Team Members
James Mathias and Jared Litten
Project Purpose
The purpose of this project is to increase our knowledge and efficiency of Inventor, while effectively increasing our problem solving skills. It is also to increase our knowledge of parts that will be used on aircraft, and how they are able to fly. To get parts of an aircraft to fly well, many different variables have to be accounted for, such as temperature, pressure, altitude, and countless more values have to be assumed and calculated first before the part is usable. All parts of an airplane have to have very specific values and dimensions, and the tolerances are very low for everything.
Due: next thursday
Due: next thursday
Constraints
- The large plate represents the aircraft firewall as shown in the image below. This must be grounded as the stable part of the frame. Use fixed constraints on the six firewall to structural member attachment points.
- The structure will support one Lycoming O-300 engine (250 lb) attached at the three points indicated.
- The structure will be loaded with negative 3 G and positive 6 G which is simulated by exaggerated engine weight due to sudden aircraft acceleration or a change in attitude.
- The structural members will be 1 ½ in. ANSI pipe.
- Frame members should be mitered as necessary.
Procedure
To prepare for this project, we first completed two different Inventor tutorials, and also did research on material selection for engineering. Designing the engine mount on the 3D design software was simple, because we were able to download a template mount and work off of that. Many different engineering processes and techniques were used to increase the efficiency of this mount, such as miter joints and trimming.
Team members Responsibility
For the most part, our team is composed of Jared, who does most of the Inventor designing, and me (James), who is doing most of the research and question answering.
Gantt CHart
Testing Forces
Solution
The testing we completed was done to simulate the vigorous forces of flight. Our design completely meets the frame constraints. Our mount was composed of high density steel, because it is fairly cheap, not too heavy, and resistant to heat to a certain extent.
Conclusion
During this project, I learned just how powerful the forces of flight truly are. Seeing the forces on Inventor was very eye opening, as before, you weren't able to tell what parts of the aircraft were weak under tension. My contributions to the team consisted mostly of just support to Jared, who was working on Inventor most of the time. I also did most of the research for our project. I believe the frame generator is a very useful tool for aerospace engineers, as it is a straight forward 3D modeling program with all the different features necessary for engineers.