous post click here. This time I will cover how I created all the parts of the G-V.

It pays to read all the way through. Last week, I thought that I had found technical drawings showing all the dimensions of the G-V. What I had actually found was a drawing describing taxi clearance.

GV_Top_TaxiClearance

Drawing courtesy of NSF/NCAR and Lockheed Martin

So… back to the drawing board. Excuse the pun.

I divided the G-V into 4 parts: wing, fuselage, empennage, and engine. The more I separate the easier it makes it on me to get the details right.

Wing:

Going back to our Investigator Handbook from the NSF/NCAR we use a different technical drawing. In 5.1.5 of the handbook the pylon mounts along the wing for scientific investigation are shown. Using WebPlotDigitizer we create a series of points approximating the top of the wing. You have the option to save the points as a .CSV. Since I use Autodesk Inventor I can import Excel files with a series of data points. There are similar features with SolidWorks but I’m more comfortable with Inventor.

GV_Plotting_Points.png

Once in Inventor I can begin making the wing. It’s almost connect-the-dots: except you need to check dimensions. You won’t have gotten all your points in the plot digitizer just right either so you should focus on getting the majority of the points as opposed to every single one. With more experience you’ll find that the more points you have on a curved surface the closer you can approximate the curve. The c4 angle is 27° which is verified through the use of construction lines.

GV_Inventor_Drawing_Through Points.PNG

2D Sketch in Inventor of G-V planform wing area

Now we have a sketch how do we create our 3D model?

Using the excellent resource The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage we can determine the airfoils used for the root and tip of the wing. This provides us with the G-IV root airfoil, NACA 0012 modified, and the tip airfoil, NACA 64A008.5 modified.We don’t need to worry about the modifications or that it is G-IV because we’re developing a base model for concept development. The G-IV airfoils are essentially the same as the G-V anyways. If you were trying to get the airflow characteristics of a G-500 to the 99th percentile then you are either working for Gulfstream and can pull the model yourself or you should contact Gulfstream.

Using the 2D sketch we just created we can place the airfoils at their respective locations and loft the wing between them. That should give you something like this:

GV_Isometric_Wing Loft.PNG

Lofted Wing

Then, using the sketch, which I hid in the previous image, create a work plane and extend your pylons in the appropriate locations.

GV_Isometric_Wing_Pylon.PNG

Extend your pylons through the wing

I have a concept structure that I’m developing below. Currently, Dr. O’Neill is trying to provide Dr. Yan with some feedback on design of radio antenna integration for a Gulfstream G-V and I’m creating the CAD concept models. I cannot picture these currently because it’s ongoing research. Instead here are some example tank concepts.

GV_Example_Concepts

Example Concept

Fuselage:

The fuselage is created in a similar process to the wing. We plot a series of points and rotate the fuselage around the centerline. We will create the saddle with straight sides and extend it through the fuselage. The trick here is that I created 2 different sketches on the same plane to avoid weird things that happen if I make the pieces sequentially.

GV_Isometric_Fuselage.PNG

Sketches for the Saddle and Fuselage Body

GV_Fuselage_Complete.PNG

Fuselage Rotated and Extended

Rolls-Royce BR710A1-10 Turbofan Engine:

The Rolls-Royce engine is built in the exact same way as the fuselage. Two sketches on top of each other and then a rotation and an extension. I then cut into the engine to make it look like an actual engine but if you know how to extend by know this should be an easy process.

GV_Engine.PNG

Engine Section

Empennage:

The tail is created by taking the points from the top view. The points are extended and then cut from the side view. The wings are lofted from the vertical stabilizer using the NACA 64A008.5 airfoil for the root and tip.

GV_Empennage.PNG

Empennage Section

Complete Gulfstream G-V:

The current configuration of the Gulfstream is shown below. The illustrations shown are from the presentation I created for Dr. Yan. The antenna configuration is removed. Inventor has some nice illustration tools that are exceptionally useful when presenting.

 

The slideshow shows the stages of development of the Gulfstream G-V. The first model is all one piece. The second model is a lofted fuselage that experienced connectivity issues. The third is the most promising and will probably stay until I need to create updates for higher fidelity. The higher fidelity will be required when we run the antenna configuration through CFD to test the drag force produced by the array. As you can see I abandoned the wingtips until I have the antenna array configuration fixed.

