Platform/Bedplate Vibration Damper

Students: Matthew Trizna, Richard Hurlbut
Advisor(s): Dr. Jandro Abot; Dr. Gerard Carroll

Submarines radiate numerous amounts of noise including the submarine’s engines, generators, and auxiliary machinery which causes radiated noise that exposes the submarine’s location to enemy ships. To reduce radiated noise in a submarine, our team aimed at developing an experimental setup to compare the weight and relative damping of a composite/steel raft structure with that of the current application of a pure steel raft structure. Two physical platform/bedplate models with similar geometry and appropriate scale were constructed i.e., a raft structure composed of steel and a raft structure composed of steel/composite materials. Each raft structure was weighed using a scale, and then put under vibration testing using a shaker, accelerometer, and MATLAB to examine the damping characteristics. It can then be determined if the composite/steel raft structure reduces weight and increases damping compared to the current application of a pure steel raft structure.

The CUA Aero Team

Students: Bridget Atkinson, Abdulaziz Altamimi, Ian Clarke, Matt Gardiner, Gino Martinelli
Advisor: Dr. Jandro Abot

A Remote-Controlled (RC) plane that adhered to the regular class guidelines of the 2023 SAE Aero Design Competition was built. The first goal set was to design an aircraft that can safely take off and land while maximizing payload. Following this, predicting the payload capacity of the plane was another goal in order to determine lift and complete the given flight plan. The last goal of the project was to design an aircraft that could withstand various weather and wind conditions during flight. The selected design of the aircraft was a taildragger design demonstrated by the two front wheels in a fixed position and a single rear landing gear. The wing design was a rectangular wing with moderate camber in order to produce lift at lower speeds. The airfoil chosen was the CURTISS CR-1 on a finite wing with a wingspan of 10 ft and a chord length of 14 in at an angle of attack of 8 degrees. The landing gear of the aircraft was constructed of rubber wheels and aluminum trapezoidal landing gear. The needs of the project consisted of a 100 ft maximum runway for takeoff and landing, the aircraft must be of type fixed-wing, the aircraft take-off weight cannot exceed 55 lb., and the aircraft must be able to hold a regular sized boxed cargo. Additionally, the wingspan was greater than 120 in and less than 216 in. Lastly, no singular part on the primary axes of the aircraft was longer than 48 in.

Promoting Electric Propulsion Boat Project

Students: Brendan Scott, Matt McCarthy, Kelsey Martin, Jimmy Murphy, Colin McDonnell
Advisor: Dr. Gerard Carroll

The goal of the Promoting Electric Propulsion competition is to build a boat powered by only electricity. The competition is hosted by the American Society of Naval Engineers in Portsmouth, VA from June 27-29th. At this competition there are various events including manned and unmanned competitions. Our team has chosen to compete in the 5 mile manned race event. To make our boat fully electric we refurbished a gas powered Tohatsu Outdrive to house our new 10 kW 48 V Liquid Cooled DC motor. To power and control our new motor we purchased and assembled four 12 V 100Ah Lead Acid Batteries, a fully compatible Electronic Speed Controller, a hand throttle and various other pieces to connect all of the systems. Through the engineering design process, we ran into various problems that we had to overcome. Some of these challenges include, connecting a driveshaft that was custom built for the existing engine into the new motor, building a stand to rest the new motor onto and distributing the weight throughout the boat in order to
keep drag as small as possible.

Active Vibration Control

Students: Amelia Baldo, Emily Bowman, Margaret Bubel, Nicholas Mascolo
Advisor: Dr. Gerard Carroll

Active vibration control reduces the vibration of an object by employing sensors and a control algorithm. Single-frequency cancellation methods vary based on the application. The technique developed in this project utilizes a closed-loop feedback control system to achieve steady-state vibration reduction in a plate. The physical system is an aluminum plate mounted on four springs, modeling unconstrained motion. A shaker excites the plate at a steady-state input frequency of 500 Hz. Two actuators and accelerometers were placed at locations of maximum displacement on the aluminum plate for the excited mode. These actuators received the signal from the PID controller coded in Simulink and vibrated at the specified waveform to cancel out the input signal from the shaker. The transfer function, developed from the input and output data from the system, was tuned to match the desired response for the system. The actuators would reduce the vibration of the plate using the closed-loop feedback mechanism at the excited mode.

