User Friendly 3D Scans and Photogrammetry (Mobile Apps)

Wow, the user friendliness and speed of this app is just amazing. A long way in ease and useability from the open source tool chain I've used previously.

Missiles and Rockets

Missiles and Rockets was a magazine that ran from the mid 1950's to the mid 1960's at the height of the Space Race. All the issues are available on the internet archive. It's neat to see some of the old concepts (like the manned rocket bomber above), and the advertisements in the early issues by companies trying to hire engineers and scientists so they can cash in on the flood of funding in the early gold rush days are pretty entertaining.

Engineering Sketch Pad

I haven't heard of Engineering Sketch Pad (source code as part of OpenMDAO, and here) before, but this is yet another NASA sponsored open source tool that could be useful to you for aircraft conceptual design. I read about it in a post on Another Fine Mesh about some interesting research the folks at Pointwise are doing. It reminds me of, but is different from, Open Vehicle Sketch Pad.

There's a seminar on the software given by one of the developers up on a NASA site: The Engineering Sketch Pad (ESP): Supporting Design Through Analysis. (yea, DARPA!)

It has some neat features that make it useful to support high-fidelity analysis. It creates watertight geometry, it can carry attributes with the geometry that could guide mesh resolution, it does "conservative" data transfer for discipline coupling (match a solver's numerical scheme), and most of its parts are differentiable which is useful for optimization.

I added this to my list of Open Source Aeronautical Engineering Tools.

Monoprice Mini Delta 3D Printer

I recently bought my first personal 3D printer. I have been involved in DIY and hobbyist 3D printing for many years through the Dayton Diode hackerspace I co-founded. This Monoprice Mini Delta is the first printer of my very own. The price point is amazing (less than $160!), and things just work right out of the box. What a hugely different experience than building that first printrbot kit (RIP printrbot). The Printrbot story is actually a piece of the Innovator's Dilemma playing out in this market niche. Printrbot disrupted a higher-cost competitor (Makerbot) who retreated up-market towards higher-end machines, and was then in-turn disrupted by foreign suppliers like Monoprice. This caused Printrbot to reatreat unsuccessfully up-market themselves towards $1000 machines. Who will disrupt Monoprice? I can't wait for my voice controlled, artificially intelligent, $20 printer... In the meantime, this post is about my experience with this little desktop FDM machine you can buy today.

Innovation, Entropy and Exoplanets

I enjoy Shipulski on Design for the short articles on innovation. They are generally not technical at all. I like to think of most of the posts as innovation poetry to put your thoughts along the right lines of effort. This recent post has a huge, interesting technical iceberg riding under the surface though.

If you run an experiment where you are 100% sure of the outcome, your learning is zero. You already knew how it would go, so there was no need to run the experiment. The least costly experiment is the one you didn’t have to run, so don’t run experiments when you know how they’ll turn out. If you run an experiment where you are 0% sure of the outcome, your learning is zero. These experiments are like buying a lottery ticket – you learn the number you chose didn’t win, but you learned nothing about how to choose next week’s number. You’re down a dollar, but no smarter.

The learning ratio is maximized when energy is minimized (the simplest experiment is run) and probability the experimental results match your hypothesis (expectation) is 50%. In that way, half of the experiments confirm your hypothesis and the other half tell you why your hypothesis was off track.
Maximize The Learning Ratio

Exciting 3D Print Service Developments

It has never been easier to go from a design in your head to parts in your hand. The barriers to entry are low on the front end. There are all sorts of free and open source drawing, mesh editing, modeling or CAD applications. On the fabrication end of things, services like shapeways, and imaterialise continue to improve their delivery times, material options and prices.

One of the recent developments that deserves some attention is in metal 3D printing. imaterialise has offered parts in DMLS titanium for a while, but they've been pretty pricey. They have now significantly reduced the prices on Ti parts, and are now offering a trial with aluminum. Not to be left out, Shapeways has graduated SLM aluminum from its pilot program.