Gulfstream G-V CAD Update (Or: "Who Wants to be a CAD Monkey?")

To see previous post click here. This time I will cover how I created all the parts of the G-V.

It pays to read all the way through. Last week, I thought that I had found technical drawings showing all the dimensions of the G-V. What I had actually found was a drawing describing taxi clearance.

GV_Top_TaxiClearance

Drawing courtesy of NSF/NCAR and Lockheed Martin

So… back to the drawing board. Excuse the pun.

I divided the G-V into 4 parts: wing, fuselage, empennage, and engine. The more I separate the easier it makes it on me to get the details right.

Wing:

Going back to our Investigator Handbook from the NSF/NCAR we use a different technical drawing. In 5.1.5 of the handbook the pylon mounts along the wing for scientific investigation are shown. Using WebPlotDigitizer we create a series of points approximating the top of the wing. You have the option to save the points as a .CSV. Since I use Autodesk Inventor I can import Excel files with a series of data points. There are similar features with SolidWorks but I’m more comfortable with Inventor.

GV_Plotting_Points.png

Once in Inventor I can begin making the wing. It’s almost connect-the-dots: except you need to check dimensions. You won’t have gotten all your points in the plot digitizer just right either so you should focus on getting the majority of the points as opposed to every single one. With more experience you’ll find that the more points you have on a curved surface the closer you can approximate the curve. The c4 angle is 27° which is verified through the use of construction lines.

GV_Inventor_Drawing_Through Points.PNG

2D Sketch in Inventor of G-V planform wing area

Now we have a sketch how do we create our 3D model?

Using the excellent resource The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage we can determine the airfoils used for the root and tip of the wing. This provides us with the G-IV root airfoil, NACA 0012 modified, and the tip airfoil, NACA 64A008.5 modified.We don’t need to worry about the modifications or that it is G-IV because we’re developing a base model for concept development. The G-IV airfoils are essentially the same as the G-V anyways. If you were trying to get the airflow characteristics of a G-500 to the 99th percentile then you are either working for Gulfstream and can pull the model yourself or you should contact Gulfstream.

Using the 2D sketch we just created we can place the airfoils at their respective locations and loft the wing between them. That should give you something like this:

GV_Isometric_Wing Loft.PNG

Lofted Wing

Then, using the sketch, which I hid in the previous image, create a work plane and extend your pylons in the appropriate locations.

GV_Isometric_Wing_Pylon.PNG

Extend your pylons through the wing

I have a concept structure that I’m developing below. Currently, Dr. O’Neill is trying to provide Dr. Yan with some feedback on design of radio antenna integration for a Gulfstream G-V and I’m creating the CAD concept models. I cannot picture these currently because it’s ongoing research. Instead here are some example tank concepts.

GV_Example_Concepts

Example Concept

Fuselage:

The fuselage is created in a similar process to the wing. We plot a series of points and rotate the fuselage around the centerline. We will create the saddle with straight sides and extend it through the fuselage. The trick here is that I created 2 different sketches on the same plane to avoid weird things that happen if I make the pieces sequentially.

GV_Isometric_Fuselage.PNG

Sketches for the Saddle and Fuselage Body

GV_Fuselage_Complete.PNG

Fuselage Rotated and Extended

Rolls-Royce BR710A1-10 Turbofan Engine:

The Rolls-Royce engine is built in the exact same way as the fuselage. Two sketches on top of each other and then a rotation and an extension. I then cut into the engine to make it look like an actual engine but if you know how to extend by know this should be an easy process.

GV_Engine.PNG

Engine Section

Empennage:

The tail is created by taking the points from the top view. The points are extended and then cut from the side view. The wings are lofted from the vertical stabilizer using the NACA 64A008.5 airfoil for the root and tip.

GV_Empennage.PNG

Empennage Section

Complete Gulfstream G-V:

The current configuration of the Gulfstream is shown below. The illustrations shown are from the presentation I created for Dr. Yan. The antenna configuration is removed. Inventor has some nice illustration tools that are exceptionally useful when presenting.

