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80 Years of Aerospace Engineering Education in the Netherlands

TL;DR: The history of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands is described in this article, where the authors highlight how its research and education developed within the socio-economic context of the Netherlands and the developments in aerospace over the past 80 years.
Abstract: This year, 2020, the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands celebrates its 80th birthday. This paper describes the history of the department since its founding in early 1940, just before the start of World War II in the Netherlands, until present day. The paper will highlight how its research and education developed within the socio-economic context of the Netherlands and the developments in aerospace over the past 80 years.

Summary (4 min read)

80 Years of Aerospace Engineering Education

  • In the Netherlands Gillian N. Saunders-Smits1, Joris A. Melkert2, Michiel Schuurman3 Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands.
  • This year, 2020, the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands celebrates its 80th birthday.
  • This paper describes the history of the department since its founding in early 1940, just before the start of World War II in the Netherlands, until present day.
  • Since its commencement in May of 1940 until present day the Faculty has developed itself into one of the largest Aerospace Departments in the world, with an annual intake of over 400 Bachelor students and 400 Master students as well as the presence of 270 PhD students.
  • Therefore, in this section these developments and the birth of the first aerospace departments in the world will be discussed before exploring the conception of aerospace within the Netherlands and the history of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology.

A. Defining Aerospace Engineering

  • To avoid confusion in this paper, the authors would first like to define what they mean with Aerospace Engineering as a field of science, as the term is often loosely used, especially internationally.
  • 2 Senior Lecturer & Educational Fellow, Aerodynamics, Wind Energy, Flight Performance and Propulsion, Lifetime Member.
  • 3 Assistant Professor, Aerospace Structures and Materials, Member.
  • AIAA SciTech Forum definition as listed in the Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering [2] which defines aerospace engineering as: “the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft”.

B. Development of Engineering Education at Higher Education Level

  • Natural sciences were already studied by ancient civilizations and considerably developed as an independent field of science in the 16th and 17th century with the emerging of scholars such as Copernicus (1473-1543), Galilei (1564-1642), and Newton (1642-1727) and the founding of the Royal Society (of London for Improving Natural Knowledge) in 1660.
  • In this analogy it makes perfect sense that engineering is not offered as a university degree nor is it researched at a university level until the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th century.
  • This school taught in Dutch as opposed to Latin, which was the primary language used at universities at the time.
  • It is this school that laid the foundation for the present Delft University of Technology or “Technische Universiteit Delft” in Dutch, commonly referred to as “TU Delft.” [5].

C. Development of Aerospace Engineering Education

  • The development of the field of aerospace initially focused on aeronautics.
  • Ransom and Self [11] list the claim that Imperial College in London, England taught its first course in aeronautics in 1909.
  • Developments in Dutch Aviation until 1940 The Netherlands has its own strong tradition in aerospace engineering.
  • They were however, not the only Dutch aircraft designers at the time.
  • The abbreviation “ir.” is for the Dutch word “ingenieur” meaning engineer and is a protected title under Dutch law that can only be used by holders of a Master of Science in Engineering degree from one of the Dutch Universities of Science and Technology.

A. The Founding of the Faculty and the Outbreak of World War II in the Netherlands

  • The formal starting date of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft is seen as May 6, 1940, when the first Full Professor in Aeronautical Engineering, Professor Van der Maas is appointed by the Dutch Crown within the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
  • The degree program in Aerospace Engineering was now an established name, delivering an integrated Master’s Program, initially spanning 5 years, but under government budget cuts reduced to a nominal 4 years.
  • The Dutch aerospace industry also recovered from the Fokker bankruptcy.
  • The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering and several of their staff members among which second author, ir.
  • More and more students decided to stop their studies after the Bachelor, and move to another program within TU Delft or even move to another university for their Master program.