It's great to see such thriving competition in this space. I'm working on some models specifically for this metal powder-bed fusion technology. What will you print?

Reliability Growth: Enhancing Defense System Reliability

This report (pdf) from the National academies on reliability growth is interesting. There's a lot of good stuff on design for reliability, physics of failure, highly accelerated life testing, accelerated life testing and reliability growth modeling. Especially useful is the discussion about the suitability of assumptions underlying some of the different reliability growth models.

The authors provide a thorough critique of MIL-HDBK-217, Reliability Prediction of Electronic Equipment, in Appendix D, which is probably worth the price of admission by itself. If you're concerned with product reliability you should read this report (lots of good pointers to the lit).

Guidelines for Planning and Evidence for Assessing a Well-Designed Experiment

This paper is full of great guidance for planning a campaign of experimentation, or assessing the sufficiency of a plan that already exists. The authors break up the effort into four phases:

1. Plan a Series of Experiments to Accelerate Discovery
2. 1. Design Alternatives to Span the Factor Space
   2. Decide on a Design Strategy to Control the Risk of Wrong Conclusions
3. Execute the Test
4. Analyze the Experimental Design

They give a handy checklist for each phase (reproduced below). The checklists are comprehensive (significantly more than my little list of questions) and I think they stand-alone, but the whole paper is well worth a read. Design of experiments is more than just math, as this paper stresses it is a strategy for discovery.

UAVs for Film and Profit

Yesterday's AIAA Daily Launch had a great round-up of some recent UAV news:

• Wall Street Journal (6/27, Nicas, Subscription Publication) reported on the ongoing fight over U.S. unmanned aircraft rules, which is pitting high-tech entrepreneurs against major aerospace and defense companies.
  
• Washington Post (6/28, Whitlock) reported that a majority of U.S. military UAV accidents occur abroad, but “at least 49 large drones have crashed during test or training flights near domestic bases since 2001, according to a yearlong Washington Post investigation.”
  
• AP (6/28, Jelinek) reported that the Pentagon announced armed UAVs are “flying over Baghdad to protect U.S. troops that recently arrived to assess Iraq’s deteriorating security.”
  
• South Florida Sun Sentinel (6/29, Anthony) reported that Boynton Beach is dropping plans to ban drones in order to boost its “fledgling image as a technological hot spot — a place that welcomes engineers and innovation.”
  
• South Bend (IN) Tribune (6/29, Sheckler) reported that as UAVs become cheaper and more available to the public, and their popularity grows among hobbyists and entrepreneurs, “they will increasingly raise questions about how to best regulate them, and how to balance concerns about safety and privacy.”
  
• Hollywood Reporter (6/27, Giardina) reported that Hollywood movie studios are interested in using UAVs in filming “because they hold the promise of new creative options, real cost savings and possibly even safer sets.” Federal law prohibits the commercial use of UAVs, so filmmakers choose to shoot in countries with lax UAV laws to get the shots needed for their films.
  

Most interesting are the petitions of the seven aerial photography companies for exemptions for commercial filming operations. As the FAA press release says, the seven Section 333 Exemption Applications for Commercial Operations of Unmanned Aircraft are available on regulations.gov:

• Filed by Astraeus Aeria
  
• Filed by Aerial MOB, LLC
  
• Filed by HeliVideo Productions LLC
  
• Filed by Flying-Cam Inc.
  
• Filed by RC Pro Productions Consulting LLC dba Vortex Aerial
  
• Filed by Pictorvision Inc.
  
• Filed by Snaproll Media LLC
  

I think it is interesting that these companies are taking this approach, because in some fillings by Pirker they specifically call out historical use of remote control aircraft for movies and TV (one of four broad categories of commercial use they cite). The applications have 18 "limitations and conditions" under which commercial operations will take place. They also make this interesting claim: "These limitations provide for at least an equivalent or even higher level of safety to operations under the current regulatory structure because the proposed operations represent a safety enhancement to the already safe movie and television filming operations conducted with conventional aircraft."