 

The slideshow shows the stages of development of the Gulfstream G-V. The first model is all one piece. The second model is a lofted fuselage that experienced connectivity issues. The third is the most promising and will probably stay until I need to create updates for higher fidelity. The higher fidelity will be required when we run the antenna configuration through CFD to test the drag force produced by the array. As you can see I abandoned the wingtips until I have the antenna array configuration fixed.

Maxwellian Distribution

This is a brief dip into velocity distribution. It is not intended to be cited nor be academically through. Rather it will hopefully provide some insight and give you links to use other than Wikipedia.

Velocity Space

Imagine a container of particles. Gas particles. As these particles are whizzing about we notice this cloud of molecules seems to be equally spread out in all directions.

Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution Drawings_0

This is for several reasons:

  • Brownian motion (random movement)
  • Molecules prefer to be at equilibrium for the whole system
    • They don’t want to be moving in the same direction

If we were to examine the velocities of the particles using velocity space, a 3D system

Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution Drawings_0(1)

Velocity Space System

describing a particle’s velocity, we would find that they are evenly distributed as well.

 

 

 

 

 

We can imagine this as a shell. The velocities of all the particles will be distributed in a common range in order to achieve equilibrium.

Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution Drawings_1(1)

2D View of Velocity Distribution Shell

 

Velocity Distribution Function

This is where the Maxwellian distribution will come into play. In a real system we know that a molecule will not maintain constant velocity over time. There’s van der Waal’s forces, ionic, covalent, and metallic interactions, collisions, and a whole host of other things that can interact with the molecule. Since the main focus is rarified gas or a dilute gas we can assume intermolecular forces are negligible, (equilibrium kinetic theory).

The velocity distribution function for gas molecules in thermal equilibrium is based on symmetry. One molecule loses 5 m/s, another gains 5 m/s.

Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution Drawings_2

Maxwellian Distribution of Velocity

Average Quantity, Q

With N, the total number of molecules, and f(Ci), the velocity distribution we can find the average quantity. We find N from integrating the number of molecules with Ci velocity.

This average quantity can be use for anything that uses velocity: start thinking about momentum.

Some things to remember from our assumptions with equilibrium kinetic theory:

  • Intermolecular forces negligible
  • Collisions occur in a unit area
  • All momentum is transferred through the collision process

So we could find normal stress, σ, pressure, P, or etc…

Maxwellian Distribution

Neglecting the derivation we are led to the Maxwellian distribution so that we don’t have to plot every single molecule. The Maxwellian distribution will give the probability that a molecule has speed a certain range of speed.

The information gained from using a Maxwellian distribution:

  1. The most probable speed of the molecules present
  2. The average speed of the molecules present
  3. The root mean square speed, Vrms
  4. Equation of state for perfect gas

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Dr. Wang for teaching Physical Gas Dynamics, where my notes from that class have served as the outline for this article.

I have provided links throughout this article specifically avoiding Wikipedia to help give you more references. Please credit your sources if you use them in your writing. (MLA) (AIAA)

 

 

Gulfstream G-V CAD

It’s hard finding or making CAD models of aircraft. Companies are fiercely protective of their models that they spent millions of dollars developing. If you’re a researcher sometimes this means using a Plot Digitizer and drawing over images from the internet.

Pylon_Front_View

https://wordpress.com/post/simpsonaerospace.wordpress.com/6 NSF/NCAR Gulfstream G-V

The NSF/NCAR Gulfstream G-V was of particular interest for this project for two reasons. The CAD model was being developed to support proof-of-concept for equipment mounted on the wings. The NSF plane already has pylons to support research equipment. Secondly, Dr. O’Neill had located a Gulfstream G-V that could be used for the research.

After creating a (very rough) CAD model for the aircraft in a day I started work on a high fidelity model.

Sometimes it pays to do a little more research. NSF/NCAR provide an investigator handbook that gives exact dimensions in CAD drawings of the G-V courtesy of Lockheed Martin. Jackpot!

The finished model using the updated dimensions and exact locations of the pods will be provided later this week.