Capstone Design Sequence in Engineering Education

The Capstone design requirements have become an integral part of the most engineering curricula in the United States. They all share the goal of developing multidisciplinary designs for real-world problems/applications, often with industry sponsorship. In this paper, the three-capstone design options required by the aerospace engineering department at the University of Kansas are discussed. The aerospace engineering seniors have three design options based on their career interests. These are aircraft design, propulsion system design, and spacecraft system design options. In the aircraft design, our students may select individual or team design for their competitions. In the latter two, the propulsion and spacecraft system designs, the students are grouped in a number of teams, based on the class and team size requirements. The individuals and teams participate and compete in the respective American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Design Competitions at the end of their senior year. Participation in the AIAA Design Competition is one of the course requirements. Written and oral communication is assessed throughout the semester. In this paper, the methodology used in the aerospace engineering propulsion system capstone design is presented.