To drive that point home they show a couple pictures of a manned helicopter filming as it currently occurs.

SpaceX SuperDraco Made with DMLS

SpaceX completes Super Draco Qual

From the press release:

The SuperDraco engine chamber is manufactured using state-of-the-art direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), otherwise known as 3D printing. The chamber is regeneratively cooled and printed in Inconel, a high-performance superalloy that offers both high strength and toughness for increased reliability.

“Through 3D printing, robust and high-performing engine parts can be created at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional manufacturing methods,” said Elon Musk, Chief Designer and CEO. “SpaceX is pushing the boundaries of what additive manufacturing can do in the 21st century, ultimately making our vehicles more efficient, reliable and robust than ever before.”

Flight Demo Program Lessons Learned

In the BAA for the DARPA XS-1 program there is a presentation by Jess Sponable about lessons learned from previous flight demonstration programs. It takes a certain level of audacity to quote Machiavelli in a presentation on program management, but the quote is pretty applicable to any new system development (though I agree with Strauss: it must be remembered that Machiavelli teaches wickedness).

It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions, and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.
The Prince, Machiavelli, 1513

Here are the rules compiled based on previous flight demonstration program experience:

1. Agree to clearly defined program objectives in advance
   
2. Single manager under one agency
   
3. Small government and contractor program offices
   
4. Build competitive hardware, not paper
   
5. Focus on key demonstrations, not everything
   
6. Streamlined documentation and reviews
   
7. Contractor integrates and tests prototype
   
8. Develop minimum realistic funding profiles
   
9. Track cost/schedule in near real time
   
10. Mutual trust essential
    

The two that jump out at me are 'single manager under one agency', and 'contractor integrates and tests prototype' (which is really about constraining the size and cost of the test program). Programs like National Aerospace Plane or Project Timberwind come to my mind as falling prey to violating these two rules. Both programs expended a great deal of effort coordinating and reconciling often conflicting interests of multiple federal agencies. Even in the happy event that the interests of the cooperating agencies perfectly align multi-agency participation almost always ensures more bureaucracy. Those programs also spent or planned to spend enormous resources in ground test and specialized supporting infrastructure. In fact, the ballooning cost of the ground test facility for Timberwind was a significant contributing factor in its cancellation.

RAND: no life-cycle cost savings from joint aircraft

RAND has a recent report out examining the historical performance of joint (i.e. multi-service) aircraft development programs. Their key findings are:

• Joint aircraft programs have not historically saved overall life cycle cost. On average, such programs experienced substantially higher cost growth in acquisition (research, development, test, evaluation, and procurement) than single-service programs. The potential savings in joint aircraft acquisition and operations and support compared with equivalent single-service programs is too small to offset the additional average cost growth that joint aircraft programs experience in the acquisition phase.
  
  
• The difficulty of reconciling diverse service requirements in a common design is a major factor in joint cost outcomes. Diverse service requirements and operating environments work against commonality which is the source of potential cost savings, and are a major contributor to the joint acquisition cost-growth premium identified in the cost analysis.
  
  
• Historical analysis suggests joint programs are associated with contraction of the industrial base and a decline in potential future industry competition, as well as increased strategic and operational risk due to dependency across the services on a single type of weapon system which may experience unanticipated safety, maintenance, or performance issues with no alternative readily available.
  

Here's the Abstract:

In the past 50 years, the U.S. Department of Defense has pursued numerous joint aircraft programs, the largest and most recent of which is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Joint aircraft programs are thought to reduce Life Cycle Cost (LCC) by eliminating duplicate research, development, test, and evaluation efforts and by realizing economies of scale in procurement, operations, and support. But the need to accommodate different service requirements in a single design or common design family can lead to greater program complexity, increased technical risk, and common functionality or increased weight in excess of that needed for some variants, potentially leading to higher overall cost, despite these efficiencies. To help Air Force leaders (and acquisition decisionmakers in general) select an appropriate acquisition strategy for future combat aircraft, this report analyzes the costs and savings of joint aircraft acquisition programs. The project team examined whether historical joint aircraft programs have saved LCC compared with single-service programs. In addition, the project team assessed whether JSF is on track to achieving the joint savings originally anticipated at the beginning of full-scale development. Also examined were the implications of joint fighter programs for the health of the industrial base and for operational and strategic risk.

