Glider Lab

Purpose

The purpose of this lab is to understand the basis of glider characteristics and construction as well as work with the real world problems engineers face when you have to limit your design to certain specifications.

Procedure

For the simulation, first input the original constraints, then change the amounts given following the aery instructions until your plane is ready to fly.
After experimenting with Aery, start to brainstorm designs for your glider, while taking into account the amount of materials provided and the time allowed to build.
Once you have chosen a design, start designing it in Aery to test flyability and determine specific specifications for building.
While building, make sure the parts are symmetrical when needed and be careful when taking away materials. Measure twice, cut once.
During test flights, launch with different tool, for example, by hand, by mini-launcher, and by mega launcher to find best launching option.
Complete test launches to find distance flown, time in flight, stability, and velocity
Launch plane three times for competition flights

Design Challenge 1

Have you ever tried to fly a glider? Have you made something with balsa wood before? In this project you will learn to do both. This design challenge provides glider constraints to create a glider design using the Aery software package.

Original Constraints

I increased the fuselage length, moved the vertical location of the tail, as well as the stabilizer back, and increased the nose weight

It will fly!

Dimensions & Statistics

Aery Evaluation Number: 146

Fuselage Length: 40.00 cm

Wing Location: 10.00 cm

Stabilizer Location: 28.00 cm

Vertical Tail Location: 28.00 cm

Mass at Nose: 20.00 g

Center of Gravity Location: 13.35 cm

Neutral Point Location: 14.50 cm

ESTIMATED Mass: 57.53 g

Wing Loading 0.115 g/cm^2

Throwing Velocity: 20.00 km/hr

Flight Angle of Attack: 7.67 degrees

Stabilizer Incidence Angle: -2.10 degrees (positive upward)

ESTIMATED Stall Angle: 9.60 degrees

ESTIMATED Stall Velocity: 17.15 km/hr

ESTIMATED Glide Angle: 4.07 degrees (positive downward)

ESTIMATED CDo: 0.017

Wing Span: 50.00 cm

Planform Area 500.00 cm^2

Wing Root Chord: 10.00 cm

Wing Taper Ratio: 1.00

Wing Tip Chord: 10.00 cm

Wing Tip Sweep Distance: 0.00 cm

Wing Leading Edge Sweep Angle: 0.00 degrees

Wing Aspect Ratio: 5.00

CL,alpha: 4.27 1/radian

Stabilizer Span: 25.00 cm

Planform Area 160.00 cm^2

Stabilizer Root Chord: 8.00 cm

Stabilizer Taper Ratio: 0.60

Stabilizer Tip Chord: 4.80 cm

Stabilizer Tip Sweep Distance: 3.35 cm

Stabilizer Leading Edge Sweep Angle: 15.00 degrees

Stabilizer Aspect Ratio: 3.91

CL,alpha: 3.81 1/radian

Vertical Tail Height: 10.00 cm

Planform Area 68.00 cm^2

Vertical Tail Root Chord: 8.00 cm

Vertical Tail Taper Ratio: 0.70

Vertical Tail Tip Chord: 5.60 cm

Vertical Tail Tip Sweep Distance: 2.68 cm

Vertical Tail Leading Edge Sweep Angle: 15.00 degrees

Conclusions

1. Explain which glider or aircraft term were difficult to understand and the correct definition.

Root chord- the length of the tail that is connected to the plane or glider

2. Explain any challenges if someone else were to construct your design using the AERY print.

There would be little to no challenges, but aery doesn't fully give all the need dimensions, so the engineer will have to calculate all other needed data like drag and lift.

3. Explain any challenges faced using the AERY software and how you overcame those challenges.

It is difficult to understand what to change, but if you follow the aery instructions, you can easily fix your problem with little to no guidance

Design Challenge 2

To make this design flyable, I had to make a lot of changes to the design. Firstly, I decreased the fuselage length, the nose mass, and the wing location. I drastically decreased the stabilizer location and vertical tail location. In regards to the wing, I decreased the wing span, the taper ratio, the leading edge, and sweep angle. Lastly, for the stabilizer, I decreased the span and increased the lead edge sweep angle. Lastly, for the vertical tail, I increase its height and leading edge sweep angle, and decreased the root chord.

