Defects and Non-Destructive Testing in Composites
The treatment of defects in aircraft structural design has been an important aspect in aircraft structural design during the last 50 years. Various different catastrophic events have led to key insights that now…
Types of marine diesel engines
There are two types of marine diesel engines: two-stroke and four-stroke. Two Stroke Cycle Starting with the piston at bottom dead center (BDC), the combustion air is supplied to the…
The Airline Metro System
When I was travelling in Chile a short while ago I took a flight from the capital Santiago de Chile to the city of Calama in the Atacama dessert. What was interesting…
Marine Diesel Engines
I was first introduced to a marine diesel engine in the form of a Caterpillar (CAT) inboard engine in my Uncle Jimmy’s boat that he used for lobster/crab potting and…
Milestones in Aircraft Structural Design
Although the exploitation of advanced composite materials in the aerospace industry is steadily increasing, high strength metallic materials, particularly aluminium alloys, are still the first choice for large-scale fleets such…
Human Fallibility in Aviation II: Case Study
Vanity Fair recently featured an excellent article on Air France Flight 447 that crashed into the Atlantic in 2009. It is a long read, but if you have 30 min to spare…
Engine performance Calculation
Engine performance is an indication of the degree of success of the engine performs its assigned task, i.e. the conversion of the chemical energy contained in the fuel into the useful…
Human Fallibility in Aviation
This blog has focused much on the technical side of aviation. One of the biggest drivers in civil aviation is passenger safety and the last 40 years have brought tremendous advances…
Big Data in Aerospace
“Big data” is all abuzz in the media these days. As more and more people are connected to the internet and sensors become ubiquitous parts of daily hardware an unprecedented…
Types of Pistons
Pistons can be classified in several ways but for the purposes of simplicity we will consider only the difference between oil cooled and water cooled pistons as follows. It is…
