2017 Q3 Council of Directors Newsletter

Table of Contents

Message from Your Speaker, Council of Directors..........................................Allen Arrington

Message from Your AIAA Managing Director, Content Development..............Tom Irvine

Introducing the Section & Region Activities Division.......................................Laura Richard

IOC of the Quarter – Digital Engineering........................................................Mat French

TC of the Quarter – Structural Dynamics........................................................Chad Herbert

Recent Developments & Upcoming Events

AIAA Foundation Donor Reception...............................................................Merrie Scott

Preview of 2018 SciTech...............................................................................Preview of 2018 SciTech

Message from Your Speaker, Council of Directors

My last message talked about the exciting time that AIAA had set off on with the stand-up of the new governance model in May. Since that time, the crazy busy part has kicked in as we have been working out the details of the organization within the Council. There is a lot to do, but we have a great group of folks, volunteers and staff, working these tasks.

Since May, the Council has been working on the details of our operation. Because there was so much to do, the Council decided to meet in June at the AVIATION Forum in order to work through some of the key issues.  Also, the Division Chiefs and I tag-up via telecon every two weeks to work on a variety of issues.  The Chiefs and the Speaker form the Council Steering Group, and we are working on developing the details for the Council operation.  Some of these details we knew we had to address and were part of our overall plan.  Others, however, were details that were missed and that we now have to account for.  But the design of the new governance model provides the flexibility needed to address these types of details.  A great example of this is the review of the Sustained Service Award (SSA) nominations.  In the old system, the award was managed by the Membership Committee and the Vice Presidents reviewed the nominations and recommended the honors for the award.  In the new system, there is no Membership Committee nor Vice Presidents.  When this gap was brought to our attention, the Council Steering Group adopted the SSA and recruited a few folks to aid in the evaluations for this year so that we still had “vice president”-level volunteers evaluating the nominations.  We were able to complete the evaluations and provide our recommendations on the award so that there was no lapse in the process.  Since then, Laura Richard, Chief of the Sections and Regions Activities Division, has taken the lead to develop the new process for the SSA. 

Since we have all of the member activity elements of the organization under the umbrella of the Council, we can quickly connect on these types of items and converge on a working solution.  We need to work to the 80% solution, get something that works, get it up and running and move out.  We can then tweak and tinker as needed to hone in on the final product (there’s that flexibility thing again).

Currently, we are working on setting up the first Communities of Interest, which is a critical element of the new governance model.  This is the grass-roots route for the membership to align around whatever topics you want.  We have a few volunteers who are ready to give this a go and staff is getting the community platform set up for use.  This platform is from Higher Logic and should streamline how we share information (for example, I think the information we share in this newsletter will migrate to the Higher Logic platform which will reduce the workload on the volunteers and staff and make for a more fluid flow of information).

Allen Arrington
Speaker – Council of Directors

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Message from Your AIAA Managing Director, Content Development

For the past two years, through the efforts of many member volunteers as well as people new to AIAA, we have focused on emerging technologies and societal trends with the aim to grow interest and engagement in the Institute.  

Areas of emphasis includes:                                       

In 2017, we have held the second “Demand for Unmanned”™ (D4U) UAS Symposium in conjunction with the AVIATION Forum in June.  To distinguish ourselves from those events and conferences that address the near-term regulatory issues associated with integrating UAS into the national airspace and from UAS-related trade shows, we are focusing on UAS as a catalyst for the machine intelligence revolution.  As such D4U programing focuses on robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence - all technologies that will be necessary if the full potential of UAVs is to be realized.

We had planned to hold the second Space Commercialization Executive Summit at the SPACE Forum in Orlando, FL, in September.  This was the follow-up to the successful first summit, the results of which are documented in an AIAA/Aviation Week Network Information Paper, Connecting to Grow the Space Economy.  The second summit was to be a follow-on discussion on two of the seven findings from the first summit: (1) political, legal, and regulatory stability as key to business stability and (2) economic incentives should be considered to attract investment. Due to the SPACE Forum cancellation, we are exploring options for rescheduling this second summit.

We have started publishing the “Protocol” cyber-security newsletter in conjunction with Good Harbor Security Risk Management.  This monthly newsletter is delivered to over 26,000 recipients with an average open rate of 30%.  The intent is to provide interesting and readable material that gives the aerospace engineer practical information about cybersecurity - the type of information that helps you best do your job in an era of increasing cyber threats, intrusions and risks.  We held a Cybersecurity Symposium at the 2017 AVIATION Forum.  A highly engaged group of around 30 attendees reported that the exercise was “very informative” and the “working session is very helpful to understand various cyber-threats and concerns.”  We plan to do another cybersecurity symposium at SciTech 2018 – even if you can’t participate or wouldn’t be interested in this symposium, perhaps there are people in your organization who might have any interest.  Please think about forwarding the symposium announcement to them when it is made available prior to SciTech.

