General Information
In This Section
Please refer to the Rules document for Team Requirements and additional information. Check the rules document carefully as items and approaches that were legal in past years may not be legal for this contest year. Only the contents of this year's Rules
package along with the current FAQ and Q&A documents hold bearing on the requirements and/or allowances for the current contest year.
It is the responsibility of the teams to know and follow all provided rules, the FAQ, and all contest
day briefings.
Cash prizes are $3,000 for 1st, $2,000 for 2nd and $1,500 for 3rd place. The winning team may be invited to present their design at an AIAA conference. The team with the best Report Score will receive a $100 prize from the
Design Engineering Technical Committee.
Forms
DBF Logo
Download the official DBF logo for use on your aircraft, promotional materials, shirts, or anything else!
Contact
Questions regarding the contest, schedules, or rules interpretation may be sent to the contest administrator by email at: director@aiaadbf.org.
Questions received prior to the official entry submission date will not be answered directly. Select questions “may” be answered in the FAQ prior to the entry submission date. Official questions and answers received following the entry submission date will be posted on the website FAQ.
The DBF Organizing Committee will utilize Facebook as an additional means of communicating with the teams during the contest weekend only. This will NOT be a means of communicating rules, FAQ's, protests, etc., but only used in case of emergencies, weather delays or contest weekend schedule updates. Additional information will be included in a contest site/ schedule email to be sent out to the registered teams prior to the fly-off.
Software
ESTECO is an independent technology provider delivering first-class
software solutions aimed at perfecting the simulation-driven design process. ESTECO Academy Program aims to shape the engineers of the future, providing students around the world with practical competencies and state-of-the-art technology in the field
of multidisciplinary optimization (MDO). ESTECO supports AIAA DBF teams with free ESTECO Academy membership, including access to modeFRONTIER MDO platform and dedicated training sessions and materials.
FlightStream is an advanced surface vorticity solver
capable of using surface paneling to produce high fidelity load calculations for subsonic aircraft. FlightStream has extensive geometry import capabilities including CAD import with onboard meshing. FlightStream also has a compliment of post processing
tools and is fully scriptable for angle of attack sweeps, optimization, and interfacing with other tools. Both surface and instream flow parameters are available from FlightStream along with surface and instream streamline generation. Email Roy Harfield
to learn more.
MachUp is airframe design, analysis, and optimization software
just released this year. It offers a user-friendly web-based GUI for initial design, and a downloadable "Pro " version that links to Matlab and/or Python for detailed design, optimization, or parameter sweeps. Blucraft offers full MachUp licensing
to DBF teams for free. Visit aero.go.usu.edu or email to learn more.
Teams can use MATLAB and Simulink to design and validate
their aircraft as well as simulate mission profiles. MathWorks is the leading developer of mathematical computing software for engineers and scientists, developing products like MATLAB and Simulink. MATLAB combines a desktop environment tuned for
iterative analysis and design processes with a programming languages that expresses matrix and array mathematics directly. Simulink is a graphical programming environment for multidomain simulation and Model-Based Design. Simulink is integrated with
MATLAB, enabling you to incorporate MATLAB algorithms into models and export simulation results to MATLAB for further analysis. Request complimentary software for the competition and find training resources.
Provides its academic partners with industrial strength software
to make sure that students build the skills they need to contribute from day one in their new job. Products include: Simcenter™ software, NX™ software, Solid Edge® software, Tecnomatix® software and Teamcenter® software. Also
included are: Mentor Graphics’ Capital® software, PADS® software, Calibre® software, Questa® software, Tessent® software and FloEFD™ software.
Launched in 2013, SimScale is an online computer-aided engineering
platform for finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, and heat transfer. SimScale is free to use for students and educators. For more information email academic@simscale.com.