Dimensions & Statistics

Aery Evaluation Number: 128

Fuselage Length: 22.93 cm

Wing Location: 10.63 cm

Stabilizer Location: 3.16 cm

Vertical Tail Location: 5.56 cm

Mass at Nose: 2.00 g

Center of Gravity Location: 14.14 cm

Neutral Point Location: 14.21 cm

ESTIMATED Mass: 26.69 g

Wing Loading 0.107 g/cm^2

Throwing Velocity: 20.00 km/hr

Flight Angle of Attack: 6.83 degrees

Stabilizer Incidence Angle: 0.28 degrees (positive upward)

ESTIMATED Stall Angle: 15.90 degrees

ESTIMATED Stall Velocity: 12.89 km/hr

ESTIMATED Glide Angle: 4.37 degrees (positive downward)

ESTIMATED CDo: 0.023

Wing Span: 38.26 cm

Planform Area 249.07 cm^2

Wing Root Chord: 9.30 cm

Wing Taper Ratio: 0.40

Wing Tip Chord: 3.72 cm

Wing Tip Sweep Distance: 5.67 cm

Wing Leading Edge Sweep Angle: 16.51 degrees

Wing Aspect Ratio: 5.88

CL,alpha: 4.37 1/radian

Stabilizer Span: 7.46 cm

Planform Area 32.64 cm^2

Stabilizer Root Chord: 5.00 cm

Stabilizer Taper Ratio: 0.75

Stabilizer Tip Chord: 3.75 cm

Stabilizer Tip Sweep Distance: 2.15 cm

Stabilizer Leading Edge Sweep Angle: 30.00 degrees

Stabilizer Aspect Ratio: 1.71

CL,alpha: 2.32 1/radian

Vertical Tail Height: 38.04 cm

Planform Area 210.48 cm^2

Vertical Tail Root Chord: 6.36 cm

Vertical Tail Taper Ratio: 0.74

Vertical Tail Tip Chord: 4.71 cm

Vertical Tail Tip Sweep Distance: 17.88 cm

Vertical Tail Leading Edge Sweep Angle: 25.17 degrees

Conclusions

1. Explain difficulties faced with this second design challenge compared with the first challenge.

It was difficult to take into account both the angles of the wings, as well as having the front wing be smaller than the second.

2. Explain how these constraints impacted your glider design compared to the first.

I had to better balance out the weight distribution, therefore changing the vertical tail much more than in the previous problem, which is challenging to me because there is little to no reference to the plane when working with the vertical tail.

Production Glider Design Day One - Preliminary Proposals

In this project we designed an original glider that sustains flight for the longest possible distance.

Underlying Principles

The basic for glider design is an engine-less entity that uses rising air from thermal currents and wind deflected from the ground to travel

Design Features

Our plane is going to be a high winged plane with ellipse wings and a dihedrial. We choose to use elliptical wings because they generate more lift in real world circumstances. We choose dihedrial wings because it gives the plane more lateral stability, as do the high wings.

Feasibility

The amount of materials we were allowed to use caused some limitations to our design. We also had to learn how to sand balsa wood to an incline and round it, which took time working with different grits to figure out.

Conclusion

1. Funding for a new project is always limited in some way. How does the proposal process ensure that the idea being proposed will satisfy the project requirements?

The proposal process is a check for the engineers to ensure their designs meet monetary standards and well as fulfill design and material requirements. The proposal will also include a prototype to ensure the product fulfills the consumer's needs.

2. Projects fail not due to a lack of solid designs but instead due to other issues. Describe these issues and explain how the proposal process ensures that the design with the highest likelihood of success can be selected.

