Name

Tim MacDonald


Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics
Durand Building
Stanford, CA 94305

Background

Background

  • Ph.D., Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, 2015 - Present.
  • M.S., Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, 2015.
  • B.S., Mechanical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 2013.

    • Research Interests

    • Aircraft Design
    • Optimization
    • Supersonic Aircraft
    • SUAVE

    Current Focus

    My current work focuses on methods to bring CFD-informed values into aircraft conceptual design in a way that allows higher-fidelity performance estimations earlier in the process. I am currently investigating methods that involve optimizing a large number of airfoils in order to build a performance surrogate, which is then used to estimate total wing performance.

    In addition to this, I am involved in the development of SUAVE and focus in particular on methods that can be used to estimated the performance of supersonic aircraft.

    Publications

    T. MacDonald, J. J. Alonso. "Increasing Conceptual Design Fidelity with Prebuilt Airfoil Databases", 2018 Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Atlanta, GA, June 2018.
    T. MacDonald, M. Clarke, E. Botero, J. M. Vegh, J. J. Alonso. "SUAVE: An Open-Source Environment Enabling Multi-fidelity Vehicle Optimization", 16th AIAA Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Denver, CO, June 2017.
    T. MacDonald, E. Botero, J. M. Vegh, A. Variyar, J. J. Alonso, T. Orra, C. Ilario da Silva. "SUAVE: An Open-Source Environment Enabling Unconventional Designs through Higher Fidelity", 55th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Grapevine, TX, January 2017.
    E. Botero, A. Wendorff, T. MacDonald, A. Variyar, J. M. Vegh, T. Lukaczyk, J. J. Alonso, T. Orra, C. Ilario da Silva. "SUAVE: An Open-Source Environment for Conceptual Vehicle Design and Optimization", 54th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, San Diego, CA, January 2016.
    T. Lukaczyk, A. Wendorff, E. Botero, T. MacDonald, T. Momose, A. Variyar, J. M. Vegh, M. Colonno, T. Economon, J. J. Alonso, T. Orra, C. Ilario, "SUAVE: An Open-Source Environment for Multi-Fidelity Conceptual Vehicle Design", 16th AIAA Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Dallas, TX, June 2015.