Proceedings of the 2nd International Seminar on Aeronautics and Energy

The purpose of this study is to investigate effects of canard on Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Blended Wing Body model (UTM-BWB). A model of generic blended wing body has been designed and fabricated locally in UTM. The experiment was conducted in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Low Speed Wind Tunnel (UTM-LST) with maximum speed of 80 m/s. During the experiment, the model was mounted on the steady balance measurement equipment located underneath the wind tunnel. Two measurement techniques were employed on the wing, the first one was the turf thread to observe the flow separation above the wing while the second experiment was the steady balance measurement to obtain the aerodynamic characteristics of model. The experiment has been performed at the speed of 30 m/s in two phases. The first phase was the experiment without the canard while the second phase was the experiment with the canard. The canard has been designed with interchangeable angles of 0, 10, and −10°. The experiments were conducted at the angle of attack, α varies from −3 to 15° and sideslip angle, β from −8 to 8°. The Aerodynamic data obtained were plotted in order to obtain aerodynamic characteristics of the BWB model with and without canard configurations at certain angle of attack and sideslip angle.

This paper discusses about the installation of active flow control technique on FFA-W3-270 Airfoil model. The main objective is to investigate either this flow control technique can delay or promote the flow separation that occurs on the model. Flow separation is detachment of the airflow from the airfoil surface, which may lead to loss in lift and increase in pressure drag. Active flow control is a technique used to add energy to the flow by expenditure of power from other source which are able to delay the flow separation. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect on flow separation when blowing technique is used as an active flow control method. In this experiment, the air from compressor passed through pressure regulator has been channeled to pressure tubing of FFA-W3-270 in order to create blowing conditions on the model surface. During the experiments, the blowing has been conducted at three different location across the wing. The experiment has been conducted at two Reynolds numbers of Re = 0.8 × 10⁶ and 1.0 × 10⁶, the angle of attack was varied from 0° until 14°. The result has shown that the blowing flow control has significantly delay the flow separation at low angle of attack but it promotes the flow separation at high angle of attack and Reynolds number.

The paper discusses the effect of dual external stores attached beneath the wing of a generic subsonic light aircraft model. An experimental investigation is conducted in UTM Low Speed Wind Tunnel to determine the aircraft model's aerodynamic characteristics and flow distribution. The interest in installing external stores on light aircraft has not been discussed in detail to date. Few light aircraft have recently been installed with external stores available in the market. In this experiment, the aircraft model was tested at three configurations: the model with clean wing, the model with single, and finally, the model with dual external stores. These configurations were tested at the same Reynolds number of 0.46 × 10⁶ with angle of attacks ranging from −4 to 15° while the yaw angles ranging from −10 to 10°. Measurement techniques were performed on the model; the first was the external balance measurement, and the final was the surface distribution measurement. The results showed that the installation of dual external stores had reduced the lift coefficient by 13% compared to the clean wing configuration. Similar to the drag, it reduces because the induced drag is increased. The longitudinal static stability is reduced when the external stores are installed. Another observation is that the trim angle of the dual external stores configuration is greater than the clean wing configuration. In contrast, the rolling stability is improved, when the stores is installed. However, the effect of external stores is not significant in directional static stability. For pressure distribution, the external stores have delayed the flow separation to occur at a higher angle of attack.

The aviation industry is attempting to enhance the aerodynamic performance by increasing the aspect ratio of the wing, which can be associated with the usage of the High Aspect Ratio (HAR) wing. Aerodynamic performance can be analyzed using different approaches and one of the approaches is through the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. However, prior research demonstrates a vague technique for CFD analysis, which makes it challenging for new researchers to learn the precise steps using the CFD approach. Therefore, this study aims to demonstrate the process of CFD analysis in a detailed technique using Ansys software and compare the aerodynamic performance at three options domain sizes. The aspect ratio of AR-16 was used with the Spalart–Allmaras turbulence model and the result of the mesh independency study was validated with the lift coefficient. The best mesh was verified with different turbulence models either using k–ω SST or Standard k–ε. The result shows that the best mesh for the HAR wing is the base mesh with a low percentage difference compared to fine mesh. In the domain sizes, the second option with the reduction of 20% domain size produced a higher lift-to-drag ratio than first and third options with a percentage error of less than 6% at the angle of attack, AoA 9°. Moreover, the 20% domain size reduction can reduce approximately 20 min of computational time, as well as contribute to the computational time efficiency in the CFD analysis of the HAR wing.

