Engineers in the Bristol works of Airbus leave nothing to chance when they are putting their metal alloy wings through their paces. A pair of hydraulic jacks bend, twist and bounce the 18-metre wing used in the Airbus A320, in a test that replicates the forces exerted on it over the equivalent of 240,000 flights — five times the normal lifespan.
For Airbus, where the safety record of the company’s commercial aircraft is paramount, exhaustive testing of this nature is standard stuff.
They once bought scandium (well, OK, aluminium scandium master alloy) from me to build a whole wing like this. Which they then tested, for years, in exactly this manner.
“The way to make an aircraft more fuel efficient is to make the wings long and slender. You create more lift and less drag,” Partridge explained. “The other key way to save fuel is to make the wing lighter.” Airbus’s albatross wing is made from carbon fibre, rather than the heavier metal alloy versions that adorn its existing aircraft.
Not every investigation into a new material leads to use in production runs….
You did it a decade too early and didn’t cut the right people in on the deal. We could have scandium aircraft falling out of the sky daily, regulators turning a blind eye, the press calling the families of the deceased conspiracy theorists, and you would be a billionaire.
They should start making wings out of balsa.
After all that’s very light and is a kind of carbon fibre.
Glider wings have been built out of composites: glass fibre, carbon fibre, kevlar, etc) for decades now. Yawn.
It’s very labour intensive, although automated mat-laying is helping.
But a composite structure is very hard to test for fatigue damage, so there are serious concerns with how you maintain intensive use, as is needed in commercial aviation (though not in gliders).
With metal, ultrasound and dye testing are very good at detecting cracks before they make the wing fall off.
Composites are also very vulnerable to overstress or impact damage that is hard to detect or repair.
Also, composites don’t conduct, and gliders are seldom hit by lightning. Making a composite structure/copper mesh wing not explode upon lightning strike is a big concern in commercial aviation.
A few years ago, the big story was lithium-aluminium wings. Less mess to clean up after the crash!
Don’t see why they are bothering, since we won’t be allowed to travel because the sky is falling into the gerbils, or something. So no new planes needed.
The Al Sc that I dealt with was the Russian alternative to the US (NASA) Al Li. I know Airbus made a wing of my stuff. The Yankee? Dunno
Balsa wood? You may laugh . . . but I was amazed when I learned that the standard military airlift pallet, the HCU/6E, is made almost-entirely out of balsa wood, and it has (depending on loading) some stunning capacities, and is also tough enough to withstand the attentions of enlisted airmen. Balsa wood is amazing stuff.
llater,
llamas
Just out of interest, who supplied the scandium in my 340PD?
llater,
llamas
Between possibly and probably me. The engineer was a guy called Troy Teck. Independent company that did the work for S&W. I supplied – a number of times, but not all the times they used it – Troy with the aluminium scandium master alloy used to make the final alloy.
The guy who made the alloy was Sergei Kondratiev….
Don’t laugh at balsa: remember the de Havilland Mosquito. Not built to last 40 years, mind, as commercial jets are.
Edison supposedly had 999 unsuccessful attempts (or 2,774 unsuccessful attempts) before he produced a workable light bulb.
WD40 is called WD40 because it was preceded by 39 unsuccessful formulations.
Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.
Then Edison lost his patent case against Swan, whose successful light bulb had been developed earlier. Which is why “we” had the first house lit by electricity (NE England), first public building ditto (Scotland), first town ditto (S of England) and the first modern-style power station (London).
I’ve “always” known that Edison’s claim to priority was fake but I was astonished to learn recently that there’s a case to be made that the Wright Bothers’ claim is also fake; I had always assumed that it was real. One indirect piece of evidence is that they struck a deal with the Smithsonian that required the museum never to question the Wright Brothers’ priority.
Mind you I visited the science and engineering bit of the Smithsonian decades ago and it was a vast disappointment. Even as a young and not yet disillusioned laddie I could see that their write-ups were designed to fool trusting Americans. Shame!
Glad to have put a dollar in your pocket.
You worked with Troy Tech? What a small world it is, to be sure . . . .
llater,
llamas
” they struck a deal with the Smithsonian that required the museum never to question the Wright Brothers’ priority. ”
Before which the Flyer was on display at South Ken. It is hard to specify the Wrights’ qualification to be first. In many ways they were not. First controllable repeatable flight was probably Otto Lillienthal, but he and his emulators had no power. First person who could fly to where he wanted was Santos-Dumont, but that was a dirigible. First powered flight was claimed by the Smithsonian to be Langley’s Aerodrome, but it really was pretty much a ballistic fall with the engine running. The Smithsonian kept up the pretence of first flight for decades. The Wrights pioneered practical flight with power and control, repeatable and capable of development. They deserve the credit for that. Their attempts to patent various features were not so creditable.
“But a composite structure is very hard to test for fatigue damage, so there are serious concerns with how you maintain intensive use, as is needed in commercial aviation (though not in gliders).”
Give all airline passengers a lightweight parachute. Problem solved…
Ottokring said:
“They should start making wings out of balsa”
Time to dust off the Spruce Goose?
@Dave Ward
Um no. It’s hard enough to get out of a slow aircraft in level controlled flight. Even harder to use a ‘chute. Without a static line, and first time too!
To get out at high speed and stay alive, impossible. To even move towards an exit in an out-of-control aircraft remnant at high and variable G: impossible.
There’s a reason military pilots fly with a bomb under their bum.
Agreed on difficulty to non destructive test for fatigue or damage. Also carbon immensely strong but relatively easily damaged by impact. So probably Kevlar on possible impact areas but Kevlar is nowhere near as strong and sensitive to water damage on long timelines. It’s never easy when you’re talking about multiple stress cycles/long life.
balsa wood? our company can supply balsa wood materials. Avic aerospace in China use balsa wood , we don’t know what the purpose they use balsa wood.