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Disaster Relief Project
FINAL REPORT
Alfredo M Diaz
ASUx FSE 100x
April 16, 2018
Abstract
Over the past ten weeks at Sparky Aid Designs, we have been developing an
innovative solution both with a variety of new skills & tools in our engineering toolbox
and with the customer in mind throughout the design process. The project titled,
“Disaster Relief Project”, surrounds the new aircraft design solution with the specific
effort to help in the aid of zombie outbreaks in North America. With the primary objective
of medical refuge and aide, design decisions had to be made about the overall
performance of the aircraft, wing shape & structure, interior payload capacity,
automation systems, financials, and more.
Introduction
There is opportunity for innovation and improvement in the designs of aircrafts
built to help in the aid of disasters of all kinds; hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes,
tornadoes, and even infectious viruses that may lead to a zombie outbreak. Specifically
looking into the zombie outbreak problem, we would need to design an aircraft that can
reach a large range of populations to provide a temporary medical treatment site to
places that would otherwise be helpless. With that in mind, our stakeholders include
those in need of treatment, those providing the treatment, and those who fund and work
in operations. The most important interests to note are low project & build costs,
reachability to any in need, and capacity & variety of medical aide.
The following is a table listing all requirements and criteria for our design.
Requirements Criteria
1. The design shall have a range of at 1. Range of Aircraft to service many
least 5,000 km. disaster sites as the aircraft is a
temporary refuge camp.
2. The design shall make a total of 3
2. Payload capacity will determine
trips per day. how long aircraft can last as a
3. The design shall have a rate of refugee camp.
climb more than 2% of the cruise 3. Endurance long flights for
speed. evacuation
4. The design shall carry 5,000 lbs of 4. Cruise Speed speed of flights for
equipment/chemicals to produce evacuation and rescue
5. Load/Unloading Time quick as
pills on site. possible to rescue and treat as
5. The design shall carry at least 400 many people.
passengers.
The following is a Analytic Hierarchy Process table use to evaluate which criteria is the
most important in the eyes of all of our stakeholders.
Capacity Endurance Range Cruise Speed Total Weight
Capacity 1 3 1/5 3 7.2 26.00%
Endurance 1/3 1 1/3 1/3 2 7.20%
Range 5 3 1 5 14 50.50%
Cruise Speed 1/3 3 1/5 1 4.53 16.30%
Total 27.73
Background
The missions at hand for our aircraft will primarily focus on the treatment of those
who are treatable since we can assume that medical treatment centers have otherwise
been compromised since the outbreak started. Secondarily, the aircraft will provide a
search and rescue service to seek out those who are infected but treatable in such
areas. As a last resort, the aircraft will provide evacuation if the landing site and
surrounding area has been swarmed.
The mission of the aircraft is as follows. The aircraft will land just outside of the
targeted outbreak zone and immediately, the team will build a temporary medical
treatment center around the aircraft itself. Meanwhile, the scouts on board will go into
the infected area, armed and seek out those who are treatable and those who are
uninfected. The medical staff will tend to the treatable patients while the scouts continue
to seek out more survivors. This process will repeat until scouts declare the area
completely searched. The mission can then be called a success and the aircraft will
move to the next outbreak zone.
Design Overview
The important features of our final design for the aircraft will reflect the previously
stated requirements and criteria such as range of the aircraft, materials chosen for cost,
and automations for certain scenarios the aircraft might face. As said before, the aircraft
has the following missions listed by priority; provide medical treatment in outbreak
zones, search & rescue treatable and uninfected persons, and provide an evacuation
procedure as a last resort. With that said, the aircraft will feature a wing design to
support a large range to reach as many populations as possible with the tradeoff of
speed. Since evacuation is not a priority for this aircraft, it will also feature a large
storage capacity for the vast amount of medical equipment while also featuring some
seating capacity for both staff and evacuees. Despite not being a priority, an automation
system of locking all the aircraft doors will also be featured in the case of an evacuation
procedure. This will ensure the safety of the full capacity aircraft from the infected.
