Faculty Of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University Of Technology
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The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the
Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...
in the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
is the merger of two interrelated disciplines,
aeronautical Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight-capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. While the term originally referred solely to ''ope ...
engineering and astronautical engineering. Aeronautical engineering works specifically with aircraft or aeronautics. Astronautical engineering works specifically with
spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...
or astronautics. At the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, both of the fields are directly addressed along with expansion into fields such as wind energy.


Description

The Faculty is one of the largest of the eight faculties at TU Delft and one of the largest faculties devoted entirely to aerospace engineering in northern
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. It is the only institute carrying out research and education directly related to aerospace engineering in the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
. Through the years, the Faculty has responded to the increasing demands of the aerospace industry by further expanding its facilities and
laboratories A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which science, scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratories are found in a variety of settings such as s ...
. Today the Faculty has a student body of approximately 2300
undergraduates Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...
and graduates, 237 members of
academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
staff and 181
PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
students. Around 34% of the student population is from outside the Netherlands.
The
TU Delft The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...
scored 15th in the world in the 2013 "Engineering and Technology"
QS World University Rankings The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...
. In 2023 the TU Delft reached the 3rd place in the "Mechanical, aerospace and Manufacturing Engineering" category of the
QS World University Rankings The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...
. In 2013 this category got extended to "Mechanical, Aeronautical & Manufacturing Engineering" and the TU Delft jumped to the 18th position worldwide (6th place in Europe). In 2017, TU Delft ranked 4th worldwide, and 1st within Europe, in the subject of Aerospace Engineering in the Shanghai Ranking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects. As of 2022, TU Delft ranks 8th worldwide, and 1st within Europe, in the subject of Aerospace Engineering in Shanghai Ranking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects.


Research

Current areas of research include novel aerospace materials,
Particle Image Velocimetry Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is an optical method of flow visualization used in education and research. It is used to obtain instantaneous velocity measurements and related properties in fluids. The fluid is seeded with tracer particles whic ...
, CubeSat, Airborne Wind Energy and several others. Currently ten research chairs are grouped under four major departments: * Flow Physics and Technology (FPT) * Control and Operations (C&O) * Aerospace Structures and Materials (ASM) * Space Engineering (SpE)


Facilities

Extensive laboratory and testing facilities are used in research and teaching. The facilities include
supersonic Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound (Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times ...
,
hypersonic In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that exceeds five times the speed of sound, often stated as starting at speeds of Mach 5 and above. The precise Mach number at which a craft can be said to be flying at hypersonic speed varies, since i ...
and subsonic wind-tunnels, a high-sensitivity navigation simulator, a structures and materials testing laboratory, and an ISO 8, class 100,000 clean room for the development of micro satellites. These facilities make it possible to conduct experiments in man-machine factors, flight control, structures and materials, aerodynamics, simulation, motion, navigation and spaceflight. The faculty owns and makes use of a
Cessna Citation The Cessna Citation is a family of business jets manufactured by Cessna that entered service in 1972. In the fifty years following the type's first flight in 1969, more than 7,500 Citations were delivered, forming the largest business jet flee ...
jet aeroplane which is a unique flying laboratory. The Citation is used in research as well as in education. Its modular interior enables the possibility to change quickly between research missions and educational flights with students.


Delft Aerospace Structures and Materials laboratory

The Delft Aerospace Structures and Materials laboratory is one of the largest facilities of the faculty of aerospace engineering with a footprint of over 3600 square meters. The laboratory is split up in multiple smaller laboratories which allow for a wide variety of research and educational activities. Amongst others the facility consists of labs for the production, handling and testing of composites, facilities suitable for performing mechanical tests, a chemical lab, a micro UAV testing and development facility and work spaces for students to manufacture and test parts that they designed during their studies. The Delft Aerospace Structures and Materials laboratory is also the home of a large collection of aircraft and spacecraft (parts), including a retired
F16 The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolv ...
of the Dutch air force, which are used for educational purposes. Furthermore the laboratory also houses the Aircraft Manufacturing Laboratory, which is a laboratory where graduate students of the faculty are building a fully functional
RV12 RV1 may refer to: * Chrysler RV1 Valiant, a passenger car * London Buses route RV1 * Mandala 1, the first mandala of the Rigveda * RV-1 Mohawk, a reconnaissance aircraft * RV-1 nuclear reactor, a Venezuelan research reactor * Toyota RV-1, a co ...
aircraft.


Simona

The flight simulator Simona can be programmed to simulate any known aircraft, but also to mimic characteristics of a new design. The unique light design allows extremely realistic motion. The simulator is used for research, but is also the subject of some M.Sc. thesis projects.


Clean room

The eight floor of the faculty houses an ISO 8, class 100,000 cleanroom for the development of micro satellites. The facility is used both by staff and by graduate students from the space department of the faculty. The cleanroom is used for space related research and for the production of TU Delft's micro satellites, of which three are currently in orbit around the Earth:
Delfi-C3 Delfi-C3 is a CubeSat satellite constructed by students at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. It is a 3-unit CubeSat, and was launched at 03:53:42 on 28 April 2008, as part of the NLS-4 mission, aboard a PSLV rocket, from the ...
,
Delfi-n3Xt Delfi-n3Xt is a Dutch nanosatellite which is operated by Delft University of Technology. It was launched on 21 November 2013. It is a three-unit CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of small satellite with a form factor of cubes. CubeSats have a mass ...
and Delfi-PQ. Contact with these satellites is maintained through a ground station housed on campus at the faculty of electrical engineering, computer science and mathematics.


National and international cooperation

The Faculty plays a significant role in national organisations such as the National Aerospace Laboratory, the
Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes The Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes (in Dutch language, ''Nederlands Instituut voor Vliegtuigontwikkeling en Ruimtevaart'' ''(NIVR)'') was the official space exploration agency of the Dutch government until 2009. Since 1 July 200 ...
and the
Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (, abbreviated TNO, literally "Dutch Organisation for Applied Scientific Research") is an independent statutory research organisation in the Netherlands that focuses on applied science ...
. Collaborations with numerous international and multinational industries through research groups abroad as well as in the Netherlands ensure that the Faculty remains at the forefront of the latest developments in the aerospace industry. The Faculty is a member of PEGASUS, the European network of prestigious aerospace universities. It also participates in exchanges of students and lecturers through the
SOCRATES Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...
/
ERASMUS Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...
programmes and agreements between several other partner universities. The faculty plays a major role in the
IDEA League The IDEA League is an alliance among five leading European universities of technology: * Chalmers University of Technology * Delft University of Technology * ETH Zürich * Polytechnic University of Milan * RWTH Aachen University On ...
(TU Delft,
ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...
, RWTH Aachen, Chalmers institutes and universities).


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faculty Of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University Of Technology Aeronautical engineering schools Delft University of Technology