MECH1907 – Introduction to Aerospace Engineering

Fall 2021/22
Final Exam – December 3–5, 2021

• Examination time: Dec 3 9:00 am – Dec 5 noon (51 hours)

• Please indicate which year you are in, especially first year students
• There are a total of 8 problems in this examination with grading point indicated at
each question (total: 100 points).
• Note that neatness is important, we will not be able to grade your answers if we
cannot read them. Do NOT squeeze your answers together. Use the space nicely
and neatly.
• You do not need to present the answers in order (e.g., you might want to start with
the last problem first), but keep all parts (a, b, c, ...) together.
• For calculation problems:
– Answer the questions neatly, in the given-asked-answer format.
– Include the calculation steps clearly. Failing to do so will get your marks de-
ducted.
– Use sufficient number of decimal points in your calculations. For bigger
numbers, you can use two decimal points (e.g., 23.45 kg) and for smaller numbers
you might need to use more (e.g., CD = 0.0045) or use scientific notations (e.g.,
CD = 4.5 × 10−3 ). Excessive rounding might give you answers that are too far
from the actual answers. Though we will be lenient in terms of calculations and
allow for slight variations in answers, they still need to be in the ballpark.
– Include units in your answer, otherwise points will be deducted.
– Indicate clearly your final answer: underline or put a box around it.
– Follow the given unit conversions and constants in your answers whenever needed.
• Submit your answer (typed or handwritten) to Canvas in PDF format.

GOOD LUCK!

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 MECH1907 – Introduction to Aerospace Engineering
Fall 2021/22
Final Exam – December 3–5, 2021

Common conversions and parameters

• K = ◦ C + 273
• 1 ft = 0.3048 m
• 1 knot = 0.5144 m/s
• 1 lbf = 4.45 N
• 1 Pa = 1 N/m2
• 1 nautical mile = 1852 m
• Gravitational acceleration g = 9.81 m/s2 (32.2 ft/s2 )
• Atmospheric pressure at standard sea level patm = 1.01 × 105 N/m2 (2116 lb/ft2 )
• Atmospheric density at standard sea level ρatm = 1.23 kg/m3 (0.002377 slug/ft3 )
• Atmospheric temperature at standard sea level Tatm = 288.16 K (15.16 ◦ C)
• Earth radius rEarth = 6.356766 × 106 m
• γair = 1.4
• cp = 1008 J/(kg)(K) for air
• Specific gas constant R = 287 J/(kg)(K), R = 1716 ft.lbf /(slug)(◦ R)
The standard atmospheric diagram is provided in Figure 1 (next page).

Remember that you have seen and learned the topics in class. Stay calm, take time to
think deeply, and do your best.

Enjoy solving the exam problems! To most of you, this exam is essentially about some-
thing you are passionate about (aircraft!).

“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.”
– Albert Einstein

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Figure 1: Temperature Distribution in the Standard Atmosphere

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Problem 1
(a) Describe, in your own words, the concept of conservation of mass. Start with no as-
sumptions of steady/unsteady flow, and then simplify it for the steady case. Feel free to use
diagram, equations, or even analogies as you see fit. (Note that just copying from lecture notes
or other sources does not count.) (3 points)

(b) An aircraft moves forward at a speed of 960 km/hr as shown in Figure 2. W1 and W2 are
the relative velocities of air at an engine inlet and outlet considering the airplane speed,
respectively. The frontal intake area of the jet engine is 8 200 cm2 and the entering air
density is 0.73 kg/m3 . A stationary observer determines that relative to the earth, the jet
engine exhaust gases move away from the engine with a speed of 1 000 km/hr. The engine
exhaust area is 6 000 cm2 , and the exhaust gas density is 0.5 kg/m3 . Estimate the mass flow
rate of fuel into the engine in kg/hr (4 points).

Figure 2: The fuel flow into the engine of a flying aircraft.

Problem 2
Consider a spherical airship (see Figure 3 as a reference) with a radius of 9 m. The airship is flying
at a velocity of 28 m/s at an altitude where the temperature and pressure are 275 K and 80 kPa,
respectively. The total weight of the airship (including the gas inside) is 35 000 N.

(a) Following the definition of wing planform, what is the planform shape of this airship? (1 point)

(b) What is the altitude it is flying at, assuming it is flying at the standard atmosphere? You
can pick either temperature altitude, pressure altitude, or density altitude (2 points).

(c) What would be the required lift coefficient such that the airship can maintain a straight-and-
level flight (in a vertical equilibrium) with no acceleration? (4 points)

Problem 3
(a) To see whether an airfoil can still produce lift when flying upside down, consider an asym-
metric airfoil with the following lift property:

Cl = 0.75 at α = 5◦ and Cl = 0.3 at α = 0◦ .

