Class Notes

Review Questions: undergraduate aerodynamics
Review Questions: advanced

Old Tests

Reference:

1. Aerospace Digital Library

 

2. Prof. Smith's Notes for AE6030, Fall 1999

 

2. Joseph Katz and Allen Plotkin, "Low-Speed Aerodynamics: From Wing Theory to Panel Methods". McGraw-Hill Series in Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering, 1991.

 

 
 

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Class Notes Review of 3rd Year Undergraduate Low-Speed Aerodynamics (AE2020)

Expectations in the School of Aerospace Engineering; Graduate School

1:Basic Concepts & Results in Aerodynamics

2: Fundamentals of Fluid Dynamics

3: Conservation Equations

4: Kelvin's Theorem

5: Potential Equation

6: Linearized Forms of the Potential Equation

7: Loads on Finite Wings

8: Unsteady Thin Airfoil Theory

9: Solutions in the Laplace transformed domain

10: Prescribed Airfoil Motion: Wagner Function

11: Prescribed Freestream Fluctuations: Kussner Function

13: Wing Aerodynamics in Supersonic Flow

14: Slender Wings & Bodies

15: High Angle of Attack Aerodynamics

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Expectations in this graduate course in  Aerospace Engineering

Thousands of excellent people have worked very hard to build up the reputation of this School. Right now you represent it. AE students are expected to be enthusiastic and interested professionals. The work that you turn in will be a product, with your name on it: it must represent your very best effort. Assignments are expected to be completed  on time, because you will plan your effort, start early, think about what you are doing, and see the difficulties early so that you can find ways around them. Regular and punctual attendance in class (both physical and mental) is expected; if you have to be absent, you are expected to inform the professor ASAP. Note that for the first time, the entire course notes for this course are being provided to you through the internet, so the professor is under no pressure to write all the stuff on the board: instead he can go far outside the traditional course notes. As he learns the new freedom of this environment, it will become very  dangerous to skip class.

Much more than in undergraduate school, you are expected to think and understand the course material, and to read associated literature. It is expected that you are taking the course because you need to learn the subject. The textbook is meant to be used. The class notes are carefully constructed from various sources: you must learn them well, but recognize that they are only the  bare-essentials of the subject matter.

Downloading class notes:
In the short term, you may find it necessary to download course notes to study from paper. Change this habit quickly, please! We will very soon go to an environment where there will be lots of interactions between several courses.  Also, the web-based content will keep changing, almost every day. Downloading will become prohibitive (how many thousands of pages can you download?) Do not use material copied from the Web as part of your work, without clear acknowledgement: it is the intellectual property of the author.

It is understood that the Institute demands a lot of thought and effort from you, and that you are taking several courses, with tough assignments in all of them: this is what it is like at a school where all the students are excellent, and everyone is learning as fast and as much as they can. In fact it is expected that your total course load is only about 1/3 of your total effort, as graduate students are expected to be spending the majority of their time and effort on research / design projects, or working full-time.

It is also understood that you will have to do some re-visiting of undergraduate material, depending on your background. Assistance for this is provided in the first two lectures, and more is being provided through the Web, but you are expected to follow up on this.  Questions on exams will assume familiarity with undergraduate AE subject matter.

Minimal standards on assignments
1. Detailed reasoning and derivations are expected.
2. Detailed discussion of results is expected.
3. Figures must be drawn neatly, and lettered clearly.
4. Where possible (i.e. feasible with intense effort during the time available) results must be shown to be correct by comparison with other published results, simple physical reasoning etc.

Meeting minimum standards is essential to earn the minimum passing grade, i.e., "C". There is no upper limit on excellence, and the professor cannot tell you what level of performance is "enough" for A grades, or even for B grades. There are no statistical curve-fits used in grading.

Grading is the job of the professor, and it is taken very seriously indeed: don't waste your time trying to guess "grade projections" or thinking up new arguments when you can be learning new things instead. Generally, students in AE classes are pleasantly surprised at their final grade (after coming out of the final exams). There is no "relative grading"  classes because the professor can decide your grade quite well, based on your performance alone. Despite the above,   if you feel that an error has been made in grading, or in the class, please be sure to let the professor know: it won't be the first time! Please be sure that the professor is certainly too busy to waste time being  deliberately unfair to you.
 

Teamwork and Competition

View your classmates as friends and teammates: 20 years from now they'll be your "network" of friends who understand you. We have no "grade curves" or "failure quotas" in this School: instead the School wants every one of us to succeed. Certainly its o.k. to try to do better than anyone else in the world, but it is never o.k to try to get ahead by pulling someone else back. Unfair competition is stupid and wasteful (and professors crack down hard on any such tendencies). Feel free to help your classmates understand the courses: helping someone else learn is a great way to learn and understand things for yourself. You won't get a low grade just because someone else does better: your grade depends on your own performance. Generally, people who help others will become good at the subject very fast, and do very well. Also,  profesors remember who did very well in every course, but not who was "the best": its irrelevant in engineering courses, and makes no difference in the long run. If you find out how much fun it is to learn new things, you will enjoy your time in graduate school  much better.

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