ENGR 4 Engineering Materials
Team Material Selection Project1
Project Background
The SAE Aero Design competition is a real‐world international design challenge, with the goal to “design,
manufacture, and successfully fly a remote controlled aircraft capable of carrying a large payload”. This
design competition has many requirements, which can be found attached in this module
Among these requirements is the weight of the aircraft, which should not exceed 55 pounds with
payload. As well as the components staying attached during the flight, takeoff, and lending.
The below Figure 1 is of airframe designed by one of the teams in 2015. The role of your team is to
select the best material for different components of this design.
Figure 1: Airframe Design of One Competing Team in 2015
Project Goal
Your team is to apply a systematic approach based on the understanding of the design requirements
and constraints, to research, analyze and select best material to be used for different components of the
above airframe design. Each team can only select three materials from Table 1 below.
Table 1: Candidate Material for Airframe Design
Candidate Material
Balsa wood
Plywood
Aluminum 6061
Aluminum 1100
Chemical-Resistant PVC
Antistatic Polycarbonate
Easy-to-machine Polystyrene
Thickness (in)
1/8 or 1//4
1/8 or 1//4
1/16 or 1/8
1/16 or 1/8
1/8 or ¼
1/8 or ¼
1/8 or ¼
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This project is adapted from “A Comprehensive Term Project for Materials Science Course”, Shen, H.; and Mehta,
V, ASEE, 2017
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Design constraint:
This section identifies other design constraints, in addition to the set competition requirements.
For the load condition of each type of component, a relatively small load would apply on the
ribs, medium load on body spars, large load on the engine mount and payload box, and
extremely large load on the wing spars (as can be seen in table 2 below)
Among the constraint for the material selection is that the maximum stress must be less than or
equal to the failure strength, noting that a design safety factor of 2.5 must be applied
The dimensions for each of the mentioned components are listed in the Table 2 below:
Table 2: Airframe Component Dimensions
Component
Rib
Body Spar
Engine Mount
Payload Box
Wing Spar
Load F (lb)
0.25
1
2
2
3
Span Length (in)
6
8
6
6
8
Width (in)
1/2
1/2
1
1
1/2
The design criteria for the material selection must include:
Cost (the lower the better)
Strength (the higher the better)
Weight (the lower the better)
The weight factor for each of these criteria are listed in Table 3 below:
Table 3: Weight Factor for Design Criteria
Component
Rib
Body Spar
Engine Mount
Payload Box
Wing Spar
Cost (%)
10
10
15
10
10
Strength (%)
10
30
50
40
60
Weight (%)
80
60
45
50
30
Instructions
Each team is to provide a report (no more than five pages) indicating selected material for each airframe
component listed in this project description. The report should:
Clearly justify the reasoning for selection – discuss material properties, design requirements,
design criteria…etc.
Only 3 viable materials are to be selected for the whole design (across all components). Noting,
you can choose a material not listed in Table 1, but only one material, the remaining two must
come from Table 1
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The report must follow technical writing guidelines, and incorporate appropriate headings and
subheadings
The team report must include the following:
Cover page: to include course name, team members name, and date of submission. This page will
not count towards the page limit.
Introduction: This section should clearly describe:
o Problem background.
o Project goals and objectives.
o Design requirements and criteria impacting decision making.
Analysis: This section should clearly describe the process used to evaluate alternative materials,
describing:
o Design requirements for each component.
o Alternative materials considered along with their properties.
o The use of decision matrix to evaluate and select material.
Conclusion and Recommendation: In this section you will describe your findings and recommended
materials to use.
References: include all resources used, including those to obtain material information, following APA
formatting. This section will not count towards the page limit.
Appendix: to include any calculations related to the report but were not reflected in the body of the
report. This section will not count towards the page limit.
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