B. Flying Labs

  • In 1948 the Faculty was given use of its first laboratory aircraft, a Koolhoven FK-43 with registration PH-NAU, renting it from a flying school at nearby Ypenburg Airport in the Hague, which at that time was still in existence.
  • To aid research, it was fitted with a fully digital autopilot.
  • This aircraft would be used for both research and education until the early nineties when it was replaced by a Cessna Citation II with registration PH-LAB (See Fig. 5).
  • Two faculty members are also trained research pilots.
  • The faculty does own one other aircraft, which is not yet registered, a Vans Aircraft RV-12, which is currently being built by consecutive groups of Master students as part of the Aircraft Manufacturing Course run by the second author, Joris Melkert, who received a TU Delft Educational Fellowship for initiating this project1.

C. Flight Simulators and Human Interaction Laboratory

  • Already in the 1960s the first rudimentary flight simulator was created by Professor Gerlach [31].
  • Instead of buying off-the-shelf, it was decided to design and build the SIMONA simulator in-house using the various areas of expertise present within the different faculties within TU Delft (See Fig. 5).
  • She is being operated by the Department of Control and Operations.
  • This facility can be used to research control tasks or visual perception.
  • The Aircraft Structures and Materials Laboratory at the Leeghwaterstraat in 1961 (left) and the current Aerospace Structures and Materials Laboratory at the Kluyverweg – Images © TU Delft, also known as Fig. 6.

D. Aerospace Structures and Materials Laboratory & Study Collection

  • With the appointment of Professor Van der Neut in 1945, research in aircraft structures took off in earnest.
  • Over the years many more aircraft and aircraft parts were added and by the time the laboratory moved to its dedicated hangar building now attached to the current Aerospace building in 1965, the hangar contained more aircraft and aircraft parts as study objects than it contained test equipment [16][17].
  • There is a dedicated laser facility in which a 1kW pulsed xenon monochloride (XeCl) laser can be used for cutting, drilling and surface treatment of different materials as well as a composite welding lab, an NDT lab and 2 workshop areas, one dedicated for student projects and one for all education and research needs.
  • The hangar also houses the CyberZoo, which is dealt with separately.

E. MAVLab & CyberZoo

  • In the early 2000s the use of drones for commercial use really began taking off.
  • That is why in 2005 the Micro Air Vehicle Laboratory was established after the successful design of the DelFly flapping wing UAV made by 3rd-year Bachelor students as part of the capstone Design Synthesis Exercise.
  • The newest addition to the project is DelFly Nimble, which is tailless, weighs 29 grams and has a wingspan of 33 centimeters and actually mimics the movement of an insect when flying.
  • Together with the Delft Robotics Institute they make use of the CyberZoo, a dedicated space available for researchers and students to perform test flights of new designs and MAV control systems.
  • The lab can be set to different environments and house different obstacles to allow for thorough testing in practical environments.

F. Cleanroom & Ground Station

  • With the growth of the space department and their ambition to build their own satellite, there was a need for the Space department to have a dedicated Space grade Cleanroom facility at their disposal.
  • The cleanroom is equipped with various test rigs used for testing nanosatellite systems and is currently being used to build the next Delfi-PQ Satellite.
  • To facilitate the Delfi program a multiband satellite ground station was established for satellite communication on top of the highest building on campus, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science.
  • The facility is a cooperation between TU Delft, the Delft Space Institute and ISIS – Innovative Solutions in Space, an Aerospace Engineering spin-off company.

A. Famous Alumni

  • Over the years the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering has graduated many people who are now household names in the Aerospace Engineering world.
  • Aircraft designers and textbook authors Egbert Torenbeek and Jan Roskam (University of Kansas) are among their alumni as well as the author, academic, and past director of the Dutch Royal Meteorological Institute, Henk Tennekes (1936) who also wrote the popular science book “The Simple Science of Flight” [35].
  • Famous helicopter designer, Jan Meijer Drees – designer of the NHI-Kolibrie helicopter, who later moved to Bell Helicopters in the U.S., was also a TU Delft Aerospace Engineering graduate.
  • Another well-known alumnus was the late Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau (1968-2013).
  • Many of their graduates have gone on to have successful careers within the Dutch aerospace industry, as well as further afield.

