black jack
New Member
First off hello everyone. Happy to be part of the forum.
I had a thought the other day in the car. The military used nitrogen filled spars in their larger helicopters rotor blades along with a friction type of hub welding that generates enormous heat and allows the alloys atoms to commingle. The spars are outfitted with sensors than can detect even the most minute change in pressure. If I remember correctly the nitrogen pressure was around 1.3 atm. Not very high.
I began thinking.......
What if we could apply this technique to aluminum ultralight spars?
What if we could apply it to the entire structure?
Of coarse al. angle wouldn't be a great candidate. and most composites are out. But wouldn't it be nice to have a structural failure indicator? Even if it was only in the spars. Almost like chip indicators in larger turbine transmissions, the indicator would act more like a pre-failure warning than anything else.
Tell me what you think. This could be especially useful in the flight testing stage of a new design.
I had a thought the other day in the car. The military used nitrogen filled spars in their larger helicopters rotor blades along with a friction type of hub welding that generates enormous heat and allows the alloys atoms to commingle. The spars are outfitted with sensors than can detect even the most minute change in pressure. If I remember correctly the nitrogen pressure was around 1.3 atm. Not very high.
I began thinking.......
What if we could apply this technique to aluminum ultralight spars?
What if we could apply it to the entire structure?
Of coarse al. angle wouldn't be a great candidate. and most composites are out. But wouldn't it be nice to have a structural failure indicator? Even if it was only in the spars. Almost like chip indicators in larger turbine transmissions, the indicator would act more like a pre-failure warning than anything else.
Tell me what you think. This could be especially useful in the flight testing stage of a new design.
