A six-month stint with our wind tunnel team

Oliver Loewenthal is spending six months with DSTG as part of the Navy Civilian Engineer Development Program (NCEDP). NCEDP is a three-year, six rotation Defence graduate program run out of Directorate of Navy Engineering (DNE).

'One of those rotations can be external to Navy but within Defence,' explains Oliver. 'So that's what I'm doing right now at DSTG. I've moved down from Sydney for six months at Fishermans Bend with the aerodynamics team, helping to manage the wind tunnels here.'

Asked why he chose DSTG, Oliver says that he'd heard good reviews on the graduate grapevine about the interesting work. He graduated from aerospace engineering, but Oliver says it's not an odd choice to choose a career with Navy engineering. 'Air is actually a fluid, and so for structural analysis of, for example, holes or stability and control of ships and propulsion there is definitely a large amount of technical skill overlap,' he points out. 'There's also a drought of naval architects because not many universities offer naval architecture anymore, so Navy takes several aerospace engineers in each graduate cohort.'

Find out more about DSTG's Graduate Program here.

Hands-on helper

Apart from the facilities management aspect of the work, Oliver's team also helps out the test engineers with experimentation work by working with the models under test, helping to mount and adjust platform models in the wind tunnels as required.

Models are mounted in the tunnel on a metal rod called a sting, which connects to the centre of the model from the rear. The sting attaches to the model with a sensitive balance of strain gauges which measure the reaction forces on the craft when the wind is turned on. Those forces can be interpreted to predict the forces on the full-scale platform performing the same manouevres in its real-world environment.

In DSTG's low speed wind tunnel a model can be made to pitch up and down, move vertically up and down and roll side to side; models in the transonic wind tunnel can also be made to yaw from side to side.

Aerodynamics brought to life

'What I've really liked is seeing the concepts I learned in uni being applied here. I'm lucky to be using my knowledge of concepts of aerodynamics and fluid flow, and it's amazing to see it all unfolding in the wind tunnels.'

'The impressive machinery on site also piqued my interest in this rotation - the huge low speed wind tunnel fan is four metres in diameter and it spins at 750 revolutions per minute, while the transonic wind tunnel can produce wind speeds of Mach 1.2. To see this equipment in action and understand the loads on it and all the subsystems that contribute in terms of cooling and lubrication, that's been intensely interesting.'

The NCEDP program also incorporates a Navy-funded industry placement (preferably a Navy service provider), so Oliver's next stop is an industry placement just down the road with Boeing Aerostructures Australia, where he'll be working on more exciting, high-tech equipment!

After that he'll head back to Navy engineering, potentially to its aviation systems team.

Does life get any better for an aerospace graduate?

Find out more about the RAN Civilian Engineer Development Program here.

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