Nowadays, engineering as a career is trending among the youth. Aerospace and aeronautical engineering are two interchangeably used words as they have so many similarities. Both the branches require a lot of designing and manufacturing skills. Also, many technicalities such as mechanics, calculation, and motion-related technology are used.
Aerospace vs Aeronautical Engineering
The main difference between aerospace and aeronautical engineering is that aerospace engineering deals with manufacturing and designing spacecraft and aircraft. On the other hand, aeronautical engineering deals with designing and manufacturing aircraft. Aerospace engineering deals with navigation in space and the earth’s atmosphere. Also, aeronautical engineering deals with the navigation of aircraft within the earth’s atmosphere.
Aerospace engineering is the designing of aircraft or spacecraft within the earth’s atmosphere and outer space too. It mainly focuses on manufacturing spacecraft, aircraft, and helicopters. The construction of aircraft or spacecraft depends upon several factors such as thermodynamics, aerodynamics, rocket propulsion system, orbital system, and orbital mechanism and motion.
Aeronautical engineering has the limitation that the aircraft’s trajectory is confined up to the earth’s atmosphere. Aeronautical engineering has had a great scope in recent days and also many youths are attracted to this branch. The airplane construction and design depend upon many factors such as air friction, heating effect, the density of used material, flight mechanism, airflow.
Comparison Table Between Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering
| Parameters of Comparison | Aerospace Engineering | Aeronautical Engineering |
| Branches | Aerospace engineering has two branches namely aeronautics and astronautics. | Aeronautical engineering is not further categorized. |
| Commencement | Aerospace engineering started in the late 1940s. | Aeronautical engineering started in the early 20th century |
| Pioneer | George Cayley is known to be the father of aerospace engineering. | Orville and Wilbur Wright are given the credit for developing aeronautical engineering. |
| Coverage | Aerospace engineering covers the flight system from the earth’s atmosphere to space. | Aeronautical engineering covers the flight system up to the earth’s atmosphere. |
| Based Theory | Aerospace engineering is based on aerodynamic and astrodynamics. | Aeronautical engineering is based on aerodynamics and thermodynamics. |
What is Aerospace Engineering?
A branch of engineering that deals with the study, development, and designing of aircraft and spacecraft. Aerospace engineering is broadly divided into two branches namely aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Similarly, a branch of engineering is quite similar to aerospace engineering but mainly focuses on the electronic aspects of aerospace engineering is preferably known as Avionics.
Aerospace engineering uses different types of techniques such as radar signal transmission. The radar transmission enables to study of the carrier satellite’s navigation by remote sensing. This transmission is solely based on radar signals.
As the name suggests, aerospace aircraft or spacecraft need aerodynamic structures such as wings. While talking about space, one must know about the celestial bodies, their path prediction, and their approximate location. This branch of Physics knowing the astronomical bodies is technically termed astrodynamics.
The common mechanics plays a huge role in building the carrier satellite. The study of applied forces and types of motion are viral parts of mechanical systems. This requires huge calculations such as linear algebra, calculus, differential equations, and many more.
The carrier satellite needs some energy for getting established in space or the earth’s environment. This energy is gained through propulsion which is mainly contributed by the combustion of fuel. The material from which the satellite is made plays an important role as the material must be lightweight and lie within the budget.
What is Aeronautical Engineering?
Aeronautical engineering is the branch of physics that is involved in making the design and manufacturing of aircraft. The strategies of handling aircraft which fly within the atmosphere. The word aviation technically refers to the flight of any object in the atmosphere.
Also, aviation not only deals with the flight of heavy metal aircraft but also includes airships and balloons. The main focus of aeronautical engineering is aerodynamics which is a branch of dynamics and focuses on motion based on the air and its interaction with aircraft’s motion. The aerodynamic study has broadly three areas of flow namely incompressible flow, transonic flow, and compressible flow.
The compressible flow is marked when the compressed air, mostly above the speed of sound, emerges as shockwaves. The speed above the speed of sound is termed supersonic speed. Also, the speed of a wave is stated as subsonic if the speed is lesser than the speed of sound.
On the other hand, incompressible flow is marked when the atmospheric air, at subsonic speed is deflected by objects. The transonic flow is obtained when the airspeed is in transition and the object is made to float.
Main Differences between Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering
- Aerospace engineering focuses on the construction of airplanes and spacecraft whereas aeronautical engineering focuses mainly on constructing airplanes.
- In aerospace engineering, the flights take into the earth’s atmosphere and also to space whereas in aeronautical engineering the flights are taken only up to the earth’s atmosphere.
- In aerospace engineering, gravity is not a huge factor as this spacecraft going in space does not consider gravity whereas in aeronautical engineering gravity plays a huge role as the flight may get affected by gravity.
- In aerospace engineering, the spacecraft speed crosses the escape velocity of the earth to reach space whereas, in aeronautical engineering, the aircraft does not crosses the escape velocity of the earth and is limited up to the atmosphere.
- The aerospace aircraft moves from one environment to the other hence observing heat and friction whereas aeronautical aircraft do not encounter any type of heat or friction.
Conclusion
Aerospace and aeronautical engineering are the most interchangeably used in terms of the latest technologies related to aircraft. Most of the colleges nowadays provide bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace and aeronautical engineering. The range of aerospace engineering is from the earth’s atmosphere to space.
On the other hand, the range of aeronautical engineering is only up to the earth’s atmosphere. The earliest attempt to reach the earth’s atmosphere was made by Leonardo da Vinci in the year 1490. However, their aircraft designs were mainly inspired by the flying mechanism of birds and were not practical.
The early designs were named ornithopters which resemble the flaps or wings of the birds whereas helicopters were similar with a fan having rotating flaps. At the beginning of the 19th century, a revolution changed the designing process of aircraft. The engineers started designing aircraft keeping in mind many aspects such as strong, highly malleable, rigid, budget-friendly, and lightweight.
According to different needs, the aircraft are built accordingly. For example, a passenger aircraft needs space for personal accommodation, high fuel capacity, and long-run duration. Also, some airplanes may be used to transport food and rescue the victims, then the aircraft need to be spacious, have a high speed, and have good support.
References
- http://staging.cdio.org/files/document/file/prob_based_lrn.pdf
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376042104000594
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=YUmGnWp_LfUC&oi=fnd&pg=PP17&dq=aeronautical+engineering&ots=cweWJFqxVz&sig=U7HrOqG_1uhuI5ru0V3a-FcZzAo
- http://www.irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/cgi-bin/irbis_nbuv/cgiirbis_64.exe?I21DBN=LINK&P21DBN=UJRN&Z21ID=&S21REF=10&S21CNR=20&S21STN=1&S21FMT=ASP_meta&C21COM=S&2_S21P03=FILA=&2_S21STR=Vnau_2017_3_7