2020 / Technical report pair
Wing Box and Launcher Compression Panel Design Reports
Early aerospace structures projects combining analytical sizing, manufacturing plans, test-data interpretation, and design recommendations.
These first-year reports document two related structures projects: a launcher compression panel and an aircraft wingbox.
The compression-panel project worked within buckling, inter-rivet buckling, mass, and cost constraints. The team selected design variables, planned manufacturing, interpreted externally collected test data, and documented how manufacturing deviations limited the strength of the conclusions.
The wingbox project combined literature study, failure-mode calculations, iterative sizing, a robotic-manufacturing plan, and whiffletree test-data analysis. The report considered bending, sheet buckling, torsion, and inter-rivet buckling, then used observed deformation to identify the root region as a critical area for future strengthening.
These projects were valuable because analysis did not end at a nominal design. The reports also had to explain production quality, test limitations, uncertainty, and how the evidence should change the next iteration.