Despite the growing interest in turbo-electric propulsion systems, all hypothesized benefits require considerable technological improvement from the current state of the art. There is limited research demonstrating how turbo-electric propulsion systems could output the necessary energy levels on a megawatt scale to prove useful in aerospace applications. Given this, the MIT Gas Turbine Lab is pursuing a demonstration of a 1MW class integrated motor-generator power system. working on a damper tuning experimental test for rotodynamic characterization of the 1MW demonstrator drive shaft. The goal of my project is to focus on the design and development of an experiment to tune the dampers of the bearing housing with the shaft that will be used in the final demonstrator.

Through this SuperUROP, I am able to contribute towards research that has a high applicability towards what is going on in industry right now. I intend to rely on the fundamentals from Course 16’s Unified Engineering and on my experience with CAD and FEA analysis. I hope to further my knowledge via real-world engineering challenges and learn from the incredible colleagues around me!