B. Spin-Off and Innovation

  • Over the past 15 years many spin offs have been started and over 40 of them have developed in well-established independent businesses that started life within the walls of their departments.
  • There are successful examples from each research group, but by far the largest number of startups stem from the Aerospace Structures and Materials Department.
  • These startups provide employment to over 500 people and many continue to grow rapidly.
  • To continue to promote spinoffs the faculty has instigated a Startup Voucher program in 2016, in which BSc, MSc and PhD students can apply for a Startup voucher of 2,500 Euros and coaching.

C. Student Numbers and Societal Impact

  • In its 80 years the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering has by now given out over 7000 “Ingenieursdiploma’s” or Master of Science degrees in Aerospace Engineering.
  • 7: The number of aerospace engineers per million inhabitants in the Netherlands and the USA that graduated in 2017 (Sources: ASEE [36], CBS.nl, and tudelft.nl).
  • De Vries, M., “Nine Pioneers’ Stories,” Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, 2015.

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Delft University of Technology
80 Years of Aerospace Engineering Education in the Netherlands
Saunders, Gillian; Melkert, Joris; Schuurman, Michiel
DOI
10.2514/6.2020-0643
Publication date
2020
Document Version
Final published version
Published in
AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum
Citation (APA)
Saunders, G., Melkert, J., & Schuurman, M. (2020). 80 Years of Aerospace Engineering Education in the
Netherlands. In
AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum: 6-10 January 2020, Orlando, FL
(pp. 1-19). [AIAA 2020-0643]
(AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum; Vol. 1 PartF). American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc. (AIAA).
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2020-0643
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1
80 Years of Aerospace Engineering Education
in the Netherlands
Gillian N. Saunders-Smits
1
, Joris A. Melkert
2
, Michiel Schuurman
3
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands
This year, 2020, the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology
in the Netherlands celebrates its 80
th
birthday. This paper describes the history of the
department since its founding in early 1940, just before the start of World War II in the
Netherlands, until present day. The paper will highlight how its research and education
developed within the socio-economic context of the Netherlands and the developments in
aerospace over the past 80 years.
Introduction
This year, 2020, marks the 80
th
anniversary of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of
Technology, located in Delft in the western part of the Netherlands. Since its commencement in May of 1940 until
present day the Faculty has developed itself into one of the largest Aerospace Departments in the world, with an annual
intake of over 400 Bachelor students and 400 Master students as well as the presence of 270 PhD students. The
university ranks 10
th
in the Shanghai ranking for Aerospace Engineering. The aerospace curriculum is fully taught in
English and the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering employs over 150 academic staff members. Delft University of
Technology, as a whole, totals over 25,000 Bachelor and Master students and 2,500 academic staff.
In this paper the authors will tell the history of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of
Technology from its creation in 1940 till the present day within the socio-economic context in the Netherlands and in
particular of the Dutch aerospace industry. Furthermore, its history will be positioned within the development of
Engineering and in particular Aerospace Engineering as a branch of study over the past century. This perspective will
be based on a multitude of historic sources and is based in part on previous research performed by the first author,
Saunders-Smits [1], as well as records of subsequent events and publications since.
I. The Development of Aerospace Engineering as a University Degree
Although Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the first engineers to record possible designs of flying crafts,
he, like the first aircraft designers after him, was predominantly an auto-didactic with little formal training in
engineering at an academic level. To fully understand how aerospace engineering became an academic degree course,
it is important to examine this development in the context of the development of engineering education at Higher
Education level, and the development of aerospace as an established field of science. Therefore, in this section these
developments and the birth of the first aerospace departments in the world will be discussed before exploring the
conception of aerospace within the Netherlands and the history of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft
University of Technology.
A. Defining Aerospace Engineering
To avoid confusion in this paper, the authors would first like to define what they mean with Aerospace Engineering
as a field of science, as the term is often loosely used, especially internationally. The authors would like to use the
1
Associate Professor, Aerospace Structures and Materials, Member.
2
Senior Lecturer & Educational Fellow, Aerodynamics, Wind Energy, Flight Performance and Propulsion, Lifetime
Member.
3
Assistant Professor, Aerospace Structures and Materials, Member.
Downloaded by TU DELFT on January 6, 2020 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2020-0643
AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum
6-10 January 2020, Orlando, FL
10.2514/6.2020-0643
Copyright © 2020 by Gillian N.
Saunders-Smits , Joris A. Melkert , Michiel Schuurman. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission.
AIAA SciTech Forum

