Atmospheric Carbon Capture
(AE, ME, ChE, ISE)
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INTRODUCTION
Aerospace Engineering:
Aerospace engineering is a field of engineering in which the main focus is the design and construction of aircrafts and spacecrafts. The two main branches of aerospace engineering are aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Astronautical engineers concern themselves with aircrafts that function outside of the Earth's atmosphere, while aeronautical engineers deal with the functions of aircrafts within the atmosphere. Aerospace engineers can also work with missiles and systems for national defense.
Mechanical Engineering:
Mechanical engineering is the one of the broadest disciplines under the engineering umbrella. Mechanical engineers apply engineering physics and math principles to design, develop, build, and test anything that moves. Mechanical engineers can work with both power-producing machines, like engines, and power-using machines, like air-conditioning systems. A plethora of disciplines exist under the mechanical umbrella, such as acoustics, biotechnology, developmental design, analysis, etc.
Chemical Engineering:
Chemical engineers develop chemical manufacturing processes. These processes can concern a variety of issues, like the production of food, fuel, drugs, chemicals, and many other products. Through the application of chemistry, biology, physics, and math principles, raw material is converted into useful products during chemical engineering processes.
The foundation of chemical engineering are atoms and molecules. In our group's work with IQMol, we learned a bit about the energies and frequencies of the molecules of certain greenhouse gases.
Industrial Engineering:
Industrial engineering is the engineering discipline concerned with optimizing industrial processes and systems. This is done by improving systems of people, money, knowledge, and equipment. Industrial engineers are integral to the workings of factories, buildings, rooms, and infrastructures.
Project Description:
Our group's goal this week was to construct a rocket that is capable of launching a carbon capture device. RockSim was used to construct a three stage rocket, while our physical rocket had one stage. The carbon capture device was meant to be 3D printed and coded with an Arduino to detect CO2. Along with the carbon capture rocket, we built a capacitor plane.
DESIGN PROCESS
ROCKET AND PLANE KIT
ROCKET AND PLANE KIT
IMG_2191.MOVROCKET KIT
This was the bottle rocket we made with our rocket kit. This rocket actually flew further and higher than our final rocket. This occurred, because the bottle was stronger than the motor in our final rocket, and the rocket was significantly lighter.
PLANE KIT
The most notable thing regarding the plane kit was our testing of different wing types and their effect on the flight of the plane. We followed the instructions for one, and we sanded both edges of the wing for the other. However, we could not really see full benefit of either wing over the other wing type as the plane crashed into the fountain when we tested the altered wing. Any testing of the plane after this was effected, because the plane had water in the foam.
IMG_9336.MOVROCKSIM
ROCKSIM
IMG_53850077.MOVOn RockSim, we were tasked with making a three-stage rocket that was capable of launching a CO2 capture device. The main factor to take into consideration were the several motors' effect on the position of the center of gravity and center of pressure. A mass object was used near the front of the rocket to keep it from becoming unstable during flight.
ARDUINO
ARDUINO
This image shows the circuit for the connection between the Arduino and the CO2 gas sensor. It is a very simple circuit as the purpose for this system is only to read values from the sensor and serial print those values on the computer screen so we can monitor the concentration of CO2 gas in the air. In theory, this sensor could be attached to an RC plane or model rocket to monitor the concentration of CO2 gas at different altitudes.
This is our Arduino code. It was very simple, as all we had to do was read the outputs from the CO2 sensor. For this code, the values from the sensors are printed on the computer screen, but if this system was going to be applied in a rocket or plane, as explained before, we would need more lines of code to store the values of CO2 concentration given a certain altitude in the Arduino memory or in an external micro SD card, so they can be analyzed after the flight.
CARBON CAPTURE DEVICE
CARBON CAPTURE DEVICE
This is our carbon capturing device. It did not actually capture carbon it just looked like a carbon capturing device. An actual carbon capturing device would have chemicals to capture the CO2 in the atmosphere within this cylinder we designed. This was 3-D printed and was the payload for our rocket. We had to design our rocket so when this was in our rocket than the center of gravity would be correct and the rocket would still fly well with this within it.
ROCKETS
ROCKETS
This is our schematics drawing, which shows all of the dimensions and look of the rocket. This helped us have a plan for the rest of project and be ready for the actual building process of the rocket.
The string test went very well and the rocket was extremely stable as it flew around because the tape we added made the center of gravity above the center of pressure.
While building our rocket, we added tape to the top of it so we could move the center of gravity above the center of pressure so it would fly better, but the tape we added increased the weight of the rocket by a significant amount which led to our rocket not going as high as it could have. The smaller rockets in this project flew much higher because they weighed less and the motor was not that strong, so our rocket was not as successful because it was very heavy.
IMG_1214.MOVPLANES
PLANES
Our plane was pretty good. It could glide well, but it seemed as if the motor was not powerful enough to actually be beneficial. One challenge we faced was the plane broke multiple times when we were testing the flight of the plane.
LAUNCH DAY
LAUNCH DAY
IMG_1227.MOVIMG_1220.MOVRESEARCH PAPER
PROJECT EVALUATION
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