Vaughn engineering students presented two papers at the November 15 Mid-Atlantic Section of the 2013 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)—Young Professional, Student and Education (YPSE) Conference.

The first paper by Ankit Dharia ’14 and Parminder Singh ‘14, entitled “Aerodynamic Loads on a Moving-Wall-Wing,” focused on airflow around aerodynamic bodies and the improvement that is possible with movable surfaces. The students developed a 3D wing model using SolidWorks and tested the moving-wall-wings at different angles compared with the standard wing cases.

“Effect of Lumped Mass on the Fundamental Frequency of a Curved Riveted Plate,” written by Mustafa Bhatti ‘14 and Muhammad Aziz ’14, was the second Vaughn paper presented. This research used finite element analysis (FEA) to study how an external aircraft patch that acts as a lump mass can affect behavior of the panel onto which it is mounted. Using CAD software, the relation between curvature of a riveted plate with lumped mass and fundamental frequency was presented. The effect of patch location was also reviewed.

The papers were presented at the Kossiakoff Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland. The AIAA-YPSE conference features papers of interest to the aerospace community by young professionals including graduate, undergraduate and high school students.

aiaa2013   bhatti

Vaughn students Mustafa Bhatti and Ankit Dharia with adviser, Professor Amir Elzawawy (center). Bhatti presenting research at conference