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2023 Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) - Mechanical Design and Fabrication of Rotating Test Stand for Supersonic Wind Tunnel

Cal Poly - College of Engineering
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The College of Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) is a unique opportunity for college of engineering undergraduate students to engage in hands-on research with a faculty mentor while using critical thinking, collaborative, and entrepreneurial skills. SURP is an 8-week long program (can be non-contiguous), and students are expected to spend at least 20 hours/week working on their research projects and additional time preparing and presenting their poster for the annual SURP symposium; SURP students and their faculty mentor will agree upon a start date and timeline for their research project (with a suggested start date of June 26th, 2023). The goals of SURP are to: 
 
  1. Help Cal Poly Engineering students develop professionally and enhance their portfolios for future employment. 
  2. Give opportunities for CENG faculty (including lecturers) to advance their research/project agendas over the summer quarter. 
  3. Build lasting student-faculty mentoring relationships 
  4. Provide opportunities for industrial and other external sponsors to work with Cal Poly faculty and students to advance connections, gain access to Cal Poly talent and capabilities, and engage in valuable collaborative activities. 
 
Our Summer 2023 SURP will support over 30 projects (with some projects taking 2 students) for 39 students. You can apply to up to 3 projects on MustangJobs (each project has its own job posting). You need not be in the same department as the faculty advisor to apply to a given project.

Each SURP student participant will receive a CENG Summer Research Grant of $3,500.
Please note that the grant amount is fixed, and additional funding is not available. This grant will be disbursed through the Financial Aid Office toward the end of the summer. Preference will be given to students who have not yet participated in SURP. 







This Project 

Project Title: Mechanical Design and Fabrication of Rotating Test Stand for Supersonic Wind Tunnel
Faculty Advisor: Nandeesh Hiremath
Faculty Email: nhiremat@calpoly.edu
Faculty Department: AERO
Number of Students for this project: 1
Building a rotating test stand for dynamically changing bluff body orientations subjected to high-speed f lows is the goal of this project. The rotating test stand is a crucial component in characterizing aerodynamics of bodies of arbitrary shapes at arbitrary orientations subjected to supersonic speeds. A similar test setup (PI’s own efforts) has proven to be successful and is in practice inside the Cal Poly lowspeed wind tunnel. Adapting the design to supersonic wind tunnel will require significant changes to the test stand geometry, assessing wind tunnel access points, axes of rotations, and vibrational load limits. In relation to ongoing testing in the low-speed wind tunnel where the Reynolds number effects are being evaluated, such a rotating test stand will enable evaluating Mach number effects at high-speed flows under dynamic conditions. The project will aim at designing and fabricating a test stand coupled with stepper/brushless motor and gears suitable to test canonical shapes like spheres and cubes similar to atmospheric re-entry/debris objects. Shadowgraph imaging technique will be used to validate the design limitations of the rotating test stand. The work emphasizes on tying in concepts from structural mechanics, kinematics, design, and fabrication, suitable for an undergraduate student to gain exposure to wind tunnel testing and building a test setup.


HOW TO APPLY:

PLEASE SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING TWO DOCUMENTS VIA HANDSHAKE AND SEE RUBRIC BELOW FOR EVALUATION CRITERIA. YOU CAN APPLY TO UP TO THREE SURP PROJECTS, BUT CAN ONLY BE AWARDED ONE.

  1. Submit your resume 
  2. Submit a cover letter that answers the following three questions: 
  • Describe why you are interested in this research project. 
  • Describe how participating in SURP and working on this research project, will help you advance your academic and professional development goals 
  • Describe how your past experiences have helped prepare you for your participation in SURP. This includes relevant academic, other formal, and informal preparation. 

Click here to view SURP application evaluation rubric

INCOMPLETE APPLICATIONS COULD DISQUALIFY YOU FROM FURTHER CONSIDERATION.

Note that applications are due April 30; selected students will be notified by no later than May 12.