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 Figure 3: A spherical airship.

(i) What will happen when the airfoil flies upside down, can it still fly? Share your thoughts
(2 points).
(ii) If the airfoil can fly upside down, how will the lift coefficient compare to when it flies
right-side up at the same α = 5◦ ? (4 points) (Hint: mirror image.)

(b) Two wings are operating at the same velocity and lift. Wing B has doubled chords compared
to wing A, and they have the same span length. How do their induced drag Di ’s compare?
((Di )A > (Di )B or (Di )A = (Di )B or (Di )A < (Di )B ) Explain your answer (4 points).

(c) Consider a wing with CLmax = 1.7 at clean configuration (i.e., without flap deflection) and
CLflaps
max
= 2.7 with flap deflection. Based on this information, discuss:

(i) How does flap deflection affect stall performance? (2 points)

(ii) Why is flap deflected during landing? (2 points)

(d) You can PICK ONE of the two options below (4 points):
OPTION 1 (For those who like Mathematics):
Derive the relation between CD,0 and CD,i at maximum L/D.
(Hint: first, express L/D as a function of CL .)

OPTION 2 (For those who are more Math-averse):

Describe the relationship between thrust required and aerodynamic performance, and indi-
cate it in a TR vs V curve. In your own words, briefly explain the implication of (L/D)max
in aircraft performance.

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Problem 4
Consider an aircraft equipped with two landing gears, with a total mass of 13 766.15 kg. At an
instant of touchdown impact, the reaction force acting on each landing gear is 198.2 kN.
(a) Compute the vertical acceleration at the instant of this impact (2 points). Consider only
the vertical forces.

(b) Compute the load factor in the vertical direction (2 points).

(c) The impact experienced by the aircraft during landing will have some negative consequences
on the structures. Now, let’s check the structural integrity of the aircraft. A test is conducted
to find the tested ultimate vertical load on each landing gear, which is 480 kN. The landing
gear is designed to withstand a maximum vertical acceleration (in an upward direction) of
three times the gravitational acceleration (3g).

(i) Compute the corresponding maximum reaction force of each landing gear (i.e., the limit
load) (2 points).
(ii) Compute the ultimate limit load, using an ultimate factor of safety (UFS) value of 1.5
(2 points).
(iii) Compute the ultimate margin of safety (MOS) (2 points).

Problem 5
Let’s consider a hypothetical situation where a fictitious aircraft is flying in a fictitious planet. The
specifications for the fictitious aircraft and planet are given in Tables 1 √ and 2, respectively. Note
that the equation of state and the expression for speed of sound, a = γRT , still apply in this
planet.

Parameter Specification
Mass (during cruise) 250 000 kg
Mass (empty fuel) 220 000 kg
Wing area 1 600 m2
Zero-lift drag coefficient 0.025

Table 1: Specification for the fictitious aircraft.

Parameter Specification
Temperature distribution T (◦ C) = −22.5 − 0.0025h
Pressure distribution p (Pa) = 700 × e−0.00012h
Radius of the planet r = 3.4 × 106 m
Specific gas constant R = 192 J/kg.K
Gravitational acceleration at sea level g0 = 3.72 m/s2
Heat capacity ratio γ = 1.3

Table 2: Fictitious planet parameters. The altitude h used in the above equations is in meters.

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All answers below should correspond to the fictitious planet, not Earth.

(a) What is the corresponding altitude (m) at this planet such that the temperature is the same
as that at 13 km on Earth? (2 points)

(b) What are the pressure (N/m2 ) and density (kg/m3 ) at this altitude in the planet? (3 points)

(c) What is the corresponding gravitational acceleration at this altitude? (2 points)

(d) Consider the aircraft is flying at a level, unaccelerated flight at this altitude with a speed of
M = 2.0. Calculate the corresponding CL at this flight condition (3 points).

(e) Now, we need to estimate the corresponding landing distance, where the airport elevation is
at the sea level. The maximum lift coefficient, with flaps fully deployed at touchdown, is 3.5.
The coefficient of friction during braking is 0.5. Assume there is no lift during ground roll
(4 points).

Problem 6
A cylinder fitted with a piston has a volume of V1 = 0.2 m3 and cross-sectional area of A = 0.25 m2 .
It contains m = 0.6 kg of steam at p = 0.25 MPa. The internal/thermal energy per unit mass at
the beginning and end of the process are u1 = 1 800 kJ/kg and u2 = 2 500 kJ/kg, respectively.
The volume expands to V2 = 0.36 m3 when the process is completed, while the pressure remains
constant throughout the process.