Lastly, we leveraged the electric power and propulsion technologies that are in development and that are re-energizing the vertical flight community and other classes of air vehicles by holding the First Transformational Electric Flight Workshop and Expo in conjunction with the AVIATION Forum.  We had 168 registered attendees for this workshop and our peak attendance was close to 200.  This Workshop and Expo was conceived of and executed entirely by the AIAA Transformational Flight Program Committee and is an example of the types of events and activities that AIAA desires to hold as we strive to be most relevant to aerospace engineers and professionals.  It serves as Exhibit A for how an active committee or community of energized volunteer members can readily influence programming at a forum or for that matter, any of AIAA’s other products.  Along those lines, if you have what you think would be a good idea that would help grow AIAA and make us more relevant, let your TAD Group Director or me know.

Tom Irvine
Managing Director, Content Development                                         

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Introducing the Section & Regions Activities Division

A Regional Director, elected by the voting members who belong to that Region, shall lead each Region.  The current Regional Directors within SRAD are:

• Region 1: Steve Bauer
• Region 2: Kurt Polzin
• Region 3: Dan Jensen
• Region 4: Terry Burress
• Region 5:  John Eiler
• Region 6: Jane Hansen
• Region 7: To be Announced
  
  

Currently there are 58 Sections throughout the United States and overseas, organized into the seven AIAA Regions.  Sections are the foundation of the Institute and serve as the basic organizational element of the Institute.  Each Section offers technical programs and activities tailored to local aerospace professionals, students and educators.  The Sections provide strong communication link within the Institute and between the Institute and the local community.  Each member of the Institute is assigned to a Section.

Also found within the seven Regions are Student Branches.  The Student Branches are organized at those institutions of accepted standing where the curriculum is designed to prepare students for a professional career in science and engineering.

In upcoming issues of the Council of Directors Newsletter, the seven Regional Directors will highlight the varied and extraordinary activities from their Regions, Sections, and Student Branches.  I guarantee everyone will be amazed!

Laura Richard
Chief – Region & Section Activities Division (SRAD)

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Integration Committee of the Quarter - Digital Engineering  

As aerospace technology and products provide a “need for speed”, the way our industry operates is failing to keep pace.  Lagging time to market and increased costs threaten to hold the industry down.  By and large, the way we develop products and execute programs hasn’t changed much over the past many decades.  However, we have experienced consistent requirements and software growth, manifesting itself as the steady increase of system complexity, that increase the time required to deliver aerospace systems to market.  This trend impacts industrial and national competitiveness.

As the cost of materials, labor and testing continues to increase, we are seeing a dramatic decline in the cost of computer power and data storage.  Also, computational speed is increasing an order of magnitude every four years.  Use of digital capability through tools and techniques are not new in and of themselves.  Rather, they enable new ways of working, even partnering, to deliver the step change in cost and speed our industry needs to keep pace with market needs while reducing costs.  Accelerating product and process realization for aerospace is a partnership reality between customers, suppliers, regulators, and often competitors.  Traditional aerospace practices are being challenged to become increasing nimble while embracing collaboration and program agility.  Currently, these practices are developing their own digital capabilities, but all are developing the capabilities differently.  As a result, harmonization of digital approaches to accelerate full and holistic product and process realization must include industry-wide collaboration, certifying authorities, and regulators.  Within AIAA, we are exploring these new  digital ways of working through the Digital Engineering Integration Committee (DEIC).

The DEIC is a new committee within AIAA, established in May 2017.  The DEIC was established to accomplish five objectives: 1) Accelerate integration of new and existing digital capabilities for improving national competitiveness, security and operational readiness; 2) Support AIAA forums with integrating currently disparate digital activities (e.g. digital twin, digital thread, etc.); 3) Support constituent groups in organizational development and creation of a technical programs; 4) Recommend activities to reduce maintenance costs; and 5) Create environments to encourage the development of a ‘digital culture’.  To enable these objectives the DEIC will support an AIAA and non-AIAA constituency that is currently shaping a future digitally integrated advanced manufacturing enterprise.  This enterprise is focused on the harmonization of digital system capabilities to accelerate innovation & adoption of advanced manufacturing for aerospace industry benefit.  This involves the combination of multi-disciplinary (trans-disciplinary?) platforms, infrastructure, and technologies that go beyond today’s federated elements to include product service operations.  For these objectives to be realized, we pull on the deep technical knowledge within AIAA.  

The DEIC is looking for energetic individuals from private industry, DOD, other federal agencies, and academia that will work with us to harmonize disparate digital capabilities. Younger members and constituents who are enthusiastic about future digital systems concepts are encouraged to join.

