Brent VanFossen, Engineer with a View

I’ve been working lately on a freelance project for stress analysis of aircraft seat designs and structures so this caught my eye as my project is part of the effort to comply with the new FAA standards for safer seats on all new planes.

Seattle Times - FAA Requires Safer Seats on New Planes explains:

After 17 years, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has completed work on requiring passenger aircraft to have stronger seats, designed to increase the survivability of passengers and flight attendants in accidents.

The new rule, which affects aircraft built after October 2009, says the seats must be able to withstand 16 times the force of gravity, compared with the 9g standard in effect since 1952. Floors and the tracks the seats ride on also must be able to withstand those forces.

The new seats must undergo a battery of tests to determine their strength, similar to the crash tests that automakers must comply with to meet federal safety standards.

The new standard applies only to new planes, and may apply to planes undergoing massive refits, though it will now not be forced upon planes outside of those qualifications. Most planes built in the 1990s included near 16g qualified seats, so those are also excluded from any modifications.

Kenneth Gomez’s We Don’t Know As Much As We Think We Do discusses the fact that many of our aircraft, including the Space Shuttle, are based on a world and economy of high maintenance, and whether or not we know as much as we think we do when it comes to efficiency, durability, and standards.

One of the issues with building reusable space transports are those of maintenance and inspection…

…How applicable is this cautionary tale to the design of space transports? Well somewhat, but not quite as much as one might think. Fatigue is (usually) a phenomenon that occurs as a result of a large number of cycles (assuming that the stress is reasonable–obviously, one can fatigue a paper clip to failure in just a few extreme twists back and forth with a pair of pliers). It’s a real concern for aircraft that are in the air a lot, with many takeoffs and landings, and continuous buffeting from the air.

A space transport has two things going for it. First of all, it spends little time in the atmosphere, which is where most of the structural stress occurs, at least that due to aerodynamics. In space, it’s actually a quite benign environment, from a structural standpoint. Second, if we ever get to the number of flights of a single space transport that even start to approach the cycle life of an air transport, we’ll have clearly solved the problem of space access, even if we occasionally (as in the aircraft industry) lose a vehicle to structural fatigue.

But regardless of what this means for spaceship design, I think that Airbus has some big problems, until they understand this issue better. And now that Boeing is also using composites for primary structure, they need to get on top of it as well.

Live Science reports on the “Accidental Invention Points to End of Light Bulbs”.

Michael Bowers, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University, was just trying to make really small quantum dots, which are crystals generally only a few nanometers big. That’s less than 1/1000th the width of a human hair…When you shine a light on quantum dots or apply electricity to them, they react by producing their own light, normally a bright, vibrant color. But when Bowers shined a laser on his batch of dots, something unexpected happened.

“I was surprised when a white glow covered the table,” Bowers said. “The quantum dots were supposed to emit blue light, but instead they were giving off a beautiful white glow.”

Then Bowers and another student got the idea to stir the dots into polyurethane and coat a blue LED light bulb with the mix. The lumpy bulb wasn’t pretty, but it produced white light similar to a regular light bulb. The new device gives off a warm, yellowish-white light that shines twice as bright and lasts 50 times longer than the standard 60 watt light bulb.

LED lights have been limited to green, red, blue, and yellow light, and the capability to produce a white light may revolutionize lighting in the future. LEDs produce twice as much light as a regular 60 watt bulb, and according to the Department of Energy, can burn for over 50,000 hours, reducing energy consumption in the US by 29 percent by 2025.

If these new white LED lights pay off, expect to see white LED lights in airplanes, offices, and even inside the home very soon.

In a sign of recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, NASA and got a boost, literally, with a test firing shuttle engines at Stennis Space Center in Louisiana, almost directly northeast of New Orleans.

Engineers successfully test-fired an engine for 520 seconds; the time it takes a shuttle to reach orbit. Today’s engine test is an indication that Stennis and the region are working toward recovering from the storm.

Today’s test was a continuation of a certification series on the Advanced Health Management System, which monitors the engine’s performance. It enables the engine to shut down if unusual vibrations are detected in the turbopump. It’s an upgrade that provides a significant improvement for lower risk for shuttle main engines. Other engine parts were tested and certified, such as a fast-response temperature sensor.

Congrats, Stennis!

42 Years Ago Alan Arnold Griffith died.

He was a British aeronautical engineer, born June 13, 1893. During the late 1920s, A.A. Griffith and F. Whittle independently made the first practical proposals for the use of gas turbine engines in aircraft. Griffith concentrated on developing an axial flow compressor, and in 1929 he proposed a gas turbine engine driving a propeller, the so called turbo-prop engine. At Rolls Royce (1939-60) he designed turbojet engines, and in the 1950s, vertical take-off aircraft. He developed the remarkable flying bedstead which first flew in 1954.

92 years ago, M. Seguin and Farman of France fly 634 miles (1,021 km), establishing the last international distance record before the First World War.

37 years ago, 1968 - 11-12 The first Apollo test mission is made, lasting for 10 days, 20 hours, and 9 inutes. Called “Apollo 7″, it was launched by a Saturn 1B and carrying astronauts Walter Schirra, Don Eisele and Walter Cunningham.

47 years ago, the USAF makes a second attempt to put a research probe in orbit around the Moon. This is Pioneer 1B which, because its thrid stage cuts out fractionally too soon, travels about 70,700 miles (113,780km) before falling back toward Earth.