(a) Compute the amount of heat transferred during the process, assuming no kinetic and potential
energies present (4 points).

(b) Now, assume that the entire heat transfer is done via convection. The convective heat transfer
to the steam is completed within 11.5 seconds, assuming zero initial heat. If the convective
heat transfer coefficient h is 1000 W/m2 K, what would be the final temperature (in K) if the
initial temperature is T1 = 100◦ C? (3 points)

Problem 7
Consider an aircraft with an average mission weight 1 of 3 600 000 N and aerodynamic efficiency 12.
The aircraft is flying at 180 m/s at an atmospheric pressure of 1.5 × 104 N/m2 . The aircraft uses a
turbofan engine to provide thrust. The inlet and exit areas of the engine are Ai = Ae = 15 m2 . The
velocity and pressure of the exhaust gas are Ve = 480 m/s and pe = 2.7 × 104 N/m2 , respectively.

(a) Calculate the minimum mass flow rate of the engine to be able to fly at this condition
(4 points).

(b) What is the definition of a bypass ratio in a turbo fan engine? What is the effect of a high
bypass ratio on the propulsive efficiency, and what is the drawback of a high bypass ratio
engine? (2 points)
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You can consider it as the corresponding weight mid flight, and can use it as a representative weight in your
calculation unless a specific weight is required.

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 (c) Consider the mass flow rate ṁ obtained in part (a) as the constant mass flow of air and fuel
(combined) of a turbofan engine (bypass stream + core stream). Now, consider a turbofan
engine where the mass flow rate of the fuel can be approximated by considering a bypass
ratio of 7:1, and an air-to-fuel ratio (in the combustion chamber) of 14:1. A schematic of a
turbofan engine is provided in Figure 4 for your reference. Compute the total mass of fuel
burned during an 8 hour flight with this particular aircraft and engine (3 points).

Figure 4: A turbofan engine.

(d) Compute how far can the aircraft fly (in nautical miles) as it consumes the amount of fuel
computed in part (c), assuming the TSFC of the turbofan engine is 1.2 × 10−4 N/N· s. For
this aircraft, the corresponding landing weight is 3 100 000 N (3 points).

Problem 8

(a) Engineers and researchers investigate materials’ properties by checking their stress-strain
curves. By looking at Figure 5, determine which material has the following quality (for i to
iii), and describe briefly what criterion you use to find the material with each quality (for i
to iv). (4 points)

Figure 5: Stress-strain curves of three different materials.

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 (i) highest strength
(ii) best stiffness
(iii) best plasticity
(iv) What criterion will you use to find the material with the best toughness?

(b) How can you use the Bréguet range equation to estimate the total fuel consumption of a flight
flying over R distance, assuming other variables are known? (1 point)

(c) The Bréguet range equation is derived based on some simplifying assumptions when we use
it to approximate fuel burn on a typical mission profile. Will the prediction accuracy depend
on total flight distance (e.g., short-haul flight such as Hong Kong to Taipei vs long-haul flight
such as Hong Kong to London), or will it not make any difference at all? Explain your answer
and the rationales behind it (3 points).

(d) Back in July 2017, an Air India flight had to be diverted because pilots forgot to retract
landing gears. Could you explain briefly the consequences of not retracting landing gears
during flight, and why a diversion was required? (2 points)

(e) The Boeing 777X was recently introduced as the latest series of the long-range, wide-body,
twin-engine Boeing 777 family from Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Its unique design charac-
teristics include folded wingtips, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Boeing 777X with folded wingtips.

I want you to discuss about the implications of this design decision to different disciplines
you have learned in class (e.g., aerodynamic, structures, aircraft performance, operations,
etc) (4 points).

(f) When heat is transferred from a hot source to a colder reservoir, what are the entropy changes
in the source and reservoir, respectively? Which one will be bigger in magnitude? Which
thermodynamics law defines entropy? (3 points)

(g) Fatigue and creep are two common material failures in aircraft structures. Their failure
mechanisms are different, but they share a common characteristic. Describe this common
characteristic (2 points).

(h) During lecture, your MECH 1907 course instructor often used daily-life examples to explain
concepts discussed in class. For each of the examples mentioned below, (i) state the physical
phenomenon described using the example, and (ii) describe briefly how the example is relevant
(6 points).

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 (i) A minibus turning in a winding road
(ii) Steak
(iii) Sagging cloth hanger
(iv) Muscle soreness when you resume a rigorous exercise after some time and the importance
of stretching

PS: Please fill out SFQ if you haven’t done so already! ,

GOOD LUCK!

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