Aerospace Students at Texas A&M Using VABS Win AHS Competition

Aerospace engineering students at Texas A&M used VABS as part of their senior Capstone Design project to win several awards at the 30th Annual American Helicopter Society (AHS) Student Design Competition. The team included Sarah Atkinson, Katie Lane, Josh Mickle, Tyler Noesser, Lisa Warren, Vishvas Suryakumar (teaching assistant), and Dr. Jonathan Rogers (advisor). Aimed at rescuing victims of a natural disaster, their tiltorotor named “The HealCopter,” took second place in the undergraduate category and was named “Best New Entrant.”

AnalySwift’s VABS and PreVABS programs were used to model the rotor blades on “The HealCopter.” VABS (Variational Asymptotical Beam Sectional Analysis), an efficient high-fidelity cross-sectional analysis, is a unique tool capable of realistic modeling of initially curved and twisted anisotropic beams with arbitrary sectional topology and materials. Relative to 3D analyses, two to three orders of magnitude in computing time can be saved using VABS, with little loss of accuracy. The advantages of VABS over other technologies have been demonstrated by virtue of its generality, accuracy, and efficiency. PreVABS is a design-driven preprocessor for VABS.

The American Helicopter Society International is the world’s premier vertical flight technical society. Since its inception in 1943, AHS has been a major force in the advancement of vertical flight. The Society is the global resource for information on vertical flight technology. It provides global leadership for scientific, technical, educational and legislative initiatives that advance the state-of-the-art of vertical flight. Eurocopter was the sponsor of the 30th annual competition, which rotates among AgustaWestland, The Boeing Company, Bell Helicopter Textron, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., and Eurocopter.

For more details, please read the full story at Texas A&M Engineering.