2
definition as listed in the Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering [2] which defines aerospace engineering as: the
primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft”. This definition was coined
when the field of aeronautical engineering, defined as the primary field of engineering concerned with the
development of aircraft,increasingly started to extend their work to include vehicles operating in (outer) space, also
leading to the renaming of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NACA to the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, NASA in 1953. In literature, when referring to (outer) space engineering, the terms
astronautical engineering or space engineering are also used, defined as the primary field of engineering concerned
with the development of spacecraft”.
B. Development of Engineering Education at Higher Education Level
Engineering was one of the last fields of sciences to be developed as scientific field of study. Natural sciences
were already studied by ancient civilizations and considerably developed as an independent field of science in the 16
th
and 17
th
century with the emerging of scholars such as Copernicus (1473-1543), Galilei (1564-1642), and Newton
(1642-1727) and the founding of the Royal Society (of London for Improving Natural Knowledge) in 1660. The
logical explanation for this is discussed by Saunders-Smits [1] and Lintsen et al. [3], who tell of the Dutch science
philosopher Van Peursen who likens the development of engineering as a science to the water cycle [4]: with first the
development of formal sciences, followed by the development of the empirical sciences and, for now, conclude by the
applied sciences, which includes the field of Engineering, as being closest to social reality. In this analogy it makes
perfect sense that engineering is not offered as a university degree nor is it researched at a university level until the
late 18
th
century and the first half of the 19
th
century. This of course also coincides with the start of the Industrial
Revolution in the United Kingdom, greatly aided by the further development of Newcomen’s Steam Engine by James
Watt in 1765, creating a societal need for more applied knowledge in order to prosper.
Fig. 1: The building of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology when it opened
in 1965 (left) and currently (right) Images © TU Delft
Historians are in disagreement on when and where the first institutionalized scientific training of engineers took
place. Simon Stevin (1548-1620) was asked by the Dutch prince Maurits of Orange (1567-1625) to found a military
engineering school at the University of Leiden (in the Netherlands) in 1600. However, this school taught in Dutch as
opposed to Latin, which was the primary language used at universities at the time. As a result, the school struggled to
gain real recognition for more than a century as an academic institution and was eventually abandoned [5]. It is
therefore not seen as an academic institution by historians.
Gregory [6] suggests that the École PolytechniquePolytechnic School, was the first school to be founded in
France in 1795, but other historians, such as Emmerson [7] and Armytage [8] mention an earlier school in France:
the École des Ponts et ChausséesSchool of Bridges and Roads, founded in 1747. After these, other European
countries followed in rapid succession with the Freiburg School of Mines in Germany in 1765 and a military
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3
engineering academy being founded in Delft by King William I in 1814, which would become the Royal Academy
for Civilian Engineers by 1842 by order of his son King William II. This school was renamed to Polytechnische
Hogeschoolin 1864 and became a formalized Higher Education Institute named Technische Hogeschoolin 1905,
modelled after the French model of Écoles Polytechniques. It is this school that laid the foundation for the present
Delft University of Technology or Technische Universiteit Delftin Dutch, commonly referred to as TU Delft.” [5].
In England it took until 1840 for the first chair in engineering to be set up in London. In Glasgow, Scotland an
engineering chair was set up in the same year, followed by Dublin in Ireland in 1842 and Belfast in Northern Ireland
in 1849.
Which college was the first engineering college in the United States of America, is still a topic of an ongoing
debate. The consensus, however, is that the following four schools [9] can be considered the first engineering colleges:
- The United States Military Academy at WestPoint, New York (first engineering graduate in 1817),
- Norwich University, Northfield, Vermont (first Civil Engineering degree awarded in 1834)
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York (first graduate in Civil engineering 1835)
- Union College, Schenectady, New York (degree course in Engineering offered from 1845)