The budget is a large contributor to project failure. In the proposal process, making sure you account for the amount of materials provided is a necessary step to ensure success.

3. Describe the most persuasive elements of your proposal.

The most persuasive element of our design was its incredible stability due to the elliptical and dihedrial wings

4. Explain why someone would have either a positive or negative impression after reading through your proposal for the first time.

Someone would have a positive impression after reading through our proposal because it fit within the project's material constraints as well as had realistic testing data.

Production Glider Design Day Two - Detailed Design

In Aery, we created a model of our plane to test flyablilty and determine building specifications.

It will fly!

Dimensions & Statistics

Aery Evaluation Number: 149

Fuselage Length: 50.00 cm

Wing Location: 22.00 cm

Stabilizer Location: 46.00 cm

Vertical Tail Location: 46.00 cm

Mass at Nose: 5.00 g

Center of Gravity Location: 23.89 cm

Neutral Point Location: 24.89 cm

ESTIMATED Mass: 31.96 g

Wing Loading 0.172 g/cm^2

Throwing Velocity: 26.39 km/hr

Flight Angle of Attack: 7.27 degrees

Stabilizer Incidence Angle: -2.36 degrees (positive upward)

ESTIMATED Stall Angle: 10.24 degrees

ESTIMATED Stall Velocity: 21.34 km/hr

ESTIMATED Glide Angle: 4.39 degrees (positive downward)

ESTIMATED CDo: 0.018

Wing Span: 27.94 cm

Planform Area 186.29 cm^2

Wing Root Chord: 7.62 cm

Wing Taper Ratio: 0.75

Wing Tip Chord: 5.72 cm

Wing Tip Sweep Distance: 0.00 cm

Wing Leading Edge Sweep Angle: 0.00 degrees

Wing Aspect Ratio: 4.19

CL,alpha: 4.01 1/radian

Stabilizer Span: 10.00 cm

Planform Area 33.20 cm^2

Stabilizer Root Chord: 4.00 cm

Stabilizer Taper Ratio: 0.66

Stabilizer Tip Chord: 2.64 cm

Stabilizer Tip Sweep Distance: 1.36 cm

Stabilizer Leading Edge Sweep Angle: 15.22 degrees

Stabilizer Aspect Ratio: 3.01

CL,alpha: 3.39 1/radian

Vertical Tail Height: 5.00 cm

Planform Area 14.00 cm^2

Vertical Tail Root Chord: 4.00 cm

Vertical Tail Taper Ratio: 0.40

Vertical Tail Tip Chord: 1.60 cm

Vertical Tail Tip Sweep Distance: 2.40 cm

Vertical Tail Leading Edge Sweep Angle: 25.64 degrees

Construction

We used balsa wood for the wings and stabilizers, and we used birch wood for the fuselage.

Test Flights

Production Flights

Final Conclusions

Explain the strengths and weaknesses of a competitive trial as a method to identify an optimal design.

Some advantages of a competitive trial is the analytical factor of the designs. Because all planes are being tested with the same procedure and materials, it is easy to compare the performance of the gliders. One weakness is the differing environmental factors within the trial period. For example, some gliders were tested with wind aiding their flight, while others were tested when the wind was fighting the glider.

Explain differences between your glider’s performance through flight testing that was unexpected based on the AERY software predicted flight characteristics.

We knew our glider would have some differences from the Aery design because of our elliptical and dihedrial design. The main differences that we experienced in the real flight was increased pitching in the flight. Our directional and lateral stability was good, but the plane always had a gentle pitch downwards that made the landing process a bit rough. Another difference in the testing process we experienced was the overall lack of lift, which wasn't expected because the elliptical design generates more lift in real gliders.

Based on the entire flight test data, from every group, explain what conclusion you can make about optimal glider designs for long-distance flight.

Optimal glider design for a mid-sized glider is the generic design of straight, rectangular wings with a tall vertical stabilizer.

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