Session: 07-01: Education

Paper Number: 152137

An Integrative Course in Turbomachine Design, Manufacturing, and Measurement 

A new course titled Advanced Manufacturing for Aerospace Engineers was developed for junior- and senior-level students in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at M.I.T. It is a one-semester project-based course in which students design, build, and test an electric turbopump for a notional rocket engine in small teams of 2 or 3. The project applies several different subject areas, including fluid mechanics of turbomachinery, rotordynamics, additive manufacturing, material selection, instrumentation, measurement, and technical communication. The course is divided into 3 phases – (i) fluid-mechanical design of the radial pumps, (ii) rotordynamic design of the shaft-rotor system, and (iii) final integration, assembly, and testing. In the first two phases, the students assess baseline systems, design and fabricate their own systems to meet the overall project requirements, and then test their new components in a laboratory setting. The assessment is carried out with hand-calculations based in first principles, with commercial software, and with experiment. In the third phase, the students assemble their components from the first two phases into the final pump to be tested. Each phase includes laboratory sessions, problem sets, and is concluded with a technical report and presentation.

The novelty of this course is its integrative open-ended structure. The project modules take students through an entire manufacturing process, including design, fabrication, assembly, testing, and reporting. These steps are fulfilled in a hands-on setting, giving the students real-world experience with the limitations of simulation, modelling, fabrication, and measurement. The integrative structure allows the students to develop an understanding of the connection between their design work and the manufacturing steps, and ultimately to the performance of their final products. The open-ended nature of the project encourages students to choose different designs than their peers. This variation both gives the students a personal connection to their project and highlights the association between their design choices and the resulting performance of their prototypes.

This paper discusses the structure and content of the course, reviews student experiences, and evaluates the effectiveness of the course structure. The course is presented as an open-source resource and the attached supplementary materials enable other universities to implement it.

Presenting Author: Joseph Chiapperi Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Presenting Author Biography: B.S. Clarkson University (2019), S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2021), Currently working towards a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, with research in the Gas Turbine Laboratory under Dr. Tan.

Authors:

Joseph Chiapperi Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joachim Bron Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Gregory New Frontier Aerospace
Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Zoltan Spakovszky Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Zachary Cordero Massachusetts Institute of Technology