C. Development of Aerospace Engineering Education
The development of the field of aerospace initially focused on aeronautics. The push to teach subjects related to
aeronautics and create academic degree programs was greatly aided by the first recorded sustained flight of an aircraft
by the Wright Brothers in 1903 and the rapid rise of other aircraft designers who followed soon after. However, as to
who taught the first courses in aeronautical engineering, is still an ongoing debate in literature. McCormick [10] states
that Professor Lucien Marchis of the University of Paris, France was the first to teach formal courses in aerodynamics
at university level in 1910. These claims are disputed by other sources. Ransom and Self [11] list the claim that
Imperial College in London, England taught its first course in aeronautics in 1909. They also report that the first chair
in Aeronautics at Imperial College was founded in 1920. In addition, Queen Mary’s College London, England proudly
lists on its website, that they are the oldest aeronautical engineering department in the United Kingdom, founded in
1909 and already teaching courses in aeronautics from 1907. The first institution reported to be established to award
a degree in aeronautical engineering was the L’École Polytechnique de L’Aéronautique in 1909 in Toulouse in
France. This school still exists today under the name ISAE SUPAERO. In the United States of America, the first
degree and 4-year program in aeronautical engineering was founded in 1916 at the University of Michigan combined
with founding of a department in aeronautical engineering. In 1926 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. founded its aeronautical engineering department. From the 1930s onwards more schools
were founded all over the world and this accelerated after the outbreak of World War II. With the start of the space
program most aeronautical universities also started to include space in their curricula, which from 1958 onwards led
to many institutes changing the name of their departments from aeronautical to aerospace engineering.
II. Developments in Dutch Aviation until 1940
The Netherlands has its own strong tradition in aerospace engineering. The most famous of Dutch designers,
Anthony Fokker, flew his first design the Spin” (Spider) on its maiden flight in 1911[12]. He had a fierce competitor
named Frits Koolhoven whose aircraft the Heidevogel(Moor bird) also took to the skies in 1911 [13]. Fokker left
for Germany due to a lack of customers in the Netherlands, where he became a successful aircraft designer during the
First World War with his Fokker DR-I gaining notoriety among the Allied Forces. For similar reasons Koolhoven left
for England where he was a designer for British Deperdussin, Armstrong Whitworth and British Aerial Transport.
Both returned to the Netherlands after the First World War to start their own factories. They were however, not the
only Dutch aircraft designers at the time. Spyker, initially built Farman aircraft in license and later started to produce
his own aircraft the Spyker V1, V2 and V3”. Then there were the Pander factories which produced the Pander D
and the “Pander E” as well as the S.4 Postjager.The latter took part in the 1924 London-Melbourne race. Pander’s
designers continued in 1934 at the Schelde factories building the S.12 and the S.20 [12]. Finally, there was Hugo
Lambach, a graduate in Mechanical Engineering of TU Delft who built two aircraft, the Lambach HL Iand the
Lambach HL II[14]. None of these companies ever reached the same size of Fokker and Koolhoven who employed
over 1,200 people each.
On the operations side, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines was founded by Albert Plesman in 1919 and soon started
regular flights to the Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia) from the first Dutch Civil Airport, Schiphol. Schiphol
initially was a military airport but became a civil airport in 1920 and is now a major hub airport.
The Dutch armed forces, similarly to the British armed forces, started a Flying Corps, (in Dutch:
Luchtvaartafdeling”) upon the urging of General Snijders in 1913. During the First World War, the fleet of this unit
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4
was greatly extended by over a 100 foreign aircraft, which were confiscated from both sides of the conflict who sought
refuge in Dutch neutral territory. Of these recovered aircraft 69 were restored to flying condition and added to the
Dutch military fleet. During the interbellum the air unit continued to grow to become an independent branch of the
Dutch Armed Forces, now known as the Royal Netherlands Air Force[15].
Also, to support the ongoing developments in the field of aviation, the Dutch National Study Department for
Aeronautics (in Dutch: Rijksstudiedienst voor de Luchtvaart) opened its doors in 1919. This organization still exists
