Abstract
My technical project and STS research project are connected through the topic of safety, which is concerned with the proactive risk management process to prevent accidents by identifying hazards and mitigating them effectively. However, the two projects have different approaches of addressing safety. My technical work focuses on the early stages of designing and testing a new airfoil concept, examining how new systems can be responsibly developed from the beginning. In contrast, my STS research explores how failures in maintenance and the lack of ethics can undermine safety later on in a technology’s operational life, leading to disastrous consequences as shown in the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 accident. Together, my technical work and STS research are connected through the full lifecycle of an aviation system.
My technical work investigates the concept of using bleed channels as a passive flow control mechanism to measurably alter the aerodynamic lift of a NACA 4412 airfoil in ground effect. Ground effect is a phenomenon where an aircraft experiences an increased lift and reduced drag as it is flying close to the ground, most commonly during takeoff and landing phases. The concept of bleed channels involves incorporating hollow sections inside an airfoil that diverts airflow from a stagnation point on the leading edge to the lower-pressure section above the airfoil. My capstone team reviewed relevant literature on wing-in-ground-effect, designed two bleed channel airfoil designs and the ground plate setup, and collected data in the UVA low-speed wind tunnel. The overall goal of this project was to develop and implement a 2D, ground effect flow field for testing the airfoil designs, as well as to provide students with an exposure to aerodynamic concepts not typically discussed in class.
My STS research also explores aviation systems, but through the lens of analyzing the lack of virtue ethics involved in the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 accident. My paper explores the morality of the Alaska Airlines’ organizational management and its negligence leading up to the accident, which resulted in a catastrophic failure of the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew assembly. I claim that its management had unacceptable deficiencies in a handful of virtues required for morally responsible engineers, including professionalism, striving for quality, and the habit of reporting work carefully.
Working on both projects during the same academic year not only gave me a better understanding of specific aviation concepts like wing-in-ground-effect and systems like the horizontal stabilizer trim system, but also made me appreciate the importance of maintaining ethical standards throughout the design, testing, and maintenance phases of any technology’s lifecycle. With those lessons in mind, I also applied stronger ethical awareness to my technical work, prioritized good engineering practices, and tested a new aerodynamics concept through honesty, diligence, and responsible data reporting from the beginning. Ultimately, working on both the technical project the my STS research simultaneously helped me realize that safety depends on ethical engineering practices and throughout design, operation, and maintenance.
