Aircraft examples

Making such distinctions between causes or limiting the factors considered can be a hindrance in learning lirom and preventing future accidents. Consider the following aircraft examples. 

Repeatability. This refers to two aspects of inspection similarity between objects that are inspected and possibility of maintaining constant inspection conditions (settings) for all the inspections performed. Obviously, interpretation of data in repeatable conditions is significantly simplified. Usually, inspection during or after manufacturing process will be repeatable. Another example of repeatable inspection is inspection of heat exchangers in power nuclear plants, inspection of aircrafts as these are well standardised. However, a large part of the NDT inspection done is not repeatable. 

In reality, aircraft parts can consist of several stacked layers of material, eonnected by rivets or bolts. To avoid corrosion, the layers are often protected by a special coating, so that there is no electrical connection between the layers. If there is a crack for example in the middle layer, no current will thus flow above or below the defect because of the insulating coating between the layers. There is only the possibility for the current to flow around the crack in the x-y... 

This procedure offers the possibiUty of remote noncontact velocity measurement, where no probes disturb the flow. It is thus compatible for use with hot or corrosive gases. Commercial laser velocimeters have become weU-developed measurement tools. Examples of laser velocimetry include remote measurement of wind velocity, measurement of vortex air flow near the wing tips of large aircraft, and in vivo measurement of the velocity of blood flow. 

However, optical fiber communications are not useful only for long-distance communication links. Fiber-optic data links are also used in a variety of short-distance systems, for example in computer—computer links and for internal communications on ships and aircraft. Figure 16 shows some possible appHcations for fiber-optic communications, with respect to length and bit rate. The common carrier appHcations, like telephone links. He to the upper right of the dashed line labeled 100 MHzkm. However, a wide variety of other lower performance appHcations, illustrated to the lower left of the dashed line, are in use or under development. 

Windows in airplanes, trains, and schools commonly use polycarbonate. Exotic appHcations include military use, for example in high speed aircraft canopies, where tests have shown polycarbonate to withstand impact with fowl at Mach 2. Polycarbonate is also used for security appHcations as laminates with glass or other materials. Polycarbonate offers unsurpassed projectile-stopping capabiHty, as the material softens upon impact with a bullet, absorbing the projectile s energy. 

The resistance to corrosion of some alloy sheet is improved by cladding the sheet with a thin layer of aluminum or aluminum alloy that is anodic to the base alloy. These anodic layers are typically 5—10% of the sheet thickness. Under corrosive conditions, the cladding provides electrochemical protection to the core at cut edges, abrasions, and fastener holes by corroding preferentially. Aircraft skin sheet is an example of such a clad product. 

Many grades of interlayer are produced to meet specific length, width, adhesion, stiffness, surface roughness, color (93,94), and other requirements of the laminator and end use. Sheet can be suppHed with vinyl alcohol content from 15 to about 23 wt %, depending on the suppHer and appHcation. A common interlayer thickness for automobile windshields is 0.76 mm, but interlayer used for architectural or aircraft glaring appHcations, for example, may be much thinner or thicker. There are also special grades to bond rear-view mirrors to windshields (95,96) and to adhere the components of solar cells (97,98). Multilayer coextmded sheet, each component of which provides a separate property not possible in monolithic sheet, can also be made (99—101). 

The slope of the water solubiUty curves for fuels is about the same, and is constant over the 20—40°C temperature range. Each decrease of 1°C decreases water solubiUty about 3 ppm. The sensitivity of dissolved water to fuel temperature change is important. For example, the temperature of fuel generally drops as it is pumped iato an airport underground hydrant system because subsurface temperatures are about 10 °C lower than typical storage temperatures. This difference produces free water droplets, but these are removed by pumping fuel through a filter-coalescer and hydrophobic barrier before deUvery iato aircraft. 

Because of tank heating, fuel volatiUty is also more critical in supersonic aircraft. For example, the Concorde tank is pressurized to prevent vapor losses which could be significant at high altitude where fuel vapor pressure may equal atmospheric pressure. The tank can reach 6.9 kPa (1 psi) at the end of a flight. The need to deoxygenate fuel for thermal stabiUty in the HSCT will doubdess require a similar pressurized system. 

Eor more demanding uses at higher temperatures, for example, in aircraft and aerospace and certain electrical and electronic appHcations, multifunctional epoxy resin systems based on epoxy novolac resins and the tetraglycidyl amine of methylenedianiline are used. The tetraglycidyl amine of methylenedianiline is currently the epoxy resin most often used in advance composites. Tetraglycidyl methylenedianiline [28768-32-3] (TGALDA) cured with diamino diphenyl sulfone [80-08-0] (DDS) was the first system to meet the performance requirements of the aerospace industry and is still used extensively. 

The body of an aircraft, the hull of a spacecraft, the fuel tank of a rocket these are examples of pressure vessels which must be as light as possible. 

In the last chapter we saw how a basic knowledge of the mechanisms of creep was an important aid to the development of materials with good creep properties. An impressive example is in the development of materials for the high-pressure stage of a modern aircraft gas turbine. Here we examine the properties such materials must have, the way in which the present generation of materials has evolved, and the likely direction of their future development. 

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