
Unless the computers go haywire
Just hack the computers and the plane will MELT, even in mid flight.
Just another word for _soft_ landing.
Aerospace boffins in America have come up with yet another use for carbon nanotubes - to build a self-healing layer into composite structures such as aircraft wings. Structural components made out of polymer composites are just great, as everyone knows. They can be lighter and tougher than metal alloys, allowing aircraft - or …
They are:
1) Just like metal, however, composites can be subject to tiny surface cracks
Not 'just like metal' at all, barely visible impact damage leading to internal de-lamination is a completely different type of damage to the sort of fatigue cracks you might find in metal. Self healing composites are designed to deal with the former.
2) Aerospace boffins in America have come up with yet another use for carbon nanotubes - to build a self-healing layer into composite structures such as aircraft wings.
No, they have not just invented the idea of putting nano tubes into a composite. In fact here's someone in the UK who's been doing it for a while:
http://www.aer.bris.ac.uk/research/fibres/sr.html
The unique selling point here is the electrical trickery, which if you read the quotes is what the Prof Mikhil Koratkar is talking about.
[/rant] coat, hat, taxi
But how many times could you use this before it's used up and you have to replace the wing, etc. anyway? Once a crack develops, I'd think the sensors wouldn't be able to heal, so you'd always have a "dead spot" that you couldn't monitor any more. And same goes for the repair--maybe you could repair it once, but then you couldn't monitor it or repair it a second time. Unless there's some amazing way planned to re-create the nanotubes.
Modulus (Youngs) , rhymes with
Icarus ........see 1 . Down (?). probably .
(Single) Rooster , plus "up" .
"But it gets better"
Ho yessss.....
The Rensselaer guys think you should then be able to send a higher-energy current down the wires. This will cause the nanotubes to heat up, melting ingredients in the epoxy"...............wtf????
"Gee this carbon fibre and mystery soup resin sure is good stuff......i just wish i wasn't so damn ....itchy"
The physics is well known and "old school" , any light entering from the sides into the bean counters eyes must be blanked out to avoid refraction of the shareholders .
This is a bit o' balsa , you can make a model outa that!
This is a great bit of kit. Minature cracks and delamination in composites is a huge problem (the main cause of why its taken till now to build an all composite wing, when the technology has been around for years!).
How this would work in principal is that inflight the crack is healed and then once on the ground the panel would be replaced with a new component. A certain number of flights may be allowable with the healed crack but it certainly is not a continual thing. You design for 100% strength, 70% is not going to cut it over lifecycle!
Good stuff!