Aerospace Engineering on the Back of an Envelope
Engineers need to acquire “Back-of-the-Envelope” survival skills to obtain rough quantitative answers to real-world problems, particularly when working on projects with enormous complexity and very limited resources. In the case studies treated in this bo
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Irwin E. Alber
Aerospace Engineering on the Back of an Envelope
Published in association with
Praxis Publishing Chichester, UK
Dr. Irwin E. Alber Irvine California U.S.A.
SPRINGER–PRAXIS BOOKS IN ASTRONAUTICAL ENGINEERING
ISBN 978-3-642-22536-9 e-ISBN 978-3-642-22537-6 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-22537-6 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2011935856 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover design: Jim Wilkie Project copy editor: David M. Harland Typesetting: OPS Ltd., Gt. Yarmouth, Norfolk, U.K. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science þ Business Media (www.springer.com)
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
xiii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
xv
List of figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
xvii
List of tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
xxi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Why Back-of-the-Envelope engineering? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Back-of-the-Envelope engineering; an important adaptation and survival skill for students and practicing engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 Design of a high school science fair electro-mechanical robot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.3 Design of a new commercial rocket launch vehicle for a senior engineering student’s design project . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.4 Preliminary design of a new telescope system by an engineer transferred to a new optical project . . . . . . . . 1.1.5 Examining the principles and ideas behind Back-of-theEnvelope estimation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 What is a Back-of-the-Envelope engineering estimate?. . . . . . . . 1.2.1 Tradeoff between complexity and accuracy. . . . . . . . . . 1.2.2 Back-of-the-Envelope reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.3 Fermi problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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