Amaesi results are out kya?

Amaesi results are out. I am sure preety much every student of aesi is
waiting for this news.

This is the general sense around this time among aesi students. So
what are you planning to do while you wait for the results.

Just waiting is stupid. Do something!! No you cannot self publish some
results or hit goyal for getting the results so late but you can
always start. Start your next semester.

I mean truly begin studying as if you are doing it for the next coming
exams. I know it's hard, it's difficult. That's precisely the reason
it needs reminder like this.

Accelerate your FEM software learning with this tip

Here's one tip from my current adventure with an FEM software.

Read the documentation at least 5 times. And read it all at different
times and different stage of your learning.

Studying the documentation before begining is common. It's natural to
do that at time.

But the biggest benefit of the help documentation will come at the
middle stage of learning. It is at this stage when you are fairly
comfortable with the software, seeing the help document will reveal
nuggets of information that went unnoticed at the begining.

As I went through this exercise, I learnt lot of small stuff in the
FEM software that I am working on.

So revisit the help documentation at different stages in your
learning, it will help you accelerate your learning without any extra
efforts.

Which version of CAD or CAE software should you use?

Just after posting the previous post on using CAD CAE softwares, i
realized that I haven't tackled the question of which version of
software to use.

There are innumerable software and each have innumerable versions
available. So which one should you use? Is catia v15 better to catia
v10, or msc nastran is better than nx nastran?

I have seen students of aesi fret over version for days. They just
wait for the latest version without begining. They will wait 30 days
in the hope of laying hands on catia v15 than begining with catia v10
that is already installed.

That is wrong strategy. Begin with whatever version you have. In fact
starting with a lower version is better.

Newer version are always invariably easier to use, easier to work
with. And they have layers of abstruction to the end task, hiding
important details that might enable you to learn the process behind
the model.

GUI improves most in the latest version but you aren't learning a cad
or cae tool to judge a beauty content. You want to learn it to enable
you do the design and analysis.

So if you want to learn a software, begin with the version you have.
Lower the version, the more opportunities you have to understand the
process. Lower the version, the higher the chance of making human
errors, mistakes and thus higher the chances to learn. The more
mistakes you make, the faster you will learn!!

So start today. Start now with whatever version you have!!

Be educated not trained!! :)

Read all posts regarding software learning by following this link.

Http://my-aesi.blogspot.com/search?q=software

Don't forget to use the new search functionality in the blog!!

Which software to use? Advise to AeSI aerospace students!

In my previous post, I highted 3 softwares that I will recommend to
any propulsion (aerospace) engineer entering the industry. Though I
mentioned three specific softwares but they are certainly not the only
one used in the industry.

Those 3 were the softwares that I will take up if I were a fresh AeSI
graduate today.

Every organisation uses many different softwares. Even CAD, CAE
softwares vary from department to department. And these softwares also
change with each year.

I have seen catia replacing unigraphics and again next year catia
replaced by a brand new cad program in my department. So don't fret
about the softwares too much. They change like governments!

Start with whatever options that are available to you. But be
consistent. Consistent in putting in your time, consistent in sitting
with the software every day. Consistent in learning the tool.

Always remember, no matter what software you use, study or practise,
It's YOU who will matter ultimately in your design and analysis.
Softwares are just the tools that enable you to weive the magic!

Be educated not trained.

In all the software that you will pick up in aesi, aim for education
rather than being trained.

What does this mean?
Education means knowing what you are doing and knowing the why of
what's happening while training is just knowing how to use a
particular softeware.

You don't want to be cad operator after aesi, nor do you want to just
mesh model all your life. So when working with a software learn why
and what is actually happening inside rather than focusing on the how's!

Yes how are important but more stress should be put on the why. Once
you understand why and what is happening, you will easily figure out
the how.

So what can you do?

1. Do hand calculations. It will awaken the concepts of what you are
doing in nastran or ansys.

2. Ask why those innumerable options are there. Just entering values
mechanically isn't enough, know why and what this values represnt in
the whole process.

3. Try non defalult values. Try extreme limit vales in the options and
find out what happens.

4. Aim to fail. Failure to mesh, failing to revolve, failing to
analyze will help you more than success in any of this. Failure will
prompt you to look deeper. This is when you will learn what's going
inside the hood. So fail often!!

So these are some steps you can adopt to be educated in a software
rather than being trained.

So look inside the hood. Don't let the software to be just a blackbox,
where you give certain input and you get certain results. Know what's
happening inside.

You might want to check other software related posts by clicking the
following link

http://my-aesi.blogspot.com/search?q=software

And if you are reading this in an rss reader or email you might want
to check the new search feature available at www.my-aesi.blogspot.com
This will help you find any other related content you might want.

Three softwares that I would recommend

Three softwares that I would recommend an aerospace engineer right
now.Specially for those seeking to enter the propulsion industry are

1. Unigraphics
2. Nastran
3. iSight

Yes these are the 3 softwares that keep coming to me each and every
day. So if you are to ask me 3 software I will give these three names.