Subsystems
Interior Design
The interior of the aircraft, modeled above, will be occupied mostly by the medical
equipment needed and some by the seating space.
Wing Shape & Structure
The wings of our aircraft will be constructed with an IBeam made out of steel in order to
support the large payload and range performance.
Automation
Our automation system will be used for the last resort of an evacuation procedure. It will
automatically lock all the aircraft doors if all the passenger seats are occupied unless
the pilot disables the failsafe.
TradeOffs & Future Work
Some significant tradeoffs had to be made with such high performance in certain
subsystems. With the ability to go a long range, the aircraft loses cruise speed. This is
okay since we only need to be able to go the distance and not necessarily get there
fast. Ideally the aircraft would be able to support a “full” evacuation plan but the tradeoff
of transporting medics and medical equipment was made. In the future we will need to
construct models and do some testing & troubleshooting all with the customer and
stakeholder in mind.
Testing & Evaluation
The following test procedures were conducted for the shape of our wings on the
aircraft. The most important part that we need to get out of our wings’ performance was
the lift since we are working with quite a heavy aircraft. The summary and results follow.
Experiment 1: LifttoDrag based on Camber
Figure 1.1: Experiment 1 Minimum Figure 1.2: Experiment 1 Maximum
Experiment 2: LifttoDrag based on Span (m)
Figure 2.1: Experiment 2 Minimum Figure 2.2: Experiment 2 Maximum
Experiment 3: LifttoDrag based on Angle of Attack (degrees)
Figure 3.1: Experiment 3 Minimum Figure 3.2: Experiment 3 Maximum
Summary & Results
When looking at figures 1.1, 2.1, & 3.1, we see that all have polynomial trendlines but in
different ways. In experiment 1 (Figure 1.1 & 1.2), we see that as the camber increases
so does the ‘Lift to Drag Ratio’. However, at a camber input of 0.05, it steadily
decreases. Experiment 2 (Figure 2.1 & 2.2) shows an increase relationship between
span of the wing and the LD ratio. As the span increases, the LD ratio also increases;
though it does steady out at about 40 meters. On the other hand, experiment 3 (Figure
3.1 & 3.2) has an almost mirrored shape to the graph of experiment 2. As we increase
the angle of attack, the LD ratio is significantly dropped and slopes smoothly at around
6 degrees.
Conclusion
All in all, the aircraft is a solid innovative design for its intended mission as it
meets the performance expectations and provides the services that our stakeholders
need. The initial problem to begin with was to provide relief aid in the event of a
disastrous zombie outbreak. This aircraft design does so by reaching as many
populations as possible in order to, temporarily, establish a medical treatment site in
locations where such facilities would otherwise be compromised. With a large range and
large payload capacity, we trade off speed of the aircraft and the intent to evacuate. At
the very beginning of the project, I thought the mission would be to prioritize evacuation
but quickly learned that we can think outside the box and use the design process to
build a different, innovative solution. I think that’s the most important lesson in this
engineer’s design process; the fact that your whole project can change for the better in
ways that you’d never imagine initially. During the project, I’ve taken what I’ve learned
from this course to my everyday life both at work and home. I’ll never forget the lessons
learned and I definitely have a new vision on any project that I work on. The engineer’s
design process and the engineer’s toolbox is incredibly applicable and useful for any
problem in the future.
Works Cited
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HuffPost UK. (2018). Your 5Step Guide For Surviving A RealLife Zombie
Apocalypse . [online] Available at:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/31/walkingdeadzombieapocalypse_
n_6065332.html [Accessed 19 Apr. 2018].
Is, A. and Zombies, H. (2018). Are You Prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse? The
U.S. Government Is . [online] HISTORY.com. Available at:
http://www.history.com/news/areyoupreparedforazombieapocalypsetheu
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