8:52 AM

Elements of Aerospace Engineering

Posted by Mohammad Waqas Malik

Some of the elements of aerospace engineering are:

Wernher von Braun, with the F-1 engines of the Saturn V first stage at the US Space and Rocket CenterFluid mechanics - the study of fluid flow around objects. Specifically aerodynamics concerning the flow of air over bodies such as wings or through objects such as wind tunnels.
Astrodynamics - the study of orbital mechanics including prediction of orbital elements when given a select few variables. While few schools in the United States teach this at the undergraduate level, several have graduate programs covering this topic (usually in conjunction with the Physics department of said college or university).
Statics and Dynamics (engineering mechanics) - the study of movement, forces, moments in mechanical systems.
Mathematics - in particular, calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra.
Electrotechnology - the study of electronics within engineering.
Propulsion - the energy to move a vehicle through the air (or in outer space) is provided by internal combustion engines, jet engines and turbomachinery, or rockets. A more recent addition to this module is electric propulsion and ion propulsion.
Control engineering - the study of mathematical modeling of the dynamic behavior of systems and designing them, usually using feedback signals, so that their dynamic behavior is desirable (stable, without large excursions, with minimum error). This applies to the dynamic behavior of aircraft, spacecraft, propulsion systems, and subsystems that exist on aerospace vehicles.
Aircraft structures - design of the physical configuration of the craft to withstand the forces encountered during flight. Aerospace engineering aims to keep structures lightweight.
Materials science - related to structures, aerospace engineering also studies the materials of which the aerospace structures are to be built. New materials with very specific properties are invented, or existing ones are modified to improve their performance.
Solid mechanics - Closely related to material science is solid mechanics which deals with stress and strain analysis of the components of the vehicle. Nowadays there are several Finite Element programs such as MSC Patran/Nastran which aid engineers in the analytical process.
Aeroelasticity - the interaction of aerodynamic forces and structural flexibility, potentially causing flutter, divergence, etc.
Avionics - the design and programming of computer systems on board an aircraft or spacecraft and the simulation of systems.
Risk and reliability - the study of risk and reliability assessment techniques and the mathematics involved in the quantitative methods.
Noise control - the study of the mechanics of sound transfer.
Flight test - designing and executing flight test programs in order to gather and analyze performance and handling qualities data in order to determine if an aircraft meets its design and performance goals and certification requirements.
The basis of most of these elements lies in theoretical mathematics, such as fluid dynamics for aerodynamics or the equations of motion for flight dynamics. However, there is also a large empirical component. Historically, this empirical component was derived from testing of scale models and prototypes, either in wind tunnels or in the free atmosphere. More recently, advances in computing have enabled the use of computational fluid dynamics to simulate the behavior of fluid, reducing time and expense spent on wind-tunnel testing.

Additionally, aerospace engineering addresses the integration of all components that constitute an aerospace vehicle (subsystems including power, aerospace bearings, communications, thermal control, life support, etc.) and its life cycle (design, temperature, pressure, radiation, velocity, life time).

8:45 AM

Elements of Aerospace Engineering

Posted by Mohammad Waqas Malik

Some of the elements of aerospace engineering are:

Wernher von Braun, with the F-1 engines of the Saturn V first stage at the US Space and Rocket CenterFluid mechanics - the study of fluid flow around objects. Specifically aerodynamics concerning the flow of air over bodies such as wings or through objects such as wind tunnels.
Astrodynamics - the study of orbital mechanics including prediction of orbital elements when given a select few variables. While few schools in the United States teach this at the undergraduate level, several have graduate programs covering this topic (usually in conjunction with the Physics department of said college or university).
Statics and Dynamics (engineering mechanics) - the study of movement, forces, moments in mechanical systems.
Mathematics - in particular, calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra.
Electrotechnology - the study of electronics within engineering.
Propulsion - the energy to move a vehicle through the air (or in outer space) is provided by internal combustion engines, jet engines and turbomachinery, or rockets. A more recent addition to this module is electric propulsion and ion propulsion.
Control engineering - the study of mathematical modeling of the dynamic behavior of systems and designing them, usually using feedback signals, so that their dynamic behavior is desirable (stable, without large excursions, with minimum error). This applies to the dynamic behavior of aircraft, spacecraft, propulsion systems, and subsystems that exist on aerospace vehicles.
Aircraft structures - design of the physical configuration of the craft to withstand the forces encountered during flight. Aerospace engineering aims to keep structures lightweight.
Materials science - related to structures, aerospace engineering also studies the materials of which the aerospace structures are to be built. New materials with very specific properties are invented, or existing ones are modified to improve their performance.
Solid mechanics - Closely related to material science is solid mechanics which deals with stress and strain analysis of the components of the vehicle. Nowadays there are several Finite Element programs such as MSC Patran/Nastran which aid engineers in the analytical process.
Aeroelasticity - the interaction of aerodynamic forces and structural flexibility, potentially causing flutter, divergence, etc.
Avionics - the design and programming of computer systems on board an aircraft or spacecraft and the simulation of systems.
Risk and reliability - the study of risk and reliability assessment techniques and the mathematics involved in the quantitative methods.
Noise control - the study of the mechanics of sound transfer.
Flight test - designing and executing flight test programs in order to gather and analyze performance and handling qualities data in order to determine if an aircraft meets its design and performance goals and certification requirements.
The basis of most of these elements lies in theoretical mathematics, such as fluid dynamics for aerodynamics or the equations of motion for flight dynamics. However, there is also a large empirical component. Historically, this empirical component was derived from testing of scale models and prototypes, either in wind tunnels or in the free atmosphere. More recently, advances in computing have enabled the use of computational fluid dynamics to simulate the behavior of fluid, reducing time and expense spent on wind-tunnel testing.