The generated lift and drag forces for any airfoil represent the crucial parameters that measure the airfoil’s performance. The high lifting force to drag force at different angles of attack is the target of design to gain wide application at high performance. In term of the generating lifting force, the speed, and density of air is dominant and the curvature of the airfoil plays a role too. In terms of drag force, the development of the boundary layer can consider the main source of the drag. The boundary layer development depends on many parameters such as air velocity, density, viscosity, and surface roughness. Skin friction is related to surface roughness and the point where the separation can provoke. In this work, a regular roughness has been added to the surface of NACA 0012 to investigate the drag force performance. A wire mesh with different holes per inch is used (120, 200). The velocity gradient, velocity profile, lift, drag, and pressure distribution are measured at different angles of attack. The results show a slight improvement in velocity gradient for the mesh 200 holes per inch compared to a smooth surface and 120 holes per inch. As a consequence of the velocity gradient, a small reduction in drag force is obtained.

An airfoil is used in many engineering applications for its ability to create high aerodynamics performances compared to other shapes. However, airfoils also produce annoying noise, and consequently has degraded its usage near the residential area. The study on airfoil noise prediction is very challenging, either experimentally or numerically. Background noise and identifying detailed noise sources are the common problems in experimental works while accurate prediction of small fluctuating pressure requires huge computational resources for numerical noise prediction. This study evaluates the performance of Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) as the turbulent modelling approach in predicting the noise source of a NACA 0012. The noise calculated from DES is compared with RANS and the experimental results. The study showed that the DES turbulence model is able to capture peak frequency at 300 to 600 Hz, similar to the experimental result. Additionally, DES provides better accuracy than RANS turbulence model by eliminating the sudden peak captured by RANS at a higher frequency. However, DES turbulence model still does not capture the good trends in the high-frequency region above 800 Hz because this turbulence model is a hybrid of RANS and still becomes the dominant influence in the DES calculation in the near-wall region.

The development of a supersonic flow in the air intake is critical to the operation of a scramjet engine since it determines how well the engine performs. The configuration of the air intake plays a key role in determining whether or not the required pressure recovery of the intake is attained, which in turn affects the efficiency of the combustion chamber. This work presents the prediction of aerodynamics performance of scramjet’s intake at high Mach number flight using computational fluid dynamics. A scramjet intake with mixed compression is being used, and it has two external ramps. The work focused on the aerodynamics characteristics of the intake and the effects of the cowl lip length on the compression ratio inside isolator. CFD simulation was modelled for 2-dimensional, steady, compressible flow using rhoCentralFoam of OpenFOAM. The Mach numbers were ranged from 5 to 6.5, angle of attacks (3°, 0°, and −3°) and flight altitude of 26 km. The results show an improvement in compression ratio (static pressure, and static temperature) up to 20% in addition to increment in mass flow captured by 16.7%.

A numerical study was carried out to predict the aerodynamic performance of the flow field of a high-speed water tunnel with an interchangeable test section, the purpose of the interchangeable test section is to study above-water and underwater vehicles namely ships and torpedoes. The design comes with two sets of contractions, test sections, and diffusers with an inlet velocity of 10 m/s. The results of the numerical calculations show equal distribution of the pressure at each section and no evidence of low-pressure regions indicating no flow separations. The velocity contour shows equal distribution of the flow field and no vortex structure has been developed. The velocity at the test section of 1 m case is 26 and 27 m/s for the case of 0.7 m test section. The turbulence intensity obtained from the simulation calculations is 1.8% for the case of the 1 m test section and 2.8% for the case of the 0.7 m test section.

