Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering at Loughborough University

aeronautical and automotive engineering department

Practical Engineering Experience

		Good engineers need practical experience. Until you try to machine a piece of metal, you cannot appreciate how easy or difficult it will be for a machinist to manufacture the component you have designed. For this reason during the first year, all students carry out exercises using hand tools, lathes, milling machines and numerically controlled (NC) machines. Where possible the exercises are given an aeronautical flavour.

At the end of the first year, all students spend two weeks working on design and make projects. One recent project saw first year students designing, building and flying a model aircraft to lift a given load. During the design phase, students had to apply the knowledge that they gained from a number of modules, including those in Mechanics of Materials and Aircraft Systems and Design.

In the second year the emphasis moves towards practical design experience. Working in pairs, students have to design a lightweight structure to carry a given combination of loads. The structures are then produced by the first year students as part of their practical training. When completed, the structure is tested to see whether or not it can carry the required loads. The second year students receive a mark that is based on the loads carried by the structure, the weight of the structure and the cost of manufacture. For many second year students the design and testing of the structure is one of the highlights of the BEng course. Not only do they get to see their designs manufactured and tested, they also learn the importance of clear communication and good design practice. As many students have discovered, just because you can produce a design on the computer screen doesn't mean that it can be produced in the workshop.

		Another important area of practical experience are the laboratory sessions run to support analytical based subjects such as Fluids, Propulsion, etc. These sessions are designed to help students understand the material covered in lectures and tutorials. During the BEng course, students get to carry out experiments using jet engines, wind tunnels and large structural testing machines.

Before commencing their third year, all students do a short course in flight testing. This course uses the Cranfield University Jetstream aircraft. All students conduct four in-flight experiments. These experiments are designed to provide a practical dimension to the topics covered in the Aircraft Design module, and illustrates how in the later parts of the MEng, the practical and aircraft design content of the course begin to merge.


In third year module Aircraft Project Design, students apply their practical knowledge to the design of an aircraft. Students are split into groups, with each group producing an initial design for a different type of aircraft. Current design projects include: 7000 mile range airliner Roadable Aircraft (ie an aircraft that can be driven along the road) During the second semester, students develop the initial design by carrying out individual design tasks on their group's aircraft. These design tasks coincide with the particular interest of individual students. So for instance, a student particularly interested in aerodynamics may do the aerodynamics of the wing, whilst a student interested in structures, may carry out the structural design of the fuselage. The Roadable Aircraft is being developed in conjunction with the Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech in the USA. Each year one group of students do a collaborative design project with their US counterparts. As well as regular trans-atlantic communication via the web, students visit eachother's universities. In the final year, students with a strong interest in the practical aspects of engineering, will probably do an experimental based final year project. A recent example of an experimental project is a wind tunnel investigation into the aerodynamics of under wing stores. The project is a significant part of the final year, and represents 58% of the year in terms of both time and marks.