Additionally, aerospace engineering addresses the integration of all components that constitute an aerospace vehicle (subsystems including power, aerospace bearings, communications, thermal control, life support, etc.) and its life cycle (design, temperature, pressure, radiation, velocity, life time).

8:40 AM

What is Aerospace Engineering?

Posted by Mohammad Waqas Malik

Aerospace engineering is the branch of engineering behind the design, construction and science of aircraft and spacecraft. It is broken into two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. The former deals with craft that stay within Earth's atmosphere, and the latter deals with craft that operate outside of Earth's atmosphere.

While aeronautical engineering was the original term, the broader "aerospace" has superseded it in usage, as flight technology advanced to include craft operating in outer space.Aerospace engineering, particularly the astronautics branch, is often informally called rocket science.

8:31 AM

Software Development Activities

Posted by Mohammad Waqas Malik

Planning
The important task in creating a software product is extracting the requirements or requirements analysis. Customers typically have an abstract idea of what they want as an end result, but not what software should do. Incomplete, ambiguous, or even contradictory requirements are recognized by skilled and experienced software engineers at this point. Frequently demonstrating live code may help reduce the risk that the requirements are incorrect.

Once the general requirements are gleaned from the client, an analysis of the scope of the development should be determined and clearly stated. This is often called a scope document.

Certain functionality may be out of scope of the project as a function of cost or as a result of unclear requirements at the start of development. If the development is done externally, this document can be considered a legal document so that if there are ever disputes, any ambiguity of what was promised to the client can be clarified.

Implementation, testing and documenting
Implementation is the part of the process where software engineers actually program the code for the project.

Software testing is an integral and important part of the software development process. This part of the process ensures that bugs are recognized as early as possible.

Documenting the internal design of software for the purpose of future maintenance and enhancement is done throughout development. This may also include the authoring of an API, be it external or internal.

Deployment and maintenance
Deployment starts after the code is appropriately tested, is approved for release and sold or otherwise distributed into a production environment.

Software Training and Support is important because a large percentage of software projects fail because the developers fail to realize that it doesn't matter how much time and planning a development team puts into creating software if nobody in an organization ends up using it. People are often resistant to change and avoid venturing into an unfamiliar area, so as a part of the deployment phase, it is very important to have training classes for new clients of your software.

Maintenance and enhancing software to cope with newly discovered problems or new requirements can take far more time than the initial development of the software. It may be necessary to add code that does not fit the original design to correct an unforeseen problem or it may be that a customer is requesting more functionality and code can be added to accommodate their requests. It is during this phase that customer calls come in and you see whether your testing was extensive enough to uncover the problems before customers do. If the labor cost of the maintenance phase exceeds 25% of the prior-phases' labor cost, then it is likely that the overall quality, of at least one prior phase, is poor. In that case, management should consider the option of rebuilding the system (or portions) before maintenance cost is out of control.

Bug Tracking System tools are often deployed at this stage of the process to allow development teams to interface with customer/field teams testing the software to identify any real or perceived issues. These software tools, both open source and commercially licensed, provide a customizable process to acquire, review, acknowledge, and respond to reported issues.

8:27 AM

Software Development

Posted by Mohammad Waqas Malik

The largely growing body of software development organizations implement process methodologies. Many of them are in the defense industry, which in the U.S. requires a rating based on 'process models' to obtain contracts.

The international standard for describing the method of selecting, implementing and monitoring the life cycle for software is ISO 12207.

A decades-long goal has been to find repeatable, predictable processes that improve productivity and quality. Some try to systematize or formalize the seemingly unruly task of writing software. Others apply project management techniques to writing software. Without project management, software projects can easily be delivered late or over budget. With large numbers of software projects not meeting their expectations in terms of functionality, cost, or delivery schedule, effective project management appears to be lacking.

Organizations may create a Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG), which is the focal point for process improvement. Composed of line practitioners who have varied skills, the group is at the center of the collaborative effort of everyone in the organization who is involved with software engineering process improvement.

8:20 AM

Sub-Disciplines of Software Engineering

Posted by Mohammad Waqas Malik

Software engineering can be divided into ten subdisciplines. They are:

Software requirements: The elicitation, analysis, specification, and validation of requirements for software.
Software design: The design of software is usually done with Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools and use standards for the format, such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML).
Software development: The construction of software through the use of programming languages.
Software maintenance: Software systems often have problems and need enhancements for a long time after they are first completed. This subfield deals with those problems.
Software configuration management: Since software systems are very complex, their configuration (such as versioning and source control) have to be managed in a standardized and structured method.
Software engineering management: The management of software systems borrows heavily from project management, but there are nuances encountered in software not seen in other management disciplines.
Software development process: The process of building software is hotly debated among practitioners with the main paradigms being agile or waterfall.
Software engineering tools, see Computer Aided Software Engineering
Software quality

8:18 AM

What is Software Engineering?

Posted by Mohammad Waqas Malik

Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software.

The term software engineering first appeared in the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference and was meant to provoke thought regarding the current "software crisis" at the time.Since then, it has continued as a profession and field of study dedicated to designing, implementing, and improving software that is of higher quality, more affordable, maintainable, and quicker to build. Since the field is still relatively young compared to its sister fields of engineering, there is still much debate around what software engineering actually is, and if it conforms to the classical definition of engineering. It has grown organically out of the limitations of viewing software as just computer programming.

Software development, a much used and more generic term, does not necessarily subsume the engineering paradigm. Although it is questionable what impact it has had on actual software development over the last more than 40 years, the field's future looks bright according to Money Magazine and Salary.com who rated "software engineering" as the best job in the United States in 2006.