Aerodynamics

The Aerodynamics team has as its most basic goal ensuring that the aircraft can fly. Other goals of the aerodynamics team include guaranteeing that the aircraft can takeoff in the required distance, ensuring the stability of the aircraft in flight, both static and dynamic and optimising the efficiency. The members of this team achieve those goals by carefully designing the wings, the empennage, and all the control surfaces. The two main design tools used are XFLR5 and OpenVSP.

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Structures

The Structures team’s fundamental task is to ensure the structural integrity of the aircraft. The structures team interacts with the whole aircraft, as every part needs to be analysed to verify that it can withstand the loads acting on it. Another aspect of structural design is weight optimisation, the weight has to be minimized and also well distributed throughout the aircraft to achieve balance. The members of the Structures team work extensively with Solidworks, as they are in charge of creating the CAD model, but also use other analysis tools to perform FEA. 

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Systems

The Systems team is tasked with designing the flight control system as well as the propulsion system. The work entails sizing the electric motor and the propeller, selecting the servomotors, along with the battery. In addition, ensuring that the electronics within the aircraft can communicate effectively with the controller is also a big part of the work. The members of the Systems team are also working on a research project which will record flight data.