Ohio State Aero Team Wins AFRL Design Competition

A team of 11 aerospace engineering seniors placed first in a year-long competition hosted by the Advanced Propulsion Outreach Program in the Propulsion Directorate of Air Force Research Lab at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The competition required students to design a Thrust Vectoring Device for a JetCat P-80 Engine.

The team, advised by Professor Jeffrey Bons, created two operational devices and had a third prototype. All devices in competition were officially tested at Wright-Patterson AFB in May. Teammate Christine White reported that the group built everything in Scott Lab's student machine shop and printed 3-D prototypes with the help of the faculty research machine shop.  

Other schools competing included the University of Michigan, Maimi University, University of Cincinnati, University of Dayton, Wright State University. Ohio State had the largest team in competition with students who specialized in computational fluid dynamics, solid modeling, engine operations, machining/manufacturing, and device operations. With such a large, talented group of seniors, the team was deemed the overall winner on the competition having placed first in slew rate, second in the paper competition, and third in performance (hitting max vectoring angles around 37 degrees while only experiencing a 15 percent thrust loss).

Congratulations to all!