The CUA Drone Team

Students: Leonardo Mendez, Elizabeth Lange, Joshua Lara, Stephen Kish
Advisor: Dr. Jandro Abot

The Catholic University of America (CUA) Drone team, made up of four students engaged in a team-based engineering design process, synthesizing knowledge and skills to create an innovative result. The team will address the needs of a specific project idea by taking the design process from brainstorming through to a fully built prototype. The objective of this mission is to prove the capability of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) as a subscale demonstrator for an advanced air mobility (AAM) aircraft. The (UAV) must have a fully functioning maneuvering body that can be flown through a course autonomously as well as completing the same course with a piloted (UAV). As well as, vertical land and take-off. The vehicle must also complete the course using GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates, as well as takeoff and descend vertically to a controlled landing in the VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) zone.

Magnetic Pinger

Students: Foti Koutsouli, Jake Scoblick, Matias Maldonado, Spencer Nichols
Advisor(s): Dr. Jandro Abot & Dr. Gerard Carroll

NSWC Carderock assigned a project to our senior design team, which involved the improvement of a pre-existing design for a magnetic pinger. The magnetic pinger’s purpose is detecting fields that are produced outside of itself, mainly to find mines and other ships in the ocean while attached to a drone. The goal given to us by the customer is to have a general range of 40 feet, but have an accurate range of 20 feet. Firstly, the way we have planned on improving their design is by adding more batteries to give it a usage time of 4-6 hours while operating with a bigger coil that takes more power. The second way we planned to improve is to add more revolutions of copper wire which would allow us to increase the current through the coil. The batteries used in the pinger are nonmagnetic due to not wanting to interfere with the signal of the magnetic pinger. The same is true for the circuit. Thirdly, the last way we plan to improve the pinger is through adding a wheatstone bridge to control the voltage needed to pass through the circuit in order to protect the individual components. Lastly, we are adding foam to improve the buoyancy since we are adding more
weight to the pinger.

Wireless Power Transfer System using Resonant Inductive Coupling and Metamaterials

Students: Haile Zeleke, Isabella Freemont, Arthur Jackson, Johnathan Casey
Advisor: Dr. Jandro Abot

In this project, the aim is to design an efficient wireless power transfer (WPT) system capable of powering a device using resonant inductive coupling and metamaterials to increase range and efficiency. Currently, near field wireless power applications are only widely used to charge low power devices such as cellphones, with 70 percent efficiency when compared to a tethered connection. In order to demonstrate a practical and efficient WPT system, the goal of our project is to power a device using a near field WPT approach with an efficiency of greater than 70 percent. It has been proven that resonant inductive coupling between two coils increases the efficiency and range of near field wireless power transfer. The challenges of building our WPT system are: (a) the design of a DC to AC power supply with a frequency of about 90 kHz, (b) matching the resonant frequencies of the transmit and receive coils, (c) impedance matching between the transmit and receive circuits, and (d) effectively incorporating the use of metamaterials into the system. We plan to use simulation software such as FEKO and Multisim to aid in the design and construction of an efficient WPT system.

Multi-Purpose Low Cost Spectrometer

Students: Arthur Coy, Thomas Nargi
Advisor: Dr. George Nehmetallah

This project aims to demonstrate the versatility and advanced capabilities of the Hamamatsu spectrometer chip by developing a low-cost, multipurpose spectrometer device coupled with the latest Arduino Nano. The device can switch between four settings: live spectroscopy, banana ripeness, apple ripeness, and beer classification. It uses non-destructive testing of fruit ripeness by measuring chlorophyll in the skin. Additionally, it offers home brewers an affordable way to verify the color of brewed beer, which is usually done by expensive devices in major breweries. The device can process data onboard and display it instantly on an LCD screen, with a 3D printed case for easy portability. This project aims to showcase the potential of low-cost spectrometry and data analysis capabilities of the Arduino Nano, providing an accessible option for collecting and analyzing spectrographic data.