Reddit Reddit reviews Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach (Aiaa Education Series)

We found 9 Reddit comments about Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach (Aiaa Education Series). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Engineering & Transportation
Engineering
Aerospace Engineering
Aircraft Design & Construction
Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach (Aiaa Education Series)
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9 Reddit comments about Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach (Aiaa Education Series):

u/scurvybill · 14 pointsr/aerospace

Unless you're using a rocket (not exactly electric), less dense air is a propulsion problem, not a solution. Jets and propellers both work by Newton's third law: thrusting air behind the aircraft causes an equal and opposite reaction that propels the aircraft forward. If your air is less dense, this means you're going to have to shoot it out the back at ever higher velocities to maintain speed.

Assuming you're using an electric turbojet, that is, a jet without combustion or a turbine. The compressor is driven by the electric motor. Let's say your compressor is 100% efficient... just to be very nice.

The power required for something like the Concord would be 4800 gallons of Jet A-1 fuel per hour at MAXIMUM efficiency around Mach 2. This is equivalent to 175 MW of power.

Let's say you just wanna fly for 30 minutes. This translates to 29.2 MW-hrs of stored energy. We'll use a nice lithium ion battery with 0.875 MJ/kg of energy density.

Your batteries alone weigh around 794,000 lbs. This is twice the weight of the entire Concorde jet.

In fact, this is heavier than any supersonic aircraft ever designed by far. And we haven't even talked about systems weight, propulsion, structures, avionics, passenger and cargo accommodation, and aerodynamic shape requirements. Not to mention any sort of cost analysis, which would most likely show that this would be hopelessly expensive.

Also, tail-less aircraft comes at a price. You'll burn more energy in control, or lose aerodynamic efficiency. No tail-less aircraft was ever tail-less for efficiency's sake.

For good sizing stuff, check out Raymer's book or for a more concise read, intro to aeronautics.

u/gr4_wolf · 3 pointsr/AerospaceEngineering

These are usually senior year capstone projects that teams work on for a year or a semester. I believe this was the texbook recommended by the professor of the aircraft design course:
https://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114 . This was supplemented with lectures and professor aid/advice also. A lot of the time, students would talk to professors in the college that weren't in the course, but they had a relevant specialty.

I did the spacecraft and mission design project so I don't have any specifics for aircraft, but the book we followed was very thorough in how to design the mission. It wouldn't solve the mission for you, but it would give you the workflow, equations, and historical data to follow. Many times, we had to refer to our past classes to do analysis, so theres no real one book that will tell you how to design an aircraft, or at least explain all of the concepts of aeronautics and the design portion thoroughly.

u/VP1 · 3 pointsr/aerospace

Not an engineer (yet) but I've found this book to be often referenced and is a good read.
http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114

u/WalterFStarbuck · 2 pointsr/AskScienceDiscussion
u/getbuffedinamonth · 2 pointsr/pics

Hello! I'll try to answer with the best of my knowledge as engine designs are fairly complicated and diversified!

> How critical is ACC, i.e. how much do those blades actually creep?

If you are talking about active tip clearance systems, we didn't have those in the company I worked for. I did study those though. It is tremendously beneficial for the fan efficiency. As for the creep, I have never seen or heard of it being caused by a tip clearance system. They do happen to creep sometimes for various reason, the most being FOD.

> Are modern FADEC components like FCU's and EEC's easily swapped LRU's or is it a hangar job? Never actually seen this properly explained anywhere and I'd rather not get the 400kg A320 AMM out.

I have never worked in that area but I am fairly certain that most FADEC comps are actually LRUs. I mean, I've done a compressor blade maintenance on a recently landed helicopter, which consists in removing the dents and notches on the leading edge of the blades. The amount of material you can remove while still retaining 99-100% of the compressor performance is quite astounding. But to answer your question, I do not know if they are LRUs, but am pretty sure they are!

> Could you recommend any good reference material for flight crew to study for our engineering/design/professional development interest?

Sure, very interesting books on aircraft and aircraft engine design:

http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Propulsion-Gas-Turbine-Engines/dp/0849391962

http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114

> Ever seen an uncontained failure?

I have stories about some of those since I worked in a repair plant! But my favorite one is from a twin-pack engine from Columbia, multiple gunshots, the turbine ripped part of the shroud. Also lots of bird tartar. Lucky I was not doing disassembly cleaning!

u/Spiah · 1 pointr/aviation

Good start. If you want to get more in depth, you should include tail, nacelle, fuselage, and other excressence drag items too.

Not sure if you're studying Aero or not, but if you want to learn more, this book is a personal favorite. Mechanics of Flight by Phillips is a good one too, more analysis oriented. Can't recommend either without a good knowledge base of calc and physics of course.

u/meerkatmreow · 1 pointr/aerospace

http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114 is a good book on aircraft design. Focus is more on larger scale aircraft than UAVs, but the principles are similar