Aerospace Experimentation and Fabrication Building

Students fabricate, assemble and test aerospace systems using industry-grade equipment. AXFAB supports capstone projects, research and competition teams with hands-on manufacturing experience.

The primary use of the Aerospace Experimentation and Fabrication Building (AXFAB) is to provide students with the instruction, resources and equipment they will need to fabricate and assemble various projects.

At the heart of the AXFAB facility is the fully equipped machine shop, which is outfitted with separate areas for welding, painting, machining and materials layout. The facility also has Computer Numerical Control (CNC) metal lathes and a computer-controlled milling machine.

Along with the equipment and tooling available, the machine shop also has a qualified machinist on duty to provide students with instruction on the proper and safe use of equipment. Along with providing the equipment for students to fabricate aerospace components, the machine shop’s equipment is used to support other labs housed in the Aerospace Experimentation and Fabrication Building.

Labs

Structural Testing Laboratory (Room 128): This laboratory supports capstone courses in the College of Engineering curriculum as well as student projects by facilitating the structural testing of large test articles. A large steel configurable reaction frame is mounted on a structural load floor with a crawl space below. Two sizes of MTS hydraulic cylinders are used for applying loads and displacements to test articles and data acquisition systems give users real-time results during testing.

Materials Testing Laboratory (Room 129): Focused primarily on the micro side of structural mechanics, the Materials Testing Laboratory is the central location for students to participate in the preparation and testing of physical material specimens used in aerospace platforms. Students will use a variety of tools, including tensile-testing machines and fatigue-testing equipment.

Light Manufacturing Shop (LMS)/Design-Build-Fly Lab (DBF) (Rooms 131 and 133): The LMS and DBF Lab are two spaces dedicated to hands-on student project support. The LMS is a student-run shop that supports projects ranging from engineering capstones to research projects, student clubs and competition teams. The DBF Lab is a space dedicated to the Coppertails DBF and SAE Eaglenautics competition teams. The LMS complements the DBF Lab by providing rapid fabrication support, whereas the DBF Lab houses tools and equipment needed for the assembly and finishing of aircraft.

EagleSat Laboratory (Room 119): The EagleSat Lab is a research and design lab for the EagleSat space grant project. The team is currently working on EaglSat-2, with a payload designed to analyze the degradation of memory and data on the current solid-state memory devices used today, such as flash memory, SD cards, memory sticks, etc.

Materials Science Laboratory (Room 137): This laboratory supports courses in the College of Engineering curriculum in materials science and engineering. Additionally, it serves several faculty research programs in materials science and structural analysis, allowing users to evaluate composition as well as view, identify and understand the small-scale structures of fracture surfaces, material damage and material microstructure. Microhardness testing can help identify changes in material properties with various surface and heat treatments.

Microscopy Laboratory (Room 139): This laboratory supports courses in the College of Engineering curriculum in materials science and engineering. Additionally, it serves several faculty research programs in materials science and structural analysis, allowing users to evaluate composition as well as view, identify and understand the small-scale structures of fracture surfaces, material damage and material microstructure. Microhardness testing can help identify changes in material properties with various surface and heat treatments.

Structural Dynamics Laboratory (Room 140): This is one of the most interesting and dynamic laboratories in the AXFAB facility. Its main purpose is to allow students to use the Unholtz-Dickey two-axis electromagnetic shaker table to simulate the vibrational environment of a space launch. Once students in the program have prepared their satellite, rover or other space hardware, they can use the equipment to see if it would survive the structural loads and vibrations encountered during a launch.

Space Systems Laboratory (Room 142): One of the many research labs in the AXFAB, this lab is used by both Engineering and Physics majors for research into experimental space systems, senior design projects and NASA Space Grant Projects. Current and past projects include the Arcjet project, a NASA Space Grant research project involving exotic space propulsion using non-chemical-based fuel sources and a plasma thruster.