About the Department
Summer interns in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics focus on research in fluid mechanics and energy transmission, solid mechanics and structures, mechanical engineering, and dynamics, systems, and controls.
Research Projects
- Composite Materials: Professor Shankar Mall, Ph.D.
- Update Solid Mechanics Programs to FORTRAN 90 Material Testing Under Bending and Tension: Professor Anthony Palazotto, Ph.D.
- Flight Simulator Development: Experimental and/or Computational Air Flow Analysis of Joined-Wing Missile: Professor Milton Franke, Ph.D.
- MATLAB Benchmark of Numerical Methods for Constrained Optimization: Professor Bob Canfield, PhD
- Numerical Mesh Generation for Computational Fluid Dynamic Analysis of Aerospace Vehicles: Professor Montgomery C. 'Monty' Hughson, Lt Col, Ph.D.
- Cooperative Behavior and Control Algorithm Evaluation: Professor David Jacques, Ph.D.
- Experimental Development of a Satellite Simulation Test Bed: Professor Richard Cobb, Maj, Ph.D.
- Analysis of Fretting Fatigue Behavior in Dovetail Joint: Professor Shankar Mall, Ph.D.
About one in six of all mishaps attributed to fatigue in the U. S. Air Force’s gas turbine engines are linked to damage induced by fretting fatigue of the airfoil-disk attachments in dovetail joints. There is a very active program at Air Force Institute of Technology in conjunction with Air Force Research Laboratory to investigate this phenomenon. Both experimental and analytical tools are being used to develop design methodology to minimize failures, increase durability and reduce maintenance cost for the airfoil-blade attachments in turbine engines. The intern will assist in conducting analysis of the experiments by using various numerical tools, mainly through available commercial tools such as finite element methods, processing the data and developing information about stresses, strains, fatigue lives etc. He/she will work in a collaborative way with other team members involved in this project. Team includes postdoctoral associates and doctoral and master level graduate students. An interest or background in solid and structural mechanics is desirable.