Cyclone Business Jet (CBJ) is an

undergraduate student Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

organization at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricult ...

, undertaking the task of designing and constructing a

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...

10-passenger commuter or

business class Business class is a travel class available on many commercial airlines and rail lines, known by brand names that vary by airline or rail company. In the airline industry, it was originally intended as an intermediate level of service between e ...

jet airplane A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by one or more jet engines. Whereas the engines in propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much lower speeds and alt ...

. It is composed mostly of

Aerospace Engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

majors, however there are also Mechanical and

Civil Engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

s as well as Design majors. Emphasis is taken in designing for lower cost and greater fuel range. Teams are broken off into three sub-groups: the

Aerodynamics Aerodynamics () is the study of the motion of atmosphere of Earth, air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dynamics and its subfield of gas dynamics, and is an ...

Team, Performance Team, and Structures Team. The goal of Cyclone Business Jet is to apply classroom acquired skills to a real life problem with a finished product in mind.

History

Cyclone Business Jet was started around 2004 by, Matt Eller. Eller Enterprises, Inc. purchased rights to a business jet stuck in design phases from a company in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

.{{Cite web , url=http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/real-estate-developer-plans-to-resurrect-vantage-11266/ , title=Real-estate developer plans to resurrect vantage: AINonline , access-date=2010-11-16 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616212843/http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/real-estate-developer-plans-to-resurrect-vantage-11266/ , archive-date=2011-06-16 , url-status=dead The project was then given to Iowa State University to finish. Dr. Dayal and Mr. Eller formed the club by offering undergraduate students a unique opportunity: designing a production business jet.

Language barrier A language barrier is a figurative phrase used primarily to refer to linguistic barriers to communication, i.e. the difficulties in communication experienced by people or groups originally speaking different languages (or different dialects in ...

s and translation issues plagued the first years of CBJ's existence. Most of the research and designing already completed was in Portuguese. After several semesters of

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

some good information surfaced. The most recent data for the shape of the airplane and the external skin was compiled and converted from

CATIA CATIA (, an acronym of computer-aided three-dimensional interactive application) is a multi-platform software suite for computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided engineering (CAE), 3D modeling and product li ...

Solidworks SolidWorks (stylized as SOLIDWORKS) is a brand of software used for solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE). It was one of the first 3D CAD applications designed to run on a desktop PC. The brand is owned ...

. From this a wind tunnel model was designed. Currently the final design for the

wind tunnel A wind tunnel is "an apparatus for producing a controlled stream of air for conducting aerodynamic experiments". The experiment is conducted in the test section of the wind tunnel and a complete tunnel configuration includes air ducting to and f ...

model is being printed using Iowa State University Aerospace Department's Rapid Prototyping Machine. The machine uses

ABS plastic Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (chemical formula (C8H8)''x''·(C4H6)''y''·(C3H3N)''z'' ) is a common thermoplastic polymer. Its glass transition temperature is approximately . ABS is amorphous and therefore has no true melting point. A ...

and support material to construct the individual parts. It "prints" or lays down the materials at thicknesses close to 1/1000 of an inch. Once finished all the parts will be assembled and then tested in Iowa State University's largest wind tunnel.

Aerodynamics Team

The Aerodynamics Group of Cyclone Business Jet is made up of approximately 35 students. Current work includes constructing a

scale model A scale model is a physical model that is geometrically similar to an object (known as the ''prototype''). Scale models are generally smaller than large prototypes such as vehicles, buildings, or people; but may be larger than small protot ...

of the aircraft to use for

testing, as well as displaying in public to represent Cyclone Business Jet. Upon completion the model will be tested in the AABL (Aerodynamic / Atmospheric Boundary Layer) Wind Tunnel in Howe Hall for wind tunnel testing, previously unused by any club at ISU. The model to be used in the wind tunnel could not simply be copy and pasted, then printed. The entire aircraft was scaled down from full size to fit in the wind tunnel. The fuselage,

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

s, and tail were broken into smaller parts that could be printed in ISU's

rapid prototyping Rapid prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design ( CAD) data. Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D printing ...

machine. Each part was redesigned for optimal weight and strength to lighten the wind tunnel model without sacrificing durability. Data from the wind tunnel is collected using a JR3 force balance. It is capable of reading forces and moments in the x, y, and z axises, also known and six

degrees of freedom In many scientific fields, the degrees of freedom of a system is the number of parameters of the system that may vary independently. For example, a point in the plane has two degrees of freedom for translation: its two coordinates; a non-infinite ...

. The size of the model requires that the JR3 unit be placed inside the aircraft rather that behind, otherwise the weight of the model is likely to exceed the limits of the JR3 unit. The result is a bulkhead constructed of

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

that will connect the JR3 to the wings and fuselage.

Performance Team

The Performance Group is assigned the task of analyzing how the Cyclone Business Jet will fly and react to

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

ing. There are many aspects of the Cyclone Business Jet to be evaluated, such as aircraft stability, minimum and maximum operating speeds, flight loads, rate of climb, and maximum

altitude Altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum (geodesy), datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context (e.g., aviation, geometr ...

. The team consists of approximately 19 students of all levels of Aerospace Engineering experience. By combining data from the Aerodynamics and Structures groups, the Performance group can determine how the Cyclone Business Jet will perform in flight.

Structures Team

There are many new faces working in the structures group this semester. This means that a lot of basic learning must be done before we apply our skills on the actual business jet. One of our main goals this semester is to get a working model of the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

in ANSYS. ANSYS is a

finite element analysis Finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical models, mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural ...

program that can determine the stresses in all parts of the plane. First we must learn ANSYS. We have all learned a few tutorials to get us started, and some pictures are shown here.

Design Team

The Design Group consist of a handful of talented

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

design students at Iowa State University. The Team is charged with creating a

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in ...

to represent CBJ, both in the professional world as well as on ISU campus. Other work includes aircraft paint schemes and apparel. It has been undecided what the inside of the Business Jet will have. As a result the design team may, in the future, draw concepts of luxury and economical ideas able to house ten passengers.

References

Abandoned civil aircraft projects of the United States