Design & Tooling
Aircraft Repair Can And Should Be Automated
Consultant Fred Perkins (Federal Engineering Associates LLC, McLean, Va.) is currently involved in quality control and mission assurance for defense programs as well as a Phase I SBIR program for the U.S. Air Force, applying stochastic design analysis to finite element modeling of composite aircraft part repairs.
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Plane Enthusiasts Plan LSA-compliant Composite Aircraft
Aspiring owners build and - plan to market - their own tandem seat, twin-boom pusher.
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Sky's The Limit For Composites-intensive UAVs
Market growth is being spurred primarily by post-9/11 combat actions, homeland security and natural disasters.
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Automated Aircraft Repair Closer To Reality
Inspection and Repair Preparation Cell (IRPC) unveiled, revealing progress made toward automated aircraft repair workcells.
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Back-out factors
Dr. Adam's follows up a previous column, in which he discussed the advantages of testing a cross-ply laminate and then "backing out" the unidirectional composite strength, with an expanded examination of back-out factors that can be applied to other types of laminates.
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Thermoplastic composites gain leading edge on the A380
Breakthrough manufacturing process produces lightweight, affordable glass-reinforced PPS J-nose on the worlds largest commercial aircraft wing.
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Testing cross-ply vs. unidirectional composites
Dr. Don Adams follows up his previous column on tensile testing with a discussion of such testing when confronted by two difficult-to-test laminate configurations.
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Innovative Composite Design May Replace Aluminum Chassis
It's been called the automotive engineer's dream material. Able to assume any shape while delivering stiffness, strength and light weight, carbon fiber has been the material of choice for years in structural components and stylishly aerodynamic exterior panels on race cars and exotic supercars costing more th
Read MoreUnidirectional composite axial tensile specimens
Dr. Don Adams explains why the design of tensile test coupons is more art than science, and explains the implications of that art for testing accuracy.
Read MoreWhy Microstructure Matters
Microtesting composite materials speeds seleMicrotesting composite materials speeds selection, allowing designers to consider more possibilities.ction, allowing designers to consider more possibilities.
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