Highrise Rescue Air Vehicle Competition
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MIE students
in the Fundamentals of Aircraft Design class combined flight
engineering with highrise building fire rescue tactics
April 10 when they went head to head in a reusable rescue air vehicle
(RAV) competition.
The contest was the final project of the year in this capstone course,
one of several fourth-year classes requiring students to consolidate
all the material they've learned during their degree in a practical and
innovative way.
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The students were charged with the difficult task of designing and
building RAV models capable of rescuing highrise fire victims. Six
teams presented their designs and flew their scaled-down RAVs in front
of a review panel of nine engineering professionals and professors.
Team members had to take numerous elements into account, including
human comfort, cost, marketing, weather conditions, RAV stability and
building access.
The wining team created the Stable Aerial Vehicle Escape (SAVE),
designed to move along the sides of buildings to collect up to 11
highrise fire victims at a time. At first glance SAVE resembles a
helicopter but it includes four retractable bridges covered by
symmetrical wings to simultaneously help stabilize the vehicle and
protect passengers as they enter the fuselage.
Team member Tahir Merali said that their winning strategy was to
"completely disassemble what we had, evaluate all the different
components and ask, What can we do with these parts?" This fresh
approach was far from easy according to team mate Irfan Shaik, who
explained that "these things look very simple on the outside but we
realize how complicated they are now."
Professor Shaker Meguid,
the course instructor, played a key role in developing both the course
and competition. He was inspired by the 9/11 twin towers tragedy to
challenge students to find better highrise evacuation solutions.
Meguid, who recently founded the Aerospace Engineering Division at
Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, said that in a fire,
highrise building occupants are currently "told to avoid elevators but
the stairs are sometimes blocked by fire or smoke."
This was the inaugural year for the course and the department is
"planning to hold it many years in the future," said Professor Tony Sinclair, chair of
mechanical and industrial engineering.
Original
News @ UofT article by Jenny Lass.
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