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Clark Atlanta Students' Work to Aid Troops in Iraq

By Linda Hobbs
Black College Wire

Photo credit: Lockheed Martin The C-130J cargo plane is able to reach 28,000 feet in 14 minutes.

Even as Clark Atlanta University prepares to shut down the School of Engineeing because of budget cuts, mechanical engineering students at the university have completed a project designed to make the planes that carry U.S. troops lighter and more efficient.

No one had a clue what the students were up to. For months, the group of mechanical engineering students -- wearing safety goggles, powder blue lab coats and serious-looking facial expressions -- sequestered themselves in a basement room in the Science Research Center.

�Everybody can�t hear about the stuff we�re doing, because it�s for international security,� said Dr. David R. Veazie, associate professor of engineering. �Some things they don�t even tell us."

The �international security� was Operation Iraqi Freedom. The �they� was Lockheed Martin, a leading defense contractor whose products range from spacecraft to missiles and fighter jets. The company raked in a reported $31.8 billion in sales in 2003.

Veazie said the engineering department had been working with the company for 10 years, helping with research and experiments. The most current project involved testing the mechanical properties of aircraft wings of the C130J, a cargo plane used to take food and supplies to the Iraqi troops.

Lockheed Martin approached Veazie with a request to find lighter weight material for the C130J that would be cheaper and more efficient, and dependable enough to carry supplies and soldiers safely to their destinations.

�The lighter the plane is, the more people you can put in it,� Veazie said. �If we replace the door with a lighter door, the more safe it�ll be, the more gas you can put in and more food can be delivered in less trips.�

The students, who were compensated, worked under Veazie and the lab�s research engineer, Brian Shonkwiler.

�These are the guys who monitored the tests, helped with monitoring the cracks, and assembled the test fixture,� Veazie said.

Dionna Dunbar, one of the two females on the project, said that students were sometimes as much in the dark about what they were doing as their professors. �They might tell us, �hey, make this, do this,� but they don�t tell us the nature behind it. It�s a matter of building on your education. That�s the significance of it.�

Veazie received his bachelor's of mechanical engineering from Southern University and Ph.D. from Georgia Tech. He also conducts research for NASA, and figured the experiment would be a good way of demonstrating patriotism.

�It�s CAU�s little part in helping out the troops and the mission in Iraq,� he said.

Asked if he supports the war, Veazie paused and said, �I support the troops.� For the research team, supporting the troops meant getting rid of the old C130J doors and replacing them with the lighter ones.

In the four-month experiment, the original C130J door was placed on a blue machine overlooking an air device. Then, two separate tests were performed: a fatigue test, exhausting the door with air pressure; and a static pressure test, in which pressure is put on the door to determine its life span. Each piece of the door was tested for durability.

�With the machines, we can simulate the aircraft wings and tell how strong the material is and how long it can last on an airplane,� Veazie said, adding that the data were sent to the Federal Aviation Administration and Lockheed Martin, which helped monitor the tests.

Ultimately, the team not only proved that the lighter test composites worked, but that the material was safer than the original, which broke apart during the experiment.

Veazie worries about how long the glory will last. He�s well aware that the engineering department closes in 2007 because of the university�s budget problems. (The university does not fund experiments such as the Iraqi plane project; personal government grants do).

�The school is going away from all this stuff that was making a lot of money for them,� he said, noting that he raised more than $3 million with his research projects alone. �Because of the phaseout of the engineering department, that�s [the experiments] going to go away.�

He said he had no idea where he�ll head when the department closes. �But I�m going to have to start thinking about it,� he said.

In the meantime, the students have a few other defense missions.

What are they? Veazie leaned back in his recliner, propped his hands behind his head and grinned like a little kid.

It was too top secret for him to talk about.

Posted Jan. 31, 2005