JSF is now expected to be more expensive than 3 F-22-like single-service programs:

GE Jet Engine Bracket Challenge Winners

Topologically Optimized Bracket by KMWE + TU Delft

The winners for the GrabCAD GE Bracket Design challenge have been manufactured and tested. See all the pictures here. The team I mentioned previously that was using topology optimization went ahead and manufactured their bracket themselves. What a great demonstration of metal additive manufacturing (3d printing) and topology optimization. I hope the GrabCAD folks get the promised detailed feedback for all the entries up soon.

LockMart SR-72

NASA SP-2001-4525

AvWeek has a nice marketing piece for Lockheed-Martin's Mach 6 ISR/strike concept based on Blackswift that they're calling SR-72. They have a nice set of graphics that compares the the new Mach 6-capable combined cycle engine to the old Mach 3 SR-71 cycle.

YF-12 Inlet Schematic

The SR-71 provides a nice historical example of design for high-temperature metallic structures. There is also a great deal of detail on the research NASA did on the YF-12 which includes quite a bit of declassified material on how the YF-12 family managed the inlet boundary layer and shock train across the wide range of Mach numbers at which it operated. One of the aircraft involved in that research program is at the museum so folks can go see it, and there is a virtual tour of the SR-71 cockpit available for those who can't make it to Dayton.

Defense Acquisitions: Where Should Reform Aim Next?

An alternative title for this GAO report might be, "Defense Acquisitions: Constantly Reforming." We've been "reforming" for decades with such little variation in results that "Acquisition Reform" has become nearly impossible to take seriously:

Let's just skip the acquisition reform charade... Another blue-ribbon study, more legislation and a new slogan will not make it happen at last...
Prof. H. Sapolsky, MIT

Luckily, this latest GAO report on the problem has no sweeping "blue ribbon"-style reform suggestions. There seems to be a pretty pragmatic recognition that perverse incentives are largely the reason that many of the grandiose reform efforts of the past were doomed to failure:

Reforms that focus on the methodological procedures of the acquisition process are only partial remedies because they do not address incentives to deviate from sound practices. Weapons acquisition is a complicated enterprise, complete with unintended incentives that encourage moving programs forward by delaying testing and employing other problematic practices. These incentives stem from several factors. For example, the different participants in the acquisition process impose conflicting demands on weapon programs so that their purpose transcends just filling voids in military capability. Also, the budget process forces funding decisions to be made well in advance of program decisions, which encourages undue optimism about program risks and costs. Finally, DOD program managers' short tenures and limitations in experience and training can foster a short-term focus and put them at a disadvantage with their industry counterparts.

Drawing on its extensive body of work in weapon systems acquisition, GAO sees several areas of focus regarding where to go from here:

• at the start of new programs, using funding decisions to reinforce desirable principles such as well-informed acquisition strategies;
  
• identifying significant risks up front and resourcing them;
  
• exploring ways to align budget decisions and program decisions more closely; and
  
• attracting, training, and retaining acquisition staff and managers so that they are both empowered and accountable for program outcomes.
  

These areas are not intended to be all-encompassing, but rather, practical places to start the hard work of realigning incentives with desired results.

Open Source Aeronautical Engineering Tools

* permanent page with updates: Open Source Aeronautical Engineering Tools*

I was reading through some of the papers and cites related to OpenMDAO and stumbled across a couple interesting papers[1, 2] on open source software in aeronautics.

Abstract: Open source software has become an alternative to commercial software for industrial users. Industrial users adopting to OSS and the underlying concepts need to consider changing their software development practices and organization in order to benefit from the OSS model. These changes may involve both technical and non-technical aspects. Openness and collaboration with a community are two non-technical concepts that may require such changes, while evaluating OSS products or evaluating different strategies for integrating OSS products are two technical aspects that may require adoption.

