Senior capstone design projects heat up student opportunities for applied learning, helping them roar to success. For their capstone project, a team of Rose-Hulman seniors competed in the Aerospace Propulsion Outreach Program, hosted by the Air Force Research Laboratory, where they modified a hobby jet engine and earned the Best Newcomer Award.

The team — which included mechanical engineering majors Max Wilking, Kolby Cockett-Nagamine, Owen Wiesler, Andrew Leonard, and Tim Swicord — was tasked with designing and integrating a compact and precise heat exchanger, using engine bleed air to heat a flow. The goal of a heat exchanger is to transfer heat energy from one flow of air to another.

"In a practical application, this is used for when you sit on a plane and you turn on the air," Wilking explained. "That air is coming from the atmosphere. You need a way to heat that up."

He continued, "You take a little bit of hot air from the engine, and you run it side by side. It warms up the atmospheric air so that it's comfortable when you're sitting on the plane."

This marked the first year that Rose-Hulman competed at the event in Dayton, Ohio. Guided by civilian and Air Force officer mentors, as well as by Rose-Hulman faculty, the team first built a test stand for their engine. They then designed, built, and affixed the heat exchanger modification to the engine provided by the competition, with the goal of obtaining a specific heat transfer rate without sacrificing a substantial amount of thrust or fuel efficiency. The team ran tests on the engine in the Branam Innovation Center.

The team bested several other newcomer teams, including Cornell University, California Polytechnic State University, Tennessee Tech, and University of Alabama. Students from 21 colleges presented their designs in an open forum during the competition.