Mat French
Managing Director, Content Development                                       

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Technical Committee of the Quarter – Structural Dynamics

The AIAA Structural Dynamics Technical Committee (SDTC) is organized under the AIAA Aerospace Design and Structures Technical Group, and it addresses the interactions among aerodynamic, dynamic, elastic, damping, inertial and control forces acting on vehicles and structures.  Included are response and stability investigations of linear and nonlinear systems using analytical, empirical and experimental techniques.  The SDTC, through its various subcommittees, participates in the promotion, organization and planning of both national and international technical conferences, development of education and training aids, advancement of cross-disciplinary activities, and promotion of candidates for awards and recognition in the structural dynamics field.

The SDTC regularly organizes approximately 25 sessions related to structural dynamics as part of the annual AIAA SciTech forum.  The Dynamics Specialists Conference (DSC) has been organized approximately every three years since 1973 and is collocated with the AIAA SciTech Forum.  The DSC provides a forum for the discussion of unique technical challenges faced by the Structural Dynamics community; the next DSC will be held at SciTech 2019.

Another recent workshop the SDTC has been prominently involved in is the AIAA Aeroelastic Prediction Workshop.  The 2^ndAEPW was held at SciTech 2016 with the intent of providing an open forum, of encouraging discussion of results and processes, of promoting best practices and collaborations, and of developing analysis guidelines and lessons learned.  In addition, SDTC members participate in the organization of the biennial International Forum on Aeroelasticity and Structural Dynamics, most recently held at Lake Como, Italy, in June 2017.

The SDTC is also involved in educational outreach activities.  For the past seven years, the SDTC Education Subcommittee has coordinated a STEM outreach activity during SciTech involving around 100 local middle or high school students.  The outreach events feature hands-on Structural Dynamics demonstrations covering natural frequencies, vibration, resonance, aeroelasticity, and launch vehicle and on-orbit dynamics.  At SciTech 2017, the SDTC also hosted a popular hands-on demo booth during the Generation STEM event.

The SDTC has also created a website to educate people on Structural Dynamics and its influence in aerospace engineering and get them interested in that field or career.  There are four main sections concerning different aspects of aerospace engineering and how they are influenced by Structural Dynamics each with different aerospace vehicles and informational topics:

• Moving Faster - Topics include flutter, jet engine dynamics and hypersonic flight
• Traveling Farther - Topics include rocket engine dynamics, moon landings and solar sail dynamics
• Holding Stronger - Topics include structural health monitoring, crash dynamics and flutter testing
• Reaching Higher - Topics include micro air vehicles, shock testing and damping
  
  

Additionally, the SDTC is working on an AIAA Recommended Practice for Modal Testing.  This will provide a compendium of information, including examples (both successful and unsuccessful), aimed at informing test conductors of best practices recommended for use in modal testing of both large and small aerospace structures.

Chad Herbert
Chair, Structural Dynamics Technical Committee                         

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Recent Developments & Upcoming Events

Foundation donor reception

In an effort to increase awareness of the Foundation’s educational programs, AIAA Foundation Board of Trustee John Tracy graciously hosted two donor receptions 27th and 28th September in the Los Angeles area. The receptions offered donors the opportunity to interact with local university students who had participated in educational programming, including the popular 22 year-old competition: Design/Build/Fly. 

We hope to continue with these traveling receptions and dinners with particular interest in Denver, Dallas, Seattle and Washington, DC. For more information about hosting a local fundraising event, or to make a donation, please visit the AIAA Foundation website or contact Merrie Scott by email or phone, 703.264.7530

For more information and to make a donation, please visit the AIAA Foundation website. 

Merrie Scott
Development Director, AIAA Foundation

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Preview of 2018 SciTech

AIAA’s SciTech Forum is the world’s largest event for aerospace research, development, and technology. The forum gives participants unparalleled access to a diverse range of thought leaders, not only in their own areas of expertise, but across technological boundaries, sparking the collaboration necessary for innovation in our community.  This year the forum will focus on seizing the next digital transformation – how disruptions in business markets, the dawn of digital engineering, a profusion of data, human–machine teaming, and the latest innovative technology are all shaking up the status quo and driving the evolution of aerospace.  Through discussions and collaboration, we will consider how our community can best respond and adapt to this changing landscape.

The SciTech 2018 Technical Program Committee has been hard at work since last year putting together the high-quality technical programming our audience has come to expect.  We have over 2700 presentations being schedule for January across more than 450 technical session! In addition, the Executive Steering Committee has been planning a plenary and Forum 360 program that will engage and challenge attendees to think outside of their normal technical specialty area while considering some of the many disruptions impacting our industry from changing tools and technologies.  We are planning sessions and speakers on a number of exciting topics, including: changing business models, big data, on demand mobility, virtual and augmented reality, crowdsourcing, and robotics and artificial intelligence.  We will have a diverse and interesting group of experts discussing these and other topics in new and compelling ways to maximize attendee engagement and learning.  We’re looking forward to another great event in Kissimmee and hope to see many of you there!

Pamela Melroy
General Chair, 2018 AIAA SciTech Forum

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