This study analyzes mechanical properties of additively manufactured plastic materials produced in a conventional 3D printer. This topic has generally been studied in controlled scenarios, and this study aims to reflect the properties seen by consumers. Layered prints are inherently anisotropic due to the direction of the layers and associated weaknesses or stress concentrators. Thus, the ultimate strength and elastic modulus of plastic specimens produced using default settings are compared based on print orientation angle, and trends are observed. When a specimen is parallel to the build plate, it tends to have ultimate strength and elastic modulus near the published bulk values of 13.2MPa and 404-710MPa, but these values tend to decrease as the print angle increases.

Active flow control for airfoil designs has been researched for the past few decades. This has been achieved through steady blowing, pulsed blowing, synthetic jets, and plasma jets. These techniques have been applied to both single and dual jet configurations. This technology was examined for a wind turbine blade application so that lift and drag can be altered without needing a mechanical flap. Research was completed to also allow for thicker airfoils with more blunt trailing edges that result in the higher structural strength needed for large, heavy wind turbine blades without the negative aerodynamic effects such as boundary layer separation. This research tested steady blowing in a dual jet configuration for the S830 airfoil from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) database of airfoils. Computational Fluid Dynamics was used in the software Ansys Fluent. Calculations were completed for a modified S830 airfoil with a rounded trailing edge surface at momentum coefficients of 0.01 for the lower jet and 0.1, 0.12, and 0.14 for the upper jet. These results were then compared to the original S830 results for the lift over drag efficiency. The design with momentum coefficients of 0.12 for the upper surface resulted in the highest increase in efficiency of 53% at an angle of attack of 12 degrees. At this momentum coefficient, the angle of attack where zero lift occurred was at -8.62 degrees, compared to the case with no blowing at -1.90 degrees. From previous research and research completed in this thesis it was concluded that active flow control is an effective technique to improve wind turbine energy collection.

Engineers spend several years studying intense technical details of the processes that shape our world, yet few are exposed to classes addressing social behaviors or issues. Engineering culture creates specific barriers to addressing social science issues, such as unconscious bias, within engineering classrooms. I developed a curriculum that uses optical illusions, Legos, and the instructor's vulnerability to tackle unconscious bias in a way that addresses the barriers in engineering culture that prevent engineers from learning social science issues. Unconscious bias has documented long-term negative impacts on success and personal development, even in engineering environments. Creating a module in engineering education that addresses unconscious bias with the aim of reducing the negative effects of bias would benefit developing engineers by improving product development and team diversity. Engineering culture fosters disengagement with social issues through three pillars: depoliticization, technical/social dualism, and meritocracy. The developed curriculum uses optical illusions and Legos as proxies to start discussions about unconscious bias. The proxies allow engineers to explore their own biases without running into one of the pillars of disengagement that limits the engineer's willingness to discuss social issues. The curriculum was implemented in the Fall of 2017 in an upper-division engineering classroom as a professional communication module. The module received qualitatively positive feedback from fellow instructors and students. The curriculum was only implemented once by the author, but future implementations should be done with a different instructor and using quantitative data to measure if the learning objectives were achieved. Appendix A of the paper contains a lesson plan of the module that could be implemented by other instructors.

Winglets and wingtip structures have been prominent in commercial aircraft design in the past few decades. These designs are known to reduce the induced drag on an aircraft wing, thus increasing its overall fuel efficiency. Several different winglet designs exist, and little reason is offered as to why different winglet designs are used in practice on different aircraft, especially those of variable range. This research tests existing winglets (no winglet, raked winglet, flat plate winglet, blended winglet, and wingtip fence) on a span-constrained wing planform design both computationally and in the wind tunnel. While computational tests using a vortex lattice code indicate that the wingtip fence minimizes induced drag and maximizes lift to drag ratio in most cases, wind tunnel tests show that at different lift coefficients and angles of attack, the raked winglet and blended winglet optimize the aerodynamic efficiency at incompressible flow velocities. Applying the wing aerodynamic data to existing variable range commercial aircraft, mission performance analysis is run on a Bombardier CRJ200, Airbus A320, and Airbus A340-300. By comparing flight lift coefficients in cruise for these aircraft to the lift coefficients at which winglets minimize drag in compressible flows, optimal winglet designs are chosen. It is found that the short range CRJ200 is best equipped with a flat plate or blended winglet, the medium range A320 can reduce drag with either a wingtip fence, raked winglet, or blended winglet, and the long range A340 performs best with a flat plate, blended, or raked winglet. Overall, despite the discrepancy in winglet selection depending on which experimental results are used, it is clear that addition of a winglet to a span-constrained wing is beneficial in that it reduces induced drag and therefore increases overall fuel efficiency.