If I were to pick one now, I will go with iSight as thats closest to
my passion of tinkering and I know knowing how to use that will enable
me to learn everything else in the list.

So take your pick. The list is not important. Your decision to pick
one and following it each and everyday is!!!

5 lesson learnt from writing the ebook.

The ebook is ready. I like the way it finally came out. Now all that
is required is to setup the system so that it's available to everyone
for whom it is intended.

At the begining of the task I didn't realize that it was such a big
task. But it turned to be one. Here are 5 lessons I learnt in
compiling this ebook.

1. Plan ahead.
The ebook saw the light because I had planned ahead. I broke the
project into series of steps and I did try to do each one at a time.

For the ebook, the main tasks were gathering the material from the
blog. Organising the material, formating, making PDFs and finally
launcing.

This were the high level steps, which were furthur broken down to
smaller tasks to get the work done.

2. Get maximum done in the intial push
This was perhaps the best thing I did for this ebook project.

Downloading some selected, related content from 750+ post of my-aesi!
I utilized the initial enthusiasm for the ebook to acomplish this
tasks within days of setting the goal to finish this project.

Since I have limited time and limited access to net, so this motivated
me to push through and I did the first two tasks of getting the
content and organising them fairly quick.

3. Keep off topic when stuck
After the initial two tasks, came the formating and this gave me
headaches. Literally I never thought formating will be so difficult.

I have written countless documents for office but never had any
formatting issue but this was not the case with this ebook.

I was stuck and it is at this stage of the ebook, I had doubts and I
wanted to scrap the whole project.

Here I just let go off the project and let it lay down low in my daily
tasks. I thought of ways to format and tried different formating
styles in word but never touched the ebook. I was incubating ideas. I
was waiting for inspiration. And I didn't wait in vain. Eventually I
did felt like picking the ebook and went with the first formating that
came to my mind.

Well it was not perfect but I tweaked and tweaked and got something I
liked.

4. Formating is the not trivial
As I found formating is not trivial. This was the greatest lesson for
me. Yes I have authored many reports and document but there was none
that big and as wordy as this project. The reports at office had
tables and graphs and some text sandwiched. But in this ebook text was
the bread. So had to learn few formating tricks!!

5. Chip in daily.
In the initial stage, enthusiasm of a big project sailed me through
two of the major tasks. But as I moved to next stage, the enthusiasm
eroded. The engine stopped.

This is were self discipline came handy. I had set an hour a day for
this project and even when I didn't feel like I have any desire to
work on this project, I chipped on.

I didn't feel like taking up the ebook, but I began tinkering with the
formating with some dummy reports. I began researching on the tools to
convert doc to pdf.

So even when I didn't do anything directly for the project, indirectly
I kept chipping. This not only help me save the project but made me
more confident in word and showed me numerous ways to convert word
documents to PDFs.

This were the lessons I have learnt in writing this ebook. I hope you
will pick up something from this experience.

I am at the final stage of launching the ebook. Do bear with me some
more. Hope you will like the ebook and find it useful.

Divide and rule

In programming the best way to code is divide and rule. The most
efficiet way to develop programs is to split the main tasks into
series of basic steps and then code the basic steps.

This is done by means of developing small functions, subroutine that
can be called from the main program. Same is true for accomplishing
tasks, goals and things in life.

Break your goals, projects into series of steps and then accomplish
the steps one at a time.

4 ways to have productive work in a sun system.

1. Know the use of semicolon.
2. Know how to write alias in sun Solaris
3. Know how to crease csh file or shell script
4. Know the use of foreach command


Knowing this four things can massively increase your efficiency and
productivity while working on sun Solaris system.

here are some tips of using sun Solaris effectively.

copy recursively in sun Solaris : cp -r foldename/filename
acrobat reader in sun Solaris : acroread filename
remote login in sun Solaris : rlogin computer name
for text calendar type "cal" at the terminal.
"dtcm" shows you calendar in sun Solaris
"sun forum" can be used to chat over sun intranet or network

Aerospace Engineer's Salaries

A lot of people has asked me this query lately and I have already written a post regarding a month back, and when I saw this latest on aerospace engineer's salary, I couldn't stop myself in posting it here..

here's a US centric outlook and salary structure. Hope this will help. In India, the story is similar and though not as lucrative as IIM's salaries. :)


http://www.engineersalary.com/Aerospace.asp


Aerospace Engineer's Salaries

In 2008 the middle 50% earned between $61,180 and $94,340. The lowest 10% earned less than $49,920, and the highest 10% earned more than $120,760. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of aerospace engineers in 2008 were:


Federal Government: $78,310
Search and navigation equipment: $75,100
Aircraft, parts and components: $76,420
Guided missiles, space vehicles and parts: $73,490