Innovative Teaching Of Aircraft Stress Analysis And Design Courses Mathematica In An Engineering Education Environment

This paper reports on a new course on aircraft structural analysis and design in the second year of the BSc curriculum at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The course is aimed at improving the understanding of the design drivers in structures as well as increasing the student's motivation in undertaking structural design. It bridges the gap between the basic mechanics knowledge and its application as foundation for advanced mathematical models such as Finite Element codes used in modern design environments. Already established knowledge of elementary mechanics equations of deformable structures as taught in the first year of the BSc curriculum are used to develop discretized equivalent numerical models of components for design configurations of statically determinate and indeterminate structural problems. The engineering tool Mathematica which provides state of the art symbolic and numerical solution techniques with graphical representation facilities embedded in text and equation handling capabilities within an integrated notebook environment, is used as an integral part of the course delivery.