Optimizing the Airplane Tie Rod: A CATIA & MATLAB-Powered Design Enhancement at ERAU

One of my favorite projects this Fall 2024 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University was completing a Preliminary Design Review (PDR) to enhance an airplane tie-rod. The goal was to design a new tie-rod that would replace the existing one and withstand the turbine engine's net force while being lighter and easier to manufacture. My team of five had just two weeks to deliver a comprehensive PDR, complete with engineering drawings of our proposed design.

Each team member was assigned specific tasks: two focused on gathering material properties, another designed the tie-rod in CATIA V5, and the final two, including myself, worked on optimizing the material and design. I took the lead on developing an optimization model in MATLAB, where I combined material properties with cross-sectional areas (we chose a circular cross-section by observing current tie-rod design and noting material strength properties due to cross-sectional area) to create a formula that would output the best combination of material and design for withstanding stress and buckling under the turbine's force.

Once we gathered the material data, I ran the numbers in MATLAB, and after validating the results, I handed the optimal values to my peer who was working on the CATIA design. This allowed us to ensure that the design was both structurally sound and efficient.

While I didn’t directly use CATIA V5 for this project, I found the MATLAB optimization process incredibly rewarding. It was fulfilling to contribute to a solution that directly informed the design process, and it was exciting to see how data-driven decisions can guide engineering design.

Overall, this was a fantastic project that introduced us to the engineering mindset required to tackle multi-step problems—something we engineers encounter regularly in the real world. It reinforced the importance of collaboration, creativity, and technical problem-solving, all of which are essential in addressing complex engineering challenges. A special thanks to Joseph Smith for giving our class this project.