As a leading resource in the world, water has been useful in many aspects of our daily life, like drinking, farming resources, and some technological developments also need water. However, the growth of industrial activities and the human population has made water quality becoming a critical problem, especially in Malaysia. Thus, it is essential to monitor the water quality regularly so it can be safely used. This study proposes the development of autonomous radio control (RC) catamaran to be used for surveillance and water pollution monitoring. The solution is based on creating a self-autonomous boat with a multi-hull catamaran that contains several sensors to record the water quality around the Lake Tropica in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru Campus. The catamaran comprises a water quality monitoring system, an autonomous ground controller, and an autopilot navigation system. The data for water quality monitoring, including pH and temperature, was recorded in the mobile storage in real-time. Finally, results from the water quality analysis revealed that it was within the range of being clean and safe for everyday use when compared to the Department of Environment standard.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) plays an essential role in various industries. It has been used in surveillance, photography, reconnaissance, environmental data collection, agriculture, and many other purposes. However, the main problem of UAVs is that, it is time-consuming to manually recharge the battery and natural phenomena like sunray and rain while operating in an open area. Thus, an autonomous battery charging station can solve the problem as it does not require human interaction and can protect the drone from natural phenomena. In this work, an autonomous charging station for UAV is designed, fabricated, and developed. The main focus of the charging station is the door mechanism, platform mechanism, and positioning mechanism. The Hilux bed size is the primary concern for sizing the charging station as it will be used for transporting, and the dimensions for the charging station is as follows length, width, and height (1450 mm × 1400 mm × 1200 mm). The parallel positioning mechanism has been used to control the UAV on the charging station platform. However, a linear actuator has been used to control the door mechanism of the charging station. After fabrication of the charging station, it can be seen that it can operate in any weather while protecting the UAV from rain and sunray and the operating time of the charging station is less than 90 s.

Although the demand for autonomous drones is rising, drone charging systems are still executed manually. This study aims to design and fabricate an autonomous charging system for a two-legged multicopter UTM JagaDrone, including identifying the charging box size. Its propulsion system uses a six-cell Lithium polymer battery with 12,000 mAh, and the charging box should be transportable by using a Toyota Hilux 4-wheeler vehicle. After an extensive literature review, we designed a mechanical aligner to centre the multicopter on the charging pad. Afterwards, a Battery Management System (BMS) is used to monitor the charging of the battery. The system was designed to charge the drone battery within 90 s, which previously required about 15 min using manual execution. Since the 12A fast charging mode reduces the life cycle of the battery, a balance charge with 1A current is used. Using balance charge mode, we achieved about 1.1 V within just 1.6 h. Overall, the designed autonomous charging system reduces the charging procedure by almost 81.81%.

Last mile delivery (LMD) refers to the transfer of goods from the final dispatch point to a transportation centre. This is the most difficult and expensive component of the logistics chain for many logistics disciplines. New technologies enable new methods of information collection, distribution, and provision of logistical services. For instance, the enhanced drone technology of the present day, with its now-acceptable payload, autonomy, and collision avoidance capabilities, can facilitate logistical solutions. This strategy has the potential to reduce last-mile logistics costs and contribute to environmental objectives. The demand for LMD services can be divided into two categories: planned demand and unexpected demand. The purpose of this study is to develop a hybrid solution for LMD. The solution consists of ground vehicles for planned demand and unmanned aerial vehicles for unplanned demand. The ultimate objective of this study is to estimate the generated UAV traffic in urban areas by employing a worldwide continuous technique for sizing both fleets. The ground LMD routing and scheduling activities are globally analysed using an empirical formula that relates the lowest cost route operation in a congested metropolitan region to the mean length required to service a customer, while the UAV LMD activity is globally analysed using a stochastic model. As a consequence of this LMD solution, this study generates estimates of traffic intensity, enabling the computation of performance indices related to service quality and environmental impact.

The flight performance and flight trajectory of any unguided rocket should be determined because its capability and flight trajectory are uncountable in flights. The purpose in this study was to develop a performance and trajectory prediction program for an unguided 2.75-inch solid propellant rocket and to perform a parametric analysis. The program uses the Runge–Kutta Fehlberg (or RKF45) method, and it was developed using Python. It requires multiple geometric designs and motor parameters as the program input. The program was then verified and validated with previous experimental flight data obtained from literature papers. Then, a parametric analysis (also called as sensitivity analysis) was done to analyze how significant these parameters affect the flight of a rocket, compared with the results based on the baseline rocket. Based on the prediction results, the baseline rocket flies with a range of 3040 m, reaches up to 3307 m in altitude and has a peak velocity of 747.554 m/s. In parametric analysis, the parameter that gave the most significant difference was motor grain configuration, followed by launch angle and nozzle expansion ratio.

