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Aircraft System Design and Integration
No full textIn the 1980\u27s the British aircraft industry changed its approach to the management of projects from a system where a project office would manage a project and rely on a series of specialist departments to support them to a more process oriented method, using systems engineering models, whose most outwardly visible signs were the introduction of multidisciplinary product teams. One of the problems with the old method was that the individual departments often had different priorities and projects would get uneven support. The change in the system was only made possible for complex designs by the electronic distribution of data giving instantaneous access to all involved in the project. In 1997 the Defence and Aerospace Foresight Panel emphasised the need for a system engineering approach if British industry was to remain competitive. The Royal Academy of Engineering recognised that the change in working practices also changed what was required of a chartered engineer and redefined their requirements in 1997 [1]. The result of this is that engineering degree courses are now judged against new criteria with more emphasis placed on the relevance to industry rather than on purely academic content. At the University of Glasgow it was realized that the students ought to be made aware of current working practices and that there ought to be a review to ensure that the degrees give students the skills required by industry. It was decided to produce a one week introduction course in systems engineering for Masters of Engineering (MEng) students to be taught by both university lecturers and practitioners from a range of companies in the aerospace industry with the hope of expanding the course into a module. The reaction of the students was favourable in terms of the content but it seems ironic that the main criticism was that there was not enough discussion involving the students. This paper briefly describes the individual teaching modules and discusses the experiences and lessons learnt from this course with some thoughts on the way it is proposed to develop the course
The Effect of Anisotropy of Building Materials on the Moisture Transfer
No full textThe effect of anisotropy of building materials on the moisture transfer in the design of envelope parts of building structures is studied. Two typical fibre containing plate building materials produced in the Czech Republic, Dekalux and Dekalit P, are chosen for the demonstration of this effect. Experimental results show that while for lighter Dekalit P, an order of magnitude difference in the moisture diffusivities k for the two basic orientations, i.e. along and across the plate, is observed, for the heavier Dekalux the differences in k are within the errorbar of the experimental method. As follows from the experimental results, compacting of surface layers of the plates of light fibred materials is very favorable from the point of view of moisture penetration but one should keep in mind that any local damage of the surface layer can result in a considerably faster moisture transfer in the direction along the plate
Computer Simulations of the Fatigue Crack Propagation
No full textThe following hypothesis for design of structures based on the damage tolerance philosophy is laid down: the perpendicular fatigue crack growth rate v in a certain point of a curved crack front is given by the local value of stress intensity factor per unit of nominal stress K\u27 and the local triaxiality T which describes the constraint. The relationship v = f (K\u27, T) is supposed to be typical for a given loading spectrum and material. Such relationship for a 2024 Al alloy and the flight-simulation spectrum was derived from the fatigue test of the rectangular panel with the central hole and used for three-dimensional simulation of the corner fatigue crack propagation in the model of the wing spar flangeplate. Finite element and boundary element methods were used for these computations. The results of the simulation are in good agreement with the experiment
Study of Wear of Pitched Blade Impellers
No full textA study was made of the erosion of blades of pitched blade impellers in a suspension of solid particles in a liquid under a turbulent regime of flow of an agitated charge. The wear of the impeller is described by an analytical approximation in exponential form, and the influence of the pitch angle on the impeller blade wear was studied experimentally. It follows from the results of the experiments made that the wear rate of the pitched blade impellers increases linearly with the decreasing pitch angle within the interval a Î á15°; 45° ń. The proposed form of radial profile of the leading edge of the impeller blade enables us to calculate the surface of the worn blade. This quantity significantly decreases with the length of the period when the blades are affected by the solid particles, and its values calculated according to the suggested profile of the worn blade fit fairly well with the experimentally determined values. The results of the experiments performed are valid for homogeneous distribution of solid particles in an agitated suspension
The Benefits and Costs of Stealth From The Aircraft Designer’s Viewpoint
No full textThe reduction or other control of an aircraft’s radar, infrared, visual and acoustic signatures can greatly improve its survival, resulting in improved weapons` effectiveness. Although radar and infrared stealth are important, other aspects of low observability (i.e. acouctic and visual) cannot be ignored. However, this paper, for reasons of brevity, focuses on control of radar and infrared signatures. The topics of: benefits of signature control; contributions of an aircraft to its radar cross section (RCS) and infrared (IR) signature; methods to reduce RCS and IR signature; penalties/costs of signature reduction, in terms of performance, volume, weight and maintenance; and use of radar absorbing materials are addressed. The conclusion is that while signature control is important, there are penalties to be paid. Signature reduction has become yet another factor to be concidered in the series of compromises made during aircraft design trade-offs