Teaching Risk Analysis in an Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Design Capstone Course

This paper describes the introduction of risk analysis in an undergraduate aircraft engine design capstone course that is taught in concert with a companion course in airframe design. The two preliminary designs, one for the engine and the other for the airframe, must be integrated as subsystems within a system to satisfy the performance requirements of a given mission as outlined in a single request for proposals. In recent years, systems engineering majors have been added to the design teams to work alongside the aeronautical engineering majors to analyze and report on costs, schedule, and technical risk factors in addition to the operational performance factors that have previously been the sole focus of the course. The teaming of systems engineering majors and aeronautical engineering majors has been driven by a heightened emphasis on system affordability and risk reduction. To tie all of the performance, cost, development time, and technical risk issues together, the paper presents an analysis of alternatives example that considers three different engine cycle alternatives. The design tools presented in this paper will provide a strong foundational understanding of how to systematically weigh and evaluate the important tradeoffs between aircraft turbofan engine performance and risk factors. Equipping students with the insight and ability to perform these multidisciplinary trade studies during the preliminary engine design process is this papers most important contribution.