Auburn and Air Force win AFRL Collegiate and Service Academy Design Competition
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. --
Seventeen universities and three service academies came together for the third annual Air Force Research Laboratory Collegiate and Service Academy Engineering Design Competition April 14-17 at Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC).
The competition revolves around an engineering challenge each year, aimed at fostering innovative and creative solutions from the Mechanical Engineering Departments at Arizona State University, Auburn University, Brigham Young University, Colorado State University, Johns Hopkins University, Michigan Technological University, Ohio State University, Texas A&M University, University of Akron, University of Dayton, University of Minnesota Duluth, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Utah State University, Purdue University, Wright State University, Tennessee State University, Prairie View A&M University, The Air Force Academy, The Naval Academy and The United States Military Academy.
This year's challenge centered on a problem routinely faced by U.S. Air Force pararescuemen and other military units. The weight of armored vehicles and frequent encounters with improvised explosive devices or damage from combat operations occasionally requires that these up-armored vehicles be lifted in order to rescue fellow soldiers pinned or trapped inside. These heavy lift devices are also routinely used in rescue from collapsed structures or downed aircraft.
Student teams were tasked with producing a single-man-portable solution that would effectively lift a 45,000-pound vehicle sufficient to retrieve trapped personnel.
In the university competition Utah State came in as a heavy favorite after sweeping the competition in each of the previous two years, and true to form, their entry showed the effect of early and frequent field testing prior to the competition.
Across all entries, it was very apparent where teams had completed their designs early enough to test and iteratively optimize the performance of their devices. The results clearly reinforce the mantra of innovative design "fail early, fail fast, fail often," as these cycles of contact between proposed solutions and the real world force teams to challenge assumptions about the problem and drive improvements in the eventual solution.
Even for those teams that had accumulated some test experience with their entries, the real world proved to be a further challenge.
Devon Parker, a senior Air Force mechanical engineer at AEDC, was the host and manager for the national competition on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory. In addition to managing the competition, he provided regular feedback to the design teams throughout the academic year during design reviews. While this was designed principally to ensure the teams fully understood the problem, it also allowed him to ensure the trial phase conducted at AEDC could safely accommodate all of the various design entries during demonstration.
The challenge Parker set up at AEDC was a 40,000-pound bulldozer resting angled on an incline deep within the Tennessee Guard Volunteer Training Site at Arnold Air Force Base.
The competition and the teams were supported by a number of experienced Air Force pararescuemen from around the country - who performed work under the load for the student teams, as instructed by the respective student team leader. The dozer was stabilized against any significant shift during lifting by a 55-ton crane to take up the load if required. The crane was manned at all times during the competition by an expert operator and lifting supervisor from Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA).
To prevent shifting down the slope, the Army National Guard provided a heavy combat wrecker and a crew from Elizabethton, Tenn. To prevent possible injury due to unexpected flying debris from a failure, the Coffee County Central High School machining class built a number of polycarbonate shields that would allow viewing of the testing while providing a shatterproof barrier in the unlikely event of a problem.
Since the event was conducted in the field and there was no time for meal breaks, the AEDC Company Grade Officers Association provided a daily grilling of burgers and hot dogs for all participants. There were additional numerous volunteers from across AEDC who provided everything from transportation support and safety to refilling of some teams' compressed air bottles.
Over the course of five days, 17 universities and the three service academies all made numerous attempts to lift the bulldozer. While several succeeded in getting it off the ground, the team from Auburn University delivered a solution that met the objective while also achieving significant progress in many of the additional design constraints. Their solution consisted of a mixed air bag system, built of Kevlar and Vectran in their own laboratory.
Utah State's innovative hydraulic solution included repackaging of an electrically driven high pressure portable pump and creative shoring solution that allowed for multiple lifts and very efficient energy transfer.
Brigham Young's system, like Auburn's involved the use of air bags, but their bags were wrapped with military grade webbing to reduce the stresses on the inner bladder of their lift bag.
In the Service Academy competition, the U.S. Air Force Academy designed and built a seven stage hydraulic lift that used vegetable oil to transfer power. The assembly succeeded in lifting the dozer over 25 inches in two cycles while simultaneously making everyone present crave fried food. This is the third straight win for the Air Force Academy.
Regardless of their performance on the field trial, there were portions of each entry that offered further opportunity for creative development. There were mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, and hybrid solutions developed and demonstrated. Engineering designs and team creativity were all put to the test. Regardless of individual results, every team came away with a more profound understanding of why it is essential that engineers leave their office desks and get their hands dirty when working on a problem. It is this first-hand experience that enables engineers to fully comprehend the scope of any problem, and allows them to work more effectively as part of any product development or problem solving team.
