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Students design, analyze and prototype aircraft during a two-semester capstone sequence using industry-standard tools. The lab prepares graduates for careers in aircraft design and development.

A fully equipped workspace is made available to Aerospace Engineering (AE) undergraduate students to work on their design projects as part of their two-semester senior design sequence.

The Embry-Riddle AE capstone aircraft design is divided into two required courses. The first is Aircraft Preliminary Design, where students design aircraft to satisfy practical multidisciplinary requirements.

The second is Aircraft Detail Design, where the students focus on structural layout, sizing, manufacturability, reliability and certification-driven considerations. The laboratory offers students an open and welcoming environment and a safe place to work.

The room is equipped with workstations with design, finite element, simulation and programming software, allowing the students to design realistic airframes that comply with current regulations.

Modern numerical methods are mixed with traditional approaches, yielding a balanced and comprehensive understanding of aircraft design.

Physical aircraft assemblies and representative components are used for reference and inspection, to aid students in deepening their understanding of the complex nature of aircraft materials, structures and mechanisms.

The lab is also equipped with a flight simulator, where the students can check their stability and control equations developed in the Preliminary Design course, as well as three 3-D printers, where the students can create non-functional scale models of entire aircraft during Preliminary Design, and selected parts or assemblies during Detail Design for visualization and design verification. Students in the Aeronautics track occupy this lab during fall preliminary design and spring detail design of their last full year as undergraduates in the program.

The space and tools enable hands-on experience in aircraft design, including the ancillary skills of reporting, management, financial analysis, technical specification, peer review and prototype fabrication.

In this lab, students engage with industry representatives from companies such as The Boeing Company and Gulfstream for design feedback and professional review, and are given the guidance to enable them to complete their capstone design course.

Equipment

• 1 flight simulator
• 3 medium-sized 3-D printers, for scale model printing
• 1 large-format multifunction plotter printer
• 26 high-powered workstations running industry-standard analysis and design programs, including CATIA, NASTRAN and a variety of supporting Embry-Riddle network applications