The aircraft designers of tomorrow use Fir Tree Buttons from JET PRESS
When a student aerospace design team were given a very challenging brief for the 2019 Aero Design competition they turned to JET PRESS for a solution. The team from the Warsaw University of Technology have won more awards in the SAE Aero Design competition than anyone else, but the latest brief for the Micro class significantly raised the bar.
A light aircraft assembled in 3 minutes
Lightweight unmanned aircraft are increasingly being used in humanitarian operations and the criteria for the competition reflect the needs of this area. For 2019 the students have to design an aircraft that not only fits into a small cardboard box but can be removed and assembled in less than 3 minutes.
Then it has to be hand launched and take a payload to a specific location. The students will take the aircraft they are designing to the US in April where they will demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft and discuss the design process with the judges.
The judges decided that the payload this year would be low density PVC pipes. The team had to find a very strong and light weight way to attach the payload to the aircraft and hold the pipes together. And the fixing has to be done quickly and easily.
This is where JET PRESS came in.
Fastenings that meet the strictest criteria
The team came up with the idea of using large Fir Tree Buttons to attach the payload to the aircraft wings and double ended Fir Tree Buttons to hold the pipes together. Urszula Golyska, a member of the student design team, was asked why they approached JET PRESS. “We were looking around for a clever way to attach the pipes to the aircraft and we stumbled upon a similar kind of fasteners on another company’s website. We ordered a sample, but they turned out to be too loose and didn’t hold the payload in place. We started to look for other options and we found Fir Tree Fasteners on the JET PRESS website. We decided to approach JET PRESS, and here we are now.”
The buttons are very light, strong and assembly is quick and fool proof. JET PRESS was happy to donate Double-Ended FTB086 and FTB056 Fir Tree Buttons. At the time of writing we don’t know how Warsaw University of Technology will get on but everyone at JET PRESS is certainly rooting for them.
The Warsaw University of Technology
In the 2018 SAE Aero Design competition the 12 strong Warsaw University of Technology team took third place in the general classification in the Advanced class, 1st place for the technical presentation in this class and third place for the accuracy of the drop. They are hoping for even better results in 2019.
The team is from the Interdepartmental Scientific Organisation in the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering. The University is widely considered to be the best technical university in Poland and has a global reputation for its graduates and scientific and technical achievements.
SAE Aero Design
The SAE Aero Design competition is a real‐world design challenge designed to compress a typical aircraft development program into one calendar year. This takes participants through the system engineering process of breaking down requirements. It exposes participants to the nuances of conceptual design, manufacturing, system integration, test, and sell‐off through demonstration.
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