The competition revolves around an engineering challenge each year, aimed at fostering innovative and creative solutions from the Mechanical Engineering Departments at Arizona State University, Auburn University, Brigham Young University, Colorado State University, Johns Hopkins University, Michigan Technological University, Ohio State University, Texas A&M University, University of Akron, University of Dayton, University of Minnesota Duluth, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Utah State University, Purdue University, Wright State University, Tennessee State University, Prairie View A&M University, The Air Force Academy, The Naval Academy and The United States Military Academy.
This year's challenge centered on a problem routinely faced by U.S. Air Force pararescuemen and other military units. The weight of armored vehicles and frequent encounters with improvised explosive devices or damage from combat operations occasionally requires that these up-armored vehicles be lifted in order to rescue fellow soldiers pinned or trapped inside. These heavy lift devices are also routinely used in rescue from collapsed structures or downed aircraft.
Student teams were tasked with producing a single-man-portable solution that would effectively lift a 45,000-pound vehicle sufficient to retrieve trapped personnel.
In the university competition Utah State came in as a heavy favorite after sweeping the competition in each of the previous two years, and true to form, their entry showed the effect of early and frequent field testing prior to the competition.
Across all entries, it was very apparent where teams had completed their designs early enough to test and iteratively optimize the performance of their devices. The results clearly reinforce the mantra of innovative design "fail early, fail fast, fail often," as these cycles of contact between proposed solutions and the real world force teams to challenge assumptions about the problem and drive improvements in the eventual solution.
Even for those teams that had accumulated some test experience with their entries, the real world proved to be a further challenge.
Devon Parker, a senior Air Force mechanical engineer at AEDC, was the host and manager for the national competition on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory. In addition to managing the competition, he provided regular feedback to the design teams throughout the academic year during design reviews. While this was designed principally to ensure the teams fully understood the problem, it also allowed him to ensure the trial phase conducted at AEDC could safely accommodate all of the various design entries during demonstration.
The challenge Parker set up at AEDC was a 40,000-pound bulldozer resting angled on an incline deep within the Tennessee Guard Volunteer Training Site at Arnold Air Force Base.
The competition and the teams were supported by a number of experienced Air Force pararescuemen from around the country - who performed work under the load for the student teams, as instructed by the respective student team leader. The dozer was stabilized against any significant shift during lifting by a 55-ton crane to take up the load if required. The crane was manned at all times during the competition by an expert operator and lifting supervisor from Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA).
To prevent shifting down the slope, the Army National Guard provided a heavy combat wrecker and a crew from Elizabethton, Tenn. To prevent possible injury due to unexpected flying debris from a failure, the Coffee County Central High School machining class built a number of polycarbonate shields that would allow viewing of the testing while providing a shatterproof barrier in the unlikely event of a problem.
Since the event was conducted in the field and there was no time for meal breaks, the AEDC Company Grade Officers Association provided a daily grilling of burgers and hot dogs for all participants. There were additional numerous volunteers from across AEDC who provided everything from transportation support and safety to refilling of some teams' compressed air bottles.
Over the course of five days, 17 universities and the three service academies all made numerous attempts to lift the bulldozer. While several succeeded in getting it off the ground, the team from Auburn University delivered a solution that met the objective while also achieving significant progress in many of the additional design constraints. Their solution consisted of a mixed air bag system, built of Kevlar and Vectran in their own laboratory.
Utah State's innovative hydraulic solution included repackaging of an electrically driven high pressure portable pump and creative shoring solution that allowed for multiple lifts and very efficient energy transfer.
Brigham Young's system, like Auburn's involved the use of air bags, but their bags were wrapped with military grade webbing to reduce the stresses on the inner bladder of their lift bag.
In the Service Academy competition, the U.S. Air Force Academy designed and built a seven stage hydraulic lift that used vegetable oil to transfer power. The assembly succeeded in lifting the dozer over 25 inches in two cycles while simultaneously making everyone present crave fried food. This is the third straight win for the Air Force Academy.
Regardless of their performance on the field trial, there were portions of each entry that offered further opportunity for creative development. There were mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, and hybrid solutions developed and demonstrated. Engineering designs and team creativity were all put to the test. Regardless of individual results, every team came away with a more profound understanding of why it is essential that engineers leave their office desks and get their hands dirty when working on a problem. It is this first-hand experience that enables engineers to fully comprehend the scope of any problem, and allows them to work more effectively as part of any product development or problem solving team.
