Teaching Activities: Prof. Nikhil A. Koratkar

1. Student Thesis Supervision
   
        Thesis In Progress

   1. Masters
      1. Ashish Modi

         “Development of Compact, Miniaturized Sensory Devices Engineered using Nano-Technology“, Started May 2002

      2. Nicholas Viscio

         “Rocket Assisted Micro Powered Parachute (RAMPP) Concept”, Started August 2002

   2. Doctoral
      1. Kim Jong Min

         “Active Flow Control Concepts for Micro-Rotorcraft” Started March 2001

      2. Eric Lass

         “Mutifunctional Structural Reinforcement Featuring Carbon Nanotube Thin Films”, Started January 2002

      3. Jonghwan Suhr

         “A Cellular Automata Approach for Nano-Scale Computations”, Started August 2002

   3. Post Doctoral
      1. Juntaek Ryoo

         “On the Equivalence Between Cellular Automata and Molecular Dynamics Simulations ” Started July 2002

   4. Doctoral Thesis Committee Member
      1. Hyungdae Lee
   
   
   

2. Course and Curriculum Development

   1. MEAE.4920 – Aerospace Structures and Controls Lab

      Offered Spring Semester – Annually, 2 credit hours

      A new undergraduate laboratory course was developed and taught for the very first time in the spring semester of 2001. The primary emphasis of the laboratory was on experiments related to lightweight structures, structural dynamics, and control as it applies to aircraft, spacecraft and rotorcraft. Experiments include tensile testing of aerospace structural materials, elastic instability investigations of columns under compressive load, introduction to basic strain gage sensing techniques, structural vibrations of cantilevered Euler-Bernoulli beams and introduction to basic airfoil aerodynamics and aeroelastic interactions.

   2. MEAE.4200 – Rotorcraft Performance Stability & Control

      Offered Fall Semester – Annually, 4 credit hours

   3. MEAE.6060 – Rotorcraft Performance Stability & Control

      Offered Fall Semester – Annually, 4 credit hours

      The existing course content was upgraded with new course materials. These included advanced topics such as: unsteady aerodynamics and dynamic stall, rotor wake structure modeling and experimental flow visualization as well as rotorcraft vibration and acoustics. Student “seminars” were also incorporated into the curriculum to enhance student participation and involvement in the learning process.

   4. MEAE.4320 – Fixed Wing Design

      Conceptual and preliminary design of a fixed wing aircraft to satisfy given commercial specifications. Includes elements of initial sizing and weights, geometry selection, aerodynamic design, propulsion integration, stability and control, loads, structural design, manufacturability and cost analysis. Writing intensive assignments and student presentations to help develop communication skills and team-work.

   
   
   

3. Honors and Awards

   In Fall 2001, Prof. Koratkar was awarded the “Curriculum Innovation Award”, by the Office for Undergraduate Education at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for developing a micro-rotor test platform to support theory and design classes related to aerospace engineering. To bridge the gap between theory and practical implementation and provide the students greater confidence in the capabilities as well as limitations of conventional modeling and design tools “laboratory experiments” were added to the curriculum. The students were asked to test a micro-rotor system at different rotor speeds and blade collective pitch settings. Both conventional untwisted, rectangular planform blades as well as advanced geometry rotor blades were tested. The rotor thrust, induced power, profile power and figure of merit were experimentally measured and compared with the predictions of momentum theory, blade-element theory and lifting-line theory. These tests served to enhance the student’s physical understanding and appreciation of the fundamental concepts that govern aircraft flight.

   Under this program, five undergraduate students (Victor Maldonado, Nate Gray, Thomas Cuomo, Michael Davis and Wei Zhang) and two high school seniors (Ryan DeMuth and Halden Grossman) have worked in Prof Koratkar’s laboratory. Three conference papers with undergraduate students as co-authors have resulted from this project. One of Prof Koratkar’s undergraduate students, Victor Maldonado won a prestigious General Electric Fellowship to continue work on the Micro-Air-Vehicle test platform over the 2002 summer semester.