In this blog post, we’ll explore how mechanical and aerospace engineering interrelate to drive future technological advancements and industrial innovation.
The School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering is a combination of the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering. Mechanical engineering plays a key role in many industries and everyday life, and is based on fundamental disciplines such as mechanical design and manufacturing, dynamics, thermodynamics, and materials science. Aerospace engineering, on the other hand, is about machines, just like mechanical engineering, and is based on the same fundamental disciplines. For this reason, aerospace engineering can be broadly included in mechanical engineering. However, aerospace engineering deals primarily with flying vehicles that operate in and around the atmosphere, which requires a different approach than the machines on Earth.
Aerospace engineering is concerned with the utilization of machines in special environments, such as the atmosphere or space, to ensure the stability and efficiency of airplanes. As such, the field has developed separately, driven by the need to study special technologies that are different from those of ordinary machines. For example, the design of an airplane wing or the durability of a spacecraft must remain reliable in extreme environments, presenting many technical challenges not typically addressed in mechanical engineering.
In fact, all machines that take to the skies incorporate advanced technologies from materials, energy, electrical, electronic, and chemical engineering, in addition to aeronautics. Aerospace engineering is an interdisciplinary field, which makes it difficult to understand it comprehensively, but it’s also very interesting. As such, it’s not only difficult to get a general idea of what it is, but it’s also impossible to know exactly what it is. Therefore, in this article, we”ll focus solely on what aerospace engineering deals with, dividing it into four main areas and characterizing them.
The first is engines. In order to fly, an airplane needs a lot of thrust, which is different from that of a regular car. And you can’t just use a big engine like a large ship, because if it weighs too much, it won’t fly, or it will require a lot of energy inefficiently, so you need a small but high-performance engine that can produce a lot of power. In addition to this, different engines are needed for different purposes, such as airliners, fighter jets, rovers, satellites, and planetary missions. This requires highly specialized research. In this process, new propulsion technologies, such as plasma engines or ion propulsion, are being researched and contribute to the development of aerospace engineering.
The second is the field of fluid flow. A car is positioned on the ground, pushing against the ground to move forward. But an airplane is in the middle of the air, invisible and ungraspable, and needs to be propelled by it to stay airborne and move forward. Furthermore, when an object is traveling faster than the speed of sound, unusual flow phenomena appear that we don’t see every day, and these have strong and unpredictable effects on the object. In real-world flight, this can lead to very dangerous situations, so research should look ahead to different flow phenomena and figure out how to prevent or control them. Furthermore, aerodynamic design directly affects fuel efficiency, speed, and stability, which are crucial to the performance of aircraft and spacecraft.
The third area is control. Imagine you’re diving underwater: it’s hard, but with a little effort, you can stay upright. However, if a strong wave hits you, your body will be out of your control and you will be swept around by the wave, which is dangerous. The same is true for airplanes. However, instead of water, it is a fluid, air, or nothingness in space, and it must always maintain its original attitude and orientation, no matter how it is affected. This is why research is so important. Developing advanced control systems, such as autonomous navigation, is key in this field. This will allow the airplane to autonomously set its flight path and maintain its stability in the face of sudden unexpected events.
Finally, there’s the structural field. Unlike the ground, the atmosphere and space are very harsh environments. External pressures and temperatures change dramatically from moment to moment, and they move at very high speeds. They are subjected to strong forces from fluids, which can put a lot of strain on an airplane and be dangerous. In order to withstand these conditions, the airplane must be designed to be structurally very strong so that it never shows signs of damage, such as dents, cracks, or melting. This leads to the research and application of new materials, such as composites. These materials must be lightweight, strong, and able to maintain their performance under extreme temperatures and pressures.
This is just a brief overview of what aerospace engineering deals with. It may seem difficult, complex, and uninteresting to you, thinking that aerospace engineering is only for very specialized fields. However, these advanced technologies have a huge impact and are already being used across a wide range of fields. For example, most of the advanced technology in cars and ships came from aviation, as did the GPS systems that are now ubiquitous. Aerospace engineering is likely to be one of the leading industries of the future, as it is responsible for many of the most advanced technologies in use today. Aerospace engineering also plays an essential role in developing new sources of energy and exploring the future of humanity through space exploration.
