National Challenge
Each participating state will select a winning team to compete
in the National Challenge. At the National Event, held in Washington,
DC, students will present their solutions to the National Challenge,
the optimization of a supercritical wing design at a high speed
condition. Students will apply the same skills that they developed
at the State level in solving the National Challenge. The National
Challenge will be released to teams on February 23, 2009.
Both the State and National Competitions provide opportunities
for students to work on real world engineering challenges in a
collaborative environment. Through the Challenge, students realize
opportunities to extend themselves beyond the mechanics of math
and science in the academic environment. Students will experience
that the real world has unlimited opportunities ready to reward
creative minds and innovation.
Below is a comparison contrasting the differences between the
State and National Challenges:
| State RWDC Competition |
National RWDC Competition |
| |
|
| Tools: |
|
- Expose students to world class engineering tools in
geometric design and computational fluid dynamics.
|
- Leverage same tools as State competition.
|
| Competitive Focus: |
|
- Greater focus on geometric modeling and familiarity
with interactions between aerodynamic devices including
wing, flaps, and winglets.
|
- Greater focus on quantifying solution quality and establishing
confidence levels.
|
| Process: |
|
- Optimize a wing design for a cruise condition with a
stall speed constraint.
|
- Optimize a supercritical wing design at a high speed
condition.
|
| Challenge: |
|
- Students challenged to master multi-dimensional optimization
concepts.
|
- Students challenged with non-linear characteristics
of flow regime because of shock wave interaction with
boundary layer.
|
| Winners: |
|
- Lowest fuel burn rate wins.
|
|