The objective of this paper is to create an awareness for the adoption of OSS in an industrial context. OSS can be used in different ways. Four categories of using OSS are presented by discussing motivation, implication and experience for each category. The main conclusion from this work is that organizations should have a realistic expectation of both the designated benefits and extension of organizational changes necessary to adopt to OSS. This conclusion is based on observations from industrial organizations using OSS, including OSS in the aeronautics industry, as well as from observations reported in the literature on open source.

GE Jet Engine Bracket Challenge: Phase I Winners

I wrote previously about some neat entries in the GE Engine Bracket Challenge on GrabCAD that used topology optimization. As reported by GE, they have picked their winners from Phase I. Phase I consisted of simulating the submitted parts in several different load cases and ranking them by how much weight the designer was able to shave off.

Located around the world, finalists include:

• Ármin Fendrik, based in Hungary, is a third-year university student and this entry is among his first 3D printing designs.
• Thomas Johansson, Ph.D, based in Sweden, is a consultant for a Swedish hyper-car manufacturer and is a champion snowmobile drag racer.
• Nic Adams, based in Australia, supported the installation of a pathology lab automation system in a Sydney hospital, which includes a robotic handling system that helps analyze hundreds of test tubes each day.
• M Arie Kurniawan, based in Indonesia, is co-founder of an engineering firm that provides high quality mechanical engineering, design optimization and product design services.
• Sebastien Vavassori, based in the United Kingdom, is a stress engineer for a leading European space manufacturer and service provider.
• Piotr Mikulski, based in Poland, works as a rapid prototyping systems specialist for a Polish-Swiss joint-venture that provides industrial and machining services.
• Andreas Anedda, based in Italy, is a postgraduate university student and holds three patents.
• Alexis Costa is based in France.
• Mandli Peter is based in Hungary.
• Fidel Chirtes is based in Romania.

These winner from Phase I will have their designs "printed" in Titanium and then tested by GE to determine the winners for Phase II.

ProtoLabs Design Tips

Here are pdfs for 9 volumes of ProtoLabs Design tips. They do low volume injection molding and rapid three-axis CNC machining.

Volume 1 — Topics include: draft, radiused corners, material choices, shut-offs, texture...

Volume 2 — Topics include: side actions, naming files, text on parts, wall thickness...

Volume 3 — Topics include: hot tips on gates, parting lines, clips, shut-offs, materials matrix...

Volume 4 — Topics include: fun with cams, fillets, living hinges, ultrasonic welds, sink...

Volume 5 — Topics include: rotational draft, knit lines, square corners, prototyping...

Volume 6 — Topics include: bosses, prototyping processes, attachments, mold flow...

Volume 7 — Topics include: texture, pickouts, bump-offs, ejector pins, parting lines...

Volume 8 — Topics include: gates, living hinges, designing lenses, finishes, transparent parts, and more...

Volume 9 — Topics include: designing clips, elimination of unnecessary material, text, crush ribs, bridge tooling, injection molding gears…

3-D Printing in DoD: Who's Dragging Their Feet?

I found this article, Why is the Pentagon Dragging Its Feet on 3D Printing, by way of Small Wars Journal. It has some interesting information. The Army is deploying mobile Fab Labs, which seems like a mini MIT FabLab in a shipping container. I think this is a really neat idea. How this can be characterized as feet dragging, I'm not sure. The feet dragging accusation is based on some hand-waving from an article on Disruptive Thinkers, and another article that seems to be worried that there is no Pentagon overlord in charge of an additive manufacturing strategy:

With possible dwindling budgets on the horizon, a clear strategy and cohesive approach is essential to create efficiencies in the area of research and development as well as eliminating duplicative efforts. In order for DoD to take advantage of what is anticipated to be an explosion in the commercial sector within the next ten years, the Department must take an active approach, partnering with the private sector to keep up with this relatively nascent technology and shaping/guiding it towards the desired end state the department has in mind.