86 years ago, Handley Page Transport offers the first meals on board airliners, at a cost of 3 shillings per basket, on its London-Brussels service.

95 years ago, President Teddy Roosevelt becomes the first US president to fly when he is taken up in St. Louis.

46 years ago, the Pan American Boeing 707-321 Clipper Windward inaugurates the first round-the-world pasenger service by turbojet-powered airliners.

I believe you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you have been. Cut and Paste Aviation - Milestones of Flight puts a reality check on how far behind or ahead of ourselves we have become when it comes to aviation milestones.

As we’ve reported recently, continued research and development is going into making aircraft quieter, and often as a by product, more fuel efficient, safer and cheaper.

According to a Wired Report, Heavy Metal Makes Lighter Planes,

Qantas engineer Ian Salmon tested wing sections covered with a piezoelectric material that vibrates when a current is applied to it. When the tone of the sound was at its most effective pitch, Salmon’s wing panel achieved 22 percent more lift than it would have without the piezoelectric hum.

Vibrating wings could be used to make planes safer, reduce wing size and provide another element of control for pilots, Salmon said. But don’t expect the wings on commercial jets to start humming away any time soon. The technique only works well on smaller planes such as light aircraft and military-style unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator.

Larger aircraft are equipped with advanced sensors and sophisticated trailing-edge flaps, which are used to change the shape of the wing during takeoff and landing. Vibrations could improve these conventional controls, but likely not replace them completely. For example, the greater a wing’s angle to the horizontal, the slower the plane can fly and thus the safer it can land. Vibrations could also eventually help engineers design planes more efficiently.

…It’s all about changing the air flow from an unstable laminar flow to a turbulent flow that increases lift, Cummings said. The vibrations change the way the air behaves when it starts to break away from the wing’s surface, sucking it closer.

JAL First Customer of Boeing’s Electronic Maintenance Tool from FLT Tech Online reports that soon Japan Airlines (JAL) will be using what Boeing Commercial Aviation Services describes as “performance-enhancing solutions for aircraft maintenance and troubleshooting that will be available via the Internet.”

Under their agreement, JAL maintenance technicians can use their normal browser to access the Structures Tool within Boeing’s hosted Maintenance Toolbox service, which is a key component within Boeing’s evolving portfolio of electronic aircraft maintenance applications. Toolbox uses intelligent documents and visual navigation methods to help aircraft technical personnel troubleshoot airplane systems and manage structural repair records, parts, and task cards.

Specifically, the Structures Tool provides 3D models for recording, viewing, and analyzing structural repairs, making use of accumulated repair knowledge, and maintaining records of repair activities for multiple fleet types. It also includes a repair history database of records that contain details of repairs and repair locations on one or more aircraft. Users can search the database for information about repairs performed in specific areas of the airplane, search for similar repairs on other airplanes in their fleet, and enter, edit and delete repair records as needed.

Engineers can access the information on JAL’s data through any Internet connection and device to monitor the aircraft’s data through www.MyBoeingFleet.com.

The goal is to bring modern Internet technology to the air transportation industy and connect content, applications and services with their airlines, as well as connect all the data and departments involved in airline flights from air service to maintenance.

According to a report on Military and Aerospace Electronics News, the US Air Force names General Dynamics for wireless network.

General Dynamics Network Systems was awarded a delivery order valued at approximately $1.5 million under the Network Centric Solutions (NETCENTS) program to develop a second-generation wireless local area network solution for the U.S. Air Force Combat Information Transport System (CITS), headquartered at Hanscom AFB, Bedford, Mass.

This program will provide Air Force warfighters standardized classified and unclassified 802.11 wireless services at all operational levels.

Navy tracks assets with wireless data network to keep track of airline assests, parts, and pieces in process, in storage, or in-transit using WIFI wireless technology for Unique Identification Labeling solutions by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC).

Automatic Identification Technology was put into affect by the DoD to improve the timeliness and accuracy of asset visibility, whether in process, in storage, or in-transit.

AIT consists of a selection of asset tracking and supply chain technologies and processes, including bar coding technology, active and passive RFID technology, smart cards technology, contact memory buttons, and unique identification technology to reduce logistics processing and provide the ability to identify, track, and control the deployment of personnel and material in real time.

FT Online reports Boeing to Use RFID “Smart Labels” on Some B-787 Parts.

Boeing plans to introduce RFID (radio frequency identification) “smart labels” on some “maintenance significant” parts of its B-787 Dreamliner to improve configuration control and help airlines reduce costs.

RFID automatically uses radio frequency waves to transfer data between a reader and items that have RFID devices affixed. The “smart labels” contain a microchip and antenna and operate at internationally recognized standard frequencies. The RFID tag stores data similar to a bar code, but offers enhanced data collection and other advantages, such as being able to read without a direct view of the label, and a dynamic read/write capability….

…Boeing plans for the tags to contain unique identification as well as maintenance and inspection data in accordance with industry standards developed by the Air Transport Association. Typically, parts that will incorporate RFID smart labels will be serialized end items such as LRUs (line replaceable units) and life-limited parts as well as on-board emergency equipment. The labels will be applied during the manufacturing process by the responsible systems and equipment supplier prior to delivering the airplane to airlines.