An introductory study on simplified aircraft pitch control considering the different variants of the well-known proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is presented in this paper. Different control methods have been applied in the aircraft systems control. The linear control methods are not suitable due to highly nonlinear nature of the plant. The intelligent methods lack comprehensive models hampering more rigor research. The nonlinear require higher computing time making their real implementation impossible. The model of the aircraft is a simplified analytical model derived using one of Boeing aircraft models. Investigated are the performances of the PID, PI, and PD controllers. A pulse disturbance was considered to mimic wind, gust, or sudden torque change. Sensor error was considered in the evaluation. The work was achieved by simulation using MATLAB/SIMULINK software. Results showed that PID and PD controllers have similar results while the PI controller has oscillations. Further results show that both the PID and PD are able to suppress the disturbance whose value can result in deviation equals to the reference pitch angle that is; 11° to about 22°. The two controllers however show very poor performance in rejecting sensor errors that is; from 2.2° to just 2°. The PD controller can serve same purpose as the PID controller in aircraft pitch control. Consequently, the study would help to serve as basis for research in aircraft pitch control for beginning as well as new comers and naïve in the area of flight control.

Due to the evolution of advanced technologies and their broad range of applications in numerous domains such as military, industrial, and scientific purposes, worldwide interest in High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) continue to rise. Researchers and experts worldwide have taken the initiative and conducted studies to create and build high-efficiency and safe HAPS. However, far too little attention has been paid to designing HAPS by embedding cylinders into a flat plate. The primary concern of the design is whether the approach of injecting the Magnus effect would be able to improve the aerodynamics and stability of the flat plate. To date, a new Cylinder to Flat Plate to Cylinder (CyFlaP) HAPS has been designed that incorporates the Magnus effect on a bluff body with the goal of increasing its aerodynamic performance. This project intends to analyze the pitching moment coefficient due to the rotational direction and rotational speed of the rotating cylinders. The tests were conducted for different Reynolds numbers (Re) ranging from Re = 2.55 × 10⁵ to 9.10 × 10⁵ which implicitly implied different free stream velocities varying from 2.80 to 10.05 m/s for different angles of attack ranging from α = −20° to α = 20°. Data for this study were collected using experimental analysis of the model in the closed-loop wind tunnel. Among the documented data, only the ones that had a higher rotational speed with clockwise rotating cylinders displayed a negative slope of moment coefficient over the specified range of angle of attack, with the highest negative moment coefficient recorded to be \({C}_{M}\) = −0.04 at the angle of attack, α = 10°. The analysis shows that the CyFlaP is able to fly in a longitudinal static stable state at 10.05 m/s (Re = 9.10 × 10⁵) when the rotating cylinders are rotated in the clockwise-clockwise direction at a speed of 2322 RPM. This highlights the capability of the CyFlaP to fly steadily.

Presented is a study on the application of the reaching law controller for suppressing the effect of backlash disturbance in parabolic antenna systems. The parabolic antennas are reflector antennas specifically designed to work at line-of-sight, otherwise there might be interruption or stoppage of communication. Backlash is one of the interferences that may affect the operation of such systems, and researches deduce that it could be reduced using suitable control systems. This will result in a reduced down time, maintenance costs, handling system complexities and enhanced life span. Many control methods have been tested on such systems ranging from linear methods to non-linear approaches. The antenna model in this study is adopted from a previous work. This study targets the performances of the controller in the presence of backlash disturbance which was then compared with that of the PID controller. The simulation work was done using MATLAB/SIMULINK software. Results portrayed that the Constant Rate Reaching Law Controller (CRC) was able to completely compensate for the disturbance created by the presence of backlash in the system. The PID compensation was not up to that of the CRC. Therefore, the CRC showed better performance in terms of robustness. Furthermore, it indicated the suitability of the scheme for this class of plants; that is parabolic antenna systems. Further studies may aid in achieving simple as well as robust control system for such systems.

Improvement of an aircraft’s efficiency and performance can be achieved by decreasing the aircraft weight through considerable usage of composite materials in the aircraft fuselage. Composite materials are relatively new and there is still very few research on the stress distributions of composite fuselage. This study focuses on the effects of pressure and thermal loadings on the hoop stress of a carbon fiber fuselage skin at a cruising altitude of 11,000 m through finite element simulation. Model used in this analysis consists of a quarter of the cylindrical fuselage with two window cut-outs. Analysis shows that the addition of frame onto the fuselage was able to significantly reduce the maximum stress levels by approximately 23.5% and the addition of stringers further reduced the stress levels by another 29.2%. Further analysis shows that the frame and stringers mostly reduce the hoop stresses on the fuselage that were caused by pressure loadings, whereas minimal reduction was observed for the stresses from the thermal loadings. Finally, a comparison demonstrated that an aluminum alloy fuselage would experience an approximately 221.0% increase in maximum stress at cruising altitude and a 43.0% increase in mass for the same fuselage if compared to the carbon fiber material. Nevertheless, if compared to the relative yield strength of each material, the aluminum alloy achieved a 43.0% larger safety factor than the carbon fiber material.