and is now known as the Royal Dutch Aerospace Center(NLR).
As a result of all these developments, there was a great need for highly trained and skilled aeronautical engineers.
III. History of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology
To address this need, from the 1930s onwards, the first courses in aeronautical engineering were being taught at
TU Delft within the department of Mechanical Engineering and Shipbuilding, according to the history book of the
Faculty published on the occasion of its 50
th
anniversary in 1990 [16]. Professor Burgers taught the basic principles
of Aerodynamics and Professor Biezeno taught the principles of Aircraft Structural Analysis. Early industry
collaboration was started, asking ir. J. Roosenschoon from the Fokker Aircraft Company to also teach aeronautics
part-time. The abbreviation ir.is for the Dutch word ingenieurmeaning engineer and is a protected title under
Dutch law that can only be used by holders of a Master of Science in Engineering degree from one of the Dutch
Universities of Science and Technology. This is not be confused with the abbreviation ing.” which indicates a
bachelor of engineering degree from one of the Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences.
A. The Founding of the Faculty and the Outbreak of World War II in the Netherlands
However, the formal starting date of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft is seen as May 6, 1940, when the first
Full Professor in Aeronautical Engineering, Professor Van der Maas is appointed by the Dutch Crown within the
Department of Mechanical Engineering. This appointment was later than initially intended, as the first candidate for
the job, ir. A.G. Baumgartner, a helicopter designer and flight mechanics expert was killed during a 1939 test flight
of Boeing Stratoliner in the United States of America. This was not the only bad fortune to hit the start of the Faculty.
Just four days later on May 10, 1940, Germany declared war on the Netherlands and invaded. The Dutch Armed
Forces felt compelled to surrender after only 5 days to avoid further mass bombardments of large cities. This after
Rotterdam, the largest harbor city of the Netherlands, some 5 miles South of Delft, was almost completely destroyed
by German aerial bombardments.
Although the university at first continues to operate and Professor Van der Maas held his inaugural lecture entitled:
“the Start” and in 1943 he even instigated the degree program in aeronautical engineering [16], teaching was
suspended in 1943. In 1944 Professor Van der Maas was forced into hiding with his wife and 11 children as he was
warned he was to be taken hostage by the occupying forces [16]. Therefore, the degree program did not formally start
until September 1945. As Professor Van der Maas was a very religious, Calvinistic Protestant, he was a firm believer
that idle hands are the devil’s playground: he used his time in hiding to write the lecture notes for the aeronautical
curriculum and taught students who had not signed the Loyalty Statement to the Third Reich [17] to allow them to
make a quick start once the war was over. Among them was one of the future deans of Aerospace Engineering,
Professor Wittenberg.
B. 1945 1975: The After Bellum
After the end of World War II, the degree program in aeronautical engineering started to take off. The first twenty
years can really be characterized as foundation years and investment in the future. A second full professor, Professor
Van der Neut, in the field of aircraft structures was appointed in 1945 and by 1965 a total 16 full professors in
aeronautical engineering had been appointed of which three were also working in industry. At the start of its degree
program, aeronautical engineering was not an independent department. It was part of a larger department including
mechanical engineering and shipbuilding.
In 1953 this department was split into two: The Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of
Aeronautical Engineering and Shipbuilding. At the same time heavy investments were made to develop research
facilities (more on that later) and in 1965 the Department of Aeronautical Engineering moved into its own building
(See Fig. 1), which is still in use as the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering today.
The students also started to organize themselves. In 1945 the Aerospace Study Association, Leonardo da Vinci
was founded to support students in their studies and personal development as well as provide entertainment.
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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
01 Sep 1961-Nature
TL;DR: A Social History of Engineering By W. H. G. Armytage as discussed by the authors, Pp. 378, p. 42s. (Faber and Faber, 1961)
Abstract: A Social History of Engineering By W. H. G. Armytage. Pp. 378. (Faber and Faber, 1961.) 42s.

