The sponsor asked the team to develop the mechanical design of the main landing gear for the ClipperSpirit amphibious seaplane, a high-wing, 30-seat turboprop regional airliner in which the main gear retracts into a wing-mounted engine nacelle.

Project goals include designing the configuration of the main gear; sizing the components of the gear; determining the kinematic definition of the extension and retraction of the gear; determining the internal structural loads absorbed by the gear structure, the oleo shock strut and tires; and determining the transmitted loads to the wing mount.

The gear design meets sponsor and FAA certification requirements. Analytical design work was demonstrated and tested by building a one-tenth-scale model of the gear.

Highwalls are the unexcavated step-like faces of exposed earth in open-pit mines. The purpose of the project is to perform a geological analysis of various highwalls and design a blast pattern for a copper mine 64 miles southeast of Phoenix.

Using lidar and mining-oriented computer-aided design software, 3-D representations were created to analyze various aspects of the mine, including geological characteristics and how they affect highwall stability. Results were compared to projected mine plans versus actual mining results.

Using the analytical data, the team designed an optimal blast pattern that accounted for blast efficiency and areas of geological instability while conforming to the sponsor’s mine plan requirements.

The team’s objective is to design a decline for the University of Arizona’s San Xavier Mine, a student-run mining laboratory, according to Mine Safety and Health Administration’s safety codes. The purpose of the decline is to create opportunities for partnerships between the University of Arizona and mining companies.

A decline is a sloping underground opening for machine access from surface to level. To hold the largest equipment, the decline must have entrances and throughways of 22 feet high and 27 feet across. For optimal equipment performance, the overall slope grade must be no greater than 10 percent. Support, ventilation and mine design were all completed on mine software.

Underground laboratories were designed adjacent to the decline to offer locations for research. A tailings pile was designed and constructed to hold the moved earth in accordance with all safety standards.

Tin is commonly used to produce alloys, solder, and coatings that protect against weathering and corrosion. The goal of this project was to determine the chemical, mineral and metallurgical characteristics of a Brazilian tin mine ore in order to remediate the sponsor’s processing plant.

The mine is already running and equipped with the main tools for extraction and concentration of tin ore, but wants to increase throughput via remediation or optimization, depending on what is economically feasible.

The team provided recommendations for method of extraction, processing plant and possible tin recovery from tailings along with a mineral composition analysis.

The environmental impact of mine tailings dams ranges from merely taking up space to catastrophic failure leading to loss of life and destruction of property. The team sought a benign use for tailings, so they could be removed from mine sites and the environmental threat eliminated.

The team aimed to create an optimal mixture of mine tailings and industrial additives that would be strong enough to be used in the construction of pavement, bricks, and support material for existing tailings dams. The additives tested included fly ash, fiber, and steel rods.

The resulting product was considered successful if it was stronger and more economical than current construction materials. The team delivered brick-shaped and cylindrical samples made according to the optimal formula.

The aim of this project is to design a low-cost reconnaissance unmanned aircraft that can be deployed from rough terrain or environments with vertical obstacles. The team designed an unmanned aircraft that can be launched vertically with folded wings, which are deployed to transition the aircraft to conventional horizontal flight.

The unmanned aircraft can fly for 30 minutes and sends live images back to the user. It features fly-by-wire technology so the user can focus on the destination rather than the flight maneuvers to get there.

The goal of this project is to design a control system for micro air vehicles using microelectromechanical system, or MEMS, sensors. The design incorporates an analog-sensing circuit with an Arduino microcontroller embedded in a NACA 4412 airfoil wing section constructed from balsa wood and monokote film.

The circuit senses velocity and angle of attack using MEMS thermal flow sensors embedded in the outer surface of the wing section and uses a closed-loop feedback controller that changes the deflection angle of the wing’s elevon to control the pitch of the wing section.

The feedback controller is run using a control system designed in the Simulink interface of MATLAB. The wing section was mounted in a subsonic wind tunnel with flow speeds that do not exceed 20 meters per second to collect aerodynamic data.

The Dynamically Scaled Research Testbed designed by the team is a one-third dynamically scaled Lockheed Martin X-56A that supports the modular integration of multiple wing configurations. Wing configurations include 22- and 40-degree swept wings with stiff, semi-flexible and flexible bending properties, in conjunction with existing straight wings from previous projects.

Varying flexibilities are achieved by altering the geometry of the internal composite spars and skin structure. All of the wings fit into a modular fuselage, which houses mounts for a removable tail and adjustable landing gear. The tail serves as training wheels for pilots as they familiarize themselves with the platform. All swept-wing configurations demonstrate static stability with and without the tail.

The wings will be used to research boundary layer flow separation in the presence of structural motion, a problem that will become increasingly relevant as the use of flexible composites in the aerospace industry grows.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, or AIAA, sets requirements for student teams around the world to design, build and fly small, high-performance, remotely controlled aircraft and enter them in its international aircraft design competition.

Teams are scored on their design report and competition performance. Aircraft requirements this year include the ability to carry a payload of hockey pucks and fly around a track specified by AIAA; aircraft also need to fold and fit inside a launch tube for storage and protection.

The team opted for a high, straight-winged monoplane with a U-tail empennage and pod-and-boom fuselage configuration. The aircraft uses composite materials to minimize weight and increase performance. The wings fold and stack on top of each other and the tail booms telescope into the fuselage to allow for packing in the tube. Numerous numerical, ground and flight tests were done to validate and improve the design before the competition date.

Sensitive electronic devices powered by 28-volt direct current military vehicle electrical systems need surge suppressors to ensure that transient voltage surges, spikes and ripple are within acceptable limits. Commercially available suppressors don’t fit the sponsor’s products, so the team was asked to design a small surge suppressor that would not require a costly and time-consuming redesign to implement.

The team’s design allows modern systems with sensitive electronics to interface with a wide range of military platforms and replaces bulky passive components with two metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors, or MOSFETs, configured in series to dissipate 100- and 250-volt surges and spikes as required by military standards.

The control circuitry allows for this dissipation to occur in two stages before finally clamping the output voltage at 33 volts. The intermediate clamping voltage between the two MOSFETs was tuned so that both components experience uniform heating.