Educational Tools For Systems Simulation And Laboratories Leading To The Capstone Design Sequence In Aerospace Engineering

Abstract

During the industrial product development cycle simulation has been playing an increasingly important role, not only during the preliminary design and analysis phases but also through the whole mission operations phase. In a typical university curriculum emphasis during the freshmen, sophomore, and junior years is put on the analysis of engineering problems. In the senior year students are expected to make a switch from analysis based coursework (one answer to an analysis problem) to design based curriculum (multiple answers to a design problem.) Simulation can play an important role to facilitate this transition. A modern curriculum should include teaching the necessary computer tools during early classes, where the student can build course content specific models (for example a thermal model) and save them for later usage in the design classes. At the same time the curriculum should offer a laboratory experience, which validates and fortifies the material. Therefore it is essential to integrate computer- based simulations with hardware interface into the curriculum in a systematic manner. It is clear that computer-based simulation and analysis is indispensable in engineering science and design. A curriculum is being developed in which analysis methods are synchronized with a core set of software tools. Instruction in these tools will be geared towards teaching students how to use these sophisticated tools. It will also emphasize how to understand and interpret the results using experimental, theoretical and numerical concepts. By combining analysis, simulation, and hardware interfaces students will have a coherent reinforcement of concepts in order to improve their computing skills while at the same time strengthening their grasp of the fundamentals.

During the Program/Project Life Cycle of any sophisticated and financially demanding project, simulation plays a dominant role not only in the development, but also in the operations/maintenance phases. However, in order to intelligently make use of the multitude of simulation products available one has to achieve a fundamental understanding of the driving concepts of simulation, which is numerical integration. For this purpose a curriculum timeline has been developed at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, which tries to parallel NASA’s Program/Project Lifecycle /1/. Since the curriculum leads into the capstone design sequence, a schematic displaying the different project phases