Composite materials use increases significantly in aerospace structures, especially wing structures, primarily due to their attractive strength-weight ratios. Nevertheless, the increasing use of light and slender wings in modern unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) leads to structural configurations featuring low natural frequencies and high flexibility, which can easily experience aeroelastic phenomena that might cause potentially catastrophic failure. This paper aims to present an investigation to achieve an optimal fiber orientation of laminates layup for the UAVs’ wing skin to meet aeroelastic design requirements. The wing ribs and spars are made from aluminum alloy, while the wing skin is a composite plate made of woven carbon laminates. The flutter speeds for each configuration layup were analyzed numerically using MSC Nastran. The doublet-lattice method is adopted to predict three-dimensional unsteady aerodynamic forces acting on the oscillating wing. According to the numerical analysis, it is evident that the fiber orientations of the wing skin influence the critical flutter onsets. Since the fiber orientation change can significantly affect the wing's stiffness, particularly in the torsion modes. Thus, the aeroelastic performance can be improved without increasing the mass by modifying the fiber orientation on the wing skin laminates. The angle of 45° can improve the critical flutter speed by more than 400 m/s and static-divergence up to 330 m/s or 50% higher in static-divergence speed and more than 260% in flutter speed compared to angles of 0 and 90°.

Flow-induced vibration is a low-frequency failure phenomenon caused by the interaction between fluid flow and physical structure. This work aims to investigate the potential of flow-induced instability within a cage-type steam turbine control valve in which the throttle valve stem failed due to flow-induced vibration. In this work, a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis was carried out based on a 3-dimensional, unsteady, finite volume method that solves Reynold-Averaging Navier Stokes at the cell-centred and Realizable k-ε as the turbulent modelling. In the present work, the double-seated throttle valve was utilized to regulate steam flow with a capacity of 10 kg/s, a rated pressure of 44 bar, and a temperature of 410 °C entering the control valve system from a vertical inlet to the horizontal outlet into the turbine. Based on the CFD analysis performed, it was found that the CFD predicted the existence of significant vortex-shedding activities due to strong aerodynamic interaction between the cage and the throttle valve component. The dominant broadband frequency determined by the unsteady calculation closely matches the frequency measured through the field measurement.

The consumption of renewable energy has shown a positive impact on society and industries. Renewable energy is used widely in electronic devices such as sensors. The aim of this study is to help increase the amount of consumption of wind energy but on a smaller scale for small electronic devices. The study focus on the effect of Scruton number on energy harvesting. Reynolds number of 6.277 × 10³ were used in this study corresponding to reduced velocity of 10 m/s. Numerical simulation using OpenFOAM was conducted for this study and flow visualization is generated to understand the flow physics. A strong correlation was found between Scruton numbers with energy being harvested. The highest harvested energy was 1.6 mW corresponding to the highest Scruton number. Detailed analysis showed that the increases in harvested energy was not mainly due to change in amplitude vibration, but it was due to increase in the vibration frequency. Flow visualization showed that the increases of frequency vibration was due to the increase Karman vortex strength in the wake.

This study addresses the sustainability of aviation in the coming decades. In order to establish a modelling approach for the global air transport sector, the prospective contribution of air transport to fuel consumption and environmental impacts over several decades is considered. To achieve ambitious sustainability goals, it is believed that new aeronautical technologies must be developed and air transport operations must be continuously optimised. This should necessitate substantial investments in research and development (R&D) and equipment by aeronautical manufacturers and air transport operators (airline fleets and airport infrastructures), and queries such as what, how much, and when must be answered. The proposed framework permits levels of detail (air transport services, aircraft classes, and technologies) compatible with strategic decision-making aimed at meeting the demand for air transport services while meeting sustainability goals. Once informed, this framework will enable simulation testing of possible coherent solution scenarios or formulation of global optimisation decision-making problems pertaining to R&D investment in civil aeronautics, fleet renewal by air transport operators, and airport modernization.