11 citations

01 Jan 1990
TL;DR: In this article, the Jubileumboek is uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van hel 50-jarig bestaan van de vliegtuigbouwkundige opleiding in Delft and hel negende lustrum van de Vliegtouwige Studievereniging 'Leonardo da Vinci', het boek heeft niet de pretentie een gedegen geschiedkundig overzicht.
Abstract: Dit Jubileumboek wordt uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van hel 50-jarig bestaan van de vliegtuigbouwkundige opleiding in Delft en hel negende lustrum van de Vliegtuigbouwkundige Studievereniging 'Leonardo da Vinci', Het boek heeft niet de pretentie een gedegen geschiedkundig overzicht Ie geven van de historie van de vliegtuigbouwkundige opleiding en van de studievereniging. In een 18-tal artikelen worden door medewerkers, oud-medewerkers en studenten uiteenlopende aspekten van het reilen en zeilen van de vliegtuigbouwkunde in Delft belicht. Het is een wat bonte verzameling geworden. waarvan wij niettemin verwachten dat het lezen ervan genoegen zal verschaffen aan hen, die he! hebben meegemaakt en dat het voor de jongeren interessant genoeg is om er kennis van te nemen. Hopelijk zal de inhoud ook voor komende generaties van waarde blijken te zijn.

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31 Dec 2015
TL;DR: The CleanEra project was initiated with the goal of developing revolutionary ideas for civil aviation as discussed by the authors, which were to offer solutions which would limit and reduce some of the negative aspects of aviation, namely: emissions and the use of resources.
Abstract: The CleanEra project was initiated with the goal of developing revolutionary ideas for civil aviation. These ideas were to offer solutions which would limit and reduce some of the negative aspects of aviation, namely: emissions and the use of resources. This book presents you with the highlights of this journey in search of new technologies for a revolutionary aircraft; an aircraft that not only offers a future of comfortable air travel for the passenger, but a future of sustainable aviation for the planet as well.

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01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce the concept of Fatigue as a Phenomenon in the material and present an overview of the properties of materials and their properties under variable-amplitude loading.
Abstract: Preface. Frequently used symbols, acronyms and units. 1. Introduction to Fatigue of Structures and Materials. Part 1: Introductory Chapters on Fatigue. 2. Fatigue as a Phenomenon in the Material. 3. Stress Concentrations at Notches. 4. Residual Stresses. 5. Stress Intensity Factors of Cracks. 6. Fatigue Properties of Materials. 7. The Fatigue Strength of Notched Specimens. Analysis and Predictions. 8. Fatigue Crack Growth. Analysis and Predictions. Part 2: Load Spectra and Fatigue Under Variable-Amplitude Loading. 9. Load Spectra. 10. Fatigue under Variable-Amplitude Loading. 11. Fatigue Crack Growth under Variable-Amplitude Loading. Part 3: Fatigue Tests and Scatter. 12. Fatigue and Scatter. 13. Fatigue Tests. Part 4: Special Fatigue Conditions. 14. Surface Treatments. 15. Fretting Corrosion. 16. Corrosion Fatigue. 17. High-Temperature and Low-Temperature Fatigue. Part 5: Fatigue of Joints and Structures. 18. Fatigue of Joints. 19. Fatigue of Structures. Design Procedures. Part 6: Arall and Glare, Fiber-Metal Laminates. 20. The Fatigue Resistance of the Fiber-Metal Laminates Arall and Glare. Subject index.