One step towards a clear strategy and cohesive approach is for DoD to designate an AM Czar within the Department. They could serve as a single point for all things AM and not the myriad of technical advisory boards that currently exist. This office could then work with policy makers to execute and monitor a strategy which will allow DoD to take full advantage of this technology. Logically, this office would interface directly with the National Additive Manufacturing and Innovation Institute (NAMII) as DoD's representative
3-D Printing Revolution in Military Logistics

I think an "additive manufacturing Czar" sounds like a terrible idea (so I'm sure it will secure funding for some beltway bandits to do a study). I know my recent success with qualifying a particular additive manufacturing process and supplier for use in 3D printing wind tunnel models did not need a Pentagon king-pin to tell me about DoD's strategy for additive manufacturing. Using this technology just made sense as a way to solve my problem: get a complex wind-tunnel model rapidly, and at an affordable cost. I did not receive top-down direction or guidance to use AM, I simply took the initiative to solve my problem. After reading that article I'm left wondering, just how exactly is waiting on direction from the very heights of the bureaucracy supposed to lead to innovation?

Midwest Pilot vs Euro Factories of the Future

I wrote a bit previously about the midwest pilot to increase penetration of high performance computing and simulation into the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of the US mid-western regional manufacturing supply chain. The similarity to the European 'factories of the future' program jumped out at me as I was reading the recent article in Aerospace America, 'International Beat: Printing your next vehicle'. The article describes the European program:

'Factories of the Future' was set up in 2009, a €1.2-billion public-private partnership between the EC and industry. The research program focuses on the development of new and sustainable technologies highlighted by the Ad-Hoc Industrial Advisory Group to the commission, to help EU manufacturing enterprises--in particular small and medium-sized enterprises--to adapt to global competitive pressures by improving their technological base.

Research areas include new models of production systems (transformable factories, networked factories, learning factories); ICT-based production systems and high-quality manufacturing technologies (including research into increasing autonomous production lines); and sustainable manufacturing tools, methodologies, and processes producing assemblies with complex and novel materials.

With the completion of the EC's seventh framework research program this year, EFFRA has been working to continue the research within the commission's new seven-year research program, Horizon 2020. This will focus on:

• Advanced manufacturing processes.
• Adaptive and smart manufacturing systems
• Digital, virtual, and resource-efficient factories
• Collaborative and mobile enterprises
• Human-centered manufacturing
• Customer-focused manufacturing

Contrast with this from the Council on Competitiveness:

The Council on Competitiveness and selected original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are developing a Midwestern regional pilot program as a public-private partnership with the U.S. federal government. The pilot program is aimed at improving competiveness and innovation in small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in the U.S. manufacturing supply chain. The ultimate outcome of the pilot program will be a workforce with enhanced technical skills, improved product quality, better customization of products, and job retention and growth.

[...]

The high level goal of this pilot program is to develop and demonstrate a sustainable, scalable and replicable model for accelerating and broadening use of modeling, simulation and analysis (MS&A) in Midwestern SMEs through a public-private partnership (described below). Funding will be provided as seed money for this pilot program, with the expectation that it will demonstrate a path toward long-term sustainability. This is only achievable if (a) the supply chain members can rapidly reach a point where the results produce cost-benefits that allow and incentivize them to continue use of MS&A, either independently or within the continued context of the pilot program, and (b) software vendors can develop a business model that provides easier and more affordable access to software tools for SMEs.

These manufacturing competitiveness initiatives seem to be focused on additive manufacturing or 3D printing right as this technology peaks on Gartner's hype cycle.

3D Printing Tops the Gartner Hype Cycle 2012

Hopefully something useful will be left for us makers, hackers, engineers and small business owners when all the smoke clears and the twittering classes move on to the next big thing. I think this DIY Rocket thing is a clear indication of the heights of unreasonable expectations that we've reached. It is important to sift through the silliness because there's some really good and useful technology to be exploited here.