GLOBAL CHALLENGES:
Materials and manufacturing
- Titanium
Titanium is used in the aerospace industry because of its lightness, but cutting it to shape is challenging.
The tool bits of machines used to cut and shape the metal wear out easily.
Shards of titanium - the waste from the cutting process - have been known to stick to the piece of titanium being cut and become obstacles to manipulating the material.
Titanium has to be cut slowly, which does not augur well for an industry already plagued by delays in delivery of planes.
- Magnesium
This could be used as aircraft material, but it oxidises easily and is not easy to manipulate.
- Self-healing material
Aerospace researchers want to develop a material which, when cracked, can release an adhesive to seal the crack by itself.
- Composite material
This is getting popular in the industry for the external body of the plane.
But not much is known about how electricity is conducted by composite material, unlike metal whose properties are established. Information on its conductivity will have implications for flights amid lightning storms.
- The process
Research is being done on how components, damaged as they are delivered from the manufacturing plant, can be repaired.
- In operation
Titanium and nickel are valued in aerospace for their ability to withstand the high temperatures and pressures of combustion in aircraft engines, but technology in advanced cooling systems is also needed to prevent overheating.
- Inspection and testing
Composite materials are also becoming popular in the making of the external body of the plane, but engineers need to find a way of detecting cracks in a material which is made up of a mesh of different materials.
- Repair and maintenance
Every hour an aircraft is not in the air is money not coming in for airlines. The challenge, therefore, is to develop new techniques of maintaining and repairing aircraft parts without having to take them to a hangar elsewhere for disassembly.
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