1,351 citations


"80 Years of Aerospace Engineering E..." refers background in this paper

  • ...9) and ARALL [20] and Professor Schijve was a leading expert on fatigue [22] ....

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Journal ArticleDOI
14 Sep 2018-Science
TL;DR: A programmable and agile autonomous free-flying robot controlled through bio-inspired motion changes of its flapping wings that enables new methods for studying animal flight, and its flight characteristics allow for real-world flight missions.
Abstract: Insects are among the most agile natural flyers. Hypotheses on their flight control cannot always be validated by experiments with animals or tethered robots. To this end, we developed a programmable and agile autonomous free-flying robot controlled through bio-inspired motion changes of its flapping wings. Despite being 55 times the size of a fruit fly, the robot can accurately mimic the rapid escape maneuvers of flies, including a correcting yaw rotation toward the escape heading. Because the robot's yaw control was turned off, we showed that these yaw rotations result from passive, translation-induced aerodynamic coupling between the yaw torque and the roll and pitch torques produced throughout the maneuver. The robot enables new methods for studying animal flight, and its flight characteristics allow for real-world flight missions.

242 citations

Book
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a timeline of the development of the A380 from A3XX to A380, from the birth of Arall to the end of the 1990s.
Abstract: Preface. Prologue. 1. The Birth of Arall (1945-1981). 2. Arall Takes to the Air (1981-1988). 3. Toward Glare, Fuselages and the U.S. (1988-1997). 4. Glare in Europe - a long, long runway (1988-1997). 5. The end of the beginning - from A3XX to A380 (1996-2001). Epilogue. Appendix.

166 citations


"80 Years of Aerospace Engineering E..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...Their profitability was greatly 24 aided by the selection of the GLARE material for parts of the Airbus A380 in 2001, which also gave an enormous boost to the research and development output at the faculty with more than 30 people working towards the implementation and certification of GLARE [21]....

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  • ...9: Fiber Metal Laminate GLARE....

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  • ...Within the area of aircraft materials, Professor Vogelesang, Professor Vlot (1962-2002) and others invented the fiber metal laminates GLARE (Fig....

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  • ...aided by the selection of the GLARE material for parts of the Airbus A380 in 2001, which also gave an enormous boost to the research and development output at the faculty with more than 30 people working towards the implementation and certification of GLARE [21]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
23 Oct 2019
TL;DR: The swarm gradient bug algorithm (SGBA) as mentioned in this paper maximizes coverage by having robots travel in different directions away from the departure point, and then perform a gradient search toward a home beacon.
Abstract: Swarms of tiny flying robots hold great potential for exploring unknown, indoor environments. Their small size allows them to move in narrow spaces, and their light weight makes them safe for operating around humans. Until now, this task has been out of reach due to the lack of adequate navigation strategies. The absence of external infrastructure implies that any positioning attempts must be performed by the robots themselves. State-of-the-art solutions, such as simultaneous localization and mapping, are still too resource demanding. This article presents the swarm gradient bug algorithm (SGBA), a minimal navigation solution that allows a swarm of tiny flying robots to autonomously explore an unknown environment and subsequently come back to the departure point. SGBA maximizes coverage by having robots travel in different directions away from the departure point. The robots navigate the environment and deal with static obstacles on the fly by means of visual odometry and wall-following behaviors. Moreover, they communicate with each other to avoid collisions and maximize search efficiency. To come back to the departure point, the robots perform a gradient search toward a home beacon. We studied the collective aspects of SGBA, demonstrating that it allows a group of 33-g commercial off-the-shelf quadrotors to successfully explore a real-world environment. The application potential is illustrated by a proof-of-concept search-and-rescue mission in which the robots captured images to find "victims" in an office environment. The developed algorithms generalize to other robot types and lay the basis for tackling other similarly complex missions with robot swarms in the future.

123 citations

Book
06 Dec 2010

115 citations


"80 Years of Aerospace Engineering E..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...The authors would like to use the definition as listed in the Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering [2] which defines aerospace engineering as: “the...

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