Young / Hirst Innovation in Aeronautics

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-85709-609-8
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 416 Seiten

Innovation in aerospace design and engineering is essential to meet the many challenges facing this sector. Innovation in aeronautics explores both a range of innovative ideas and how the process of innovation itself can be effectively managed.After an introduction to innovation in aeronautics, part one reviews developments including biologically-inspired technologies, morphing aerodynamic concepts, jet engine design drivers, and developments underpinned by digital technologies. The environment and human factors in innovation are also explored as are trends in supersonic passenger air travel. Part two goes on to examine change and the processes and management involved in innovative technology development. Challenges faced in aeronautical production are the focus of part three, which reviews topics such as intellectual property and patents, risk mitigation and the use of lean engineering. Finally, part four examines key issues in what makes for successful innovation in this sector.With its distinguished editors and international team of expert contributors, Innovation in aeronautics is an essential guide for all those involved in the design and engineering of aerospace structures and systems. - Explores a range of innovative aerospace design ideas - Discusses how the process of innovation itself can be effectively managed - Reviews developments including biologically-inspired technologies, morphing aerodynamic concepts, jet engine design drivers and developments underpinned by digital technologies

Autoren/Hrsg.

Young, T.

Hirst, M.

Leseproben

2 Biologically inspired technologies for aeronautics
Y. Bar-Cohen,     Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)/California Institute of Technology, USA Abstract:
Through evolution and employing principles of all the science and engineering fields, Nature addressed its challenges by trial and error and came up with inventions that work well and last. Technology inspired by Nature is known as biomimetics and offers enormous potential for many exciting capabilities. Biomimetics can be as simple as copying fins for swimming, and is providing numerous benefits, including the development of prosthetics that closely mimic real limbs. The focus of this chapter is on the aerospace-related innovations that were inspired by Nature, and it covers various examples, the potentials and the challenges. Key words aerospace robotics biomimetics electroactive polymer biologically inspired technology 2.1 Introduction
Nature is a self-maintained experimental laboratory that is addressing its changing challenges through the trial-and-error process of evolution. In performing its experiments every field of science and engineering nature is involved, with testing the principles of physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, materials science, mobility, control, sensors, and many others. Also, the process involves scaling from the nano and macro scales, as in the case of bacteria and viruses, to the macro and mega scales, including the scale of our lives and that of the whales. The extinction of the dinosaurs may suggest that mega-scale land-living animals are an unsustainable form of life as opposed to mega-size sea creatures such as the whales. Observing and studying the capabilities of living creatures suggest numerous possibilities that can be adapted to solve and support human needs. Nature has always served as a model for mimicking and an inspiration to humans in their efforts to improve the way we live. The subject of copying, imitating, and learning from biology is also known as biomimetics and it represents the studies, imitation and inspiration of Nature’s, methods, designs and processes (Bar-Cohen, 2005; Benyus, 1998; Schmitt, 1969; Vincent, 2001; Vogel, 2003). Some of the capabilities were copied from Nature, while for others it served as an inspiring model. Flying was inspired by insects and birds using human-developed capabilities, whereas the design and function of fins, which divers use, were copied from the legs of water creatures such as the seal, goose and frog. Scientific approaches are helping humans understand Nature’s capabilities and the associated principles, resulting in the development of effective tools, algorithms, approaches and other capabilities to benefit mankind. The ultimate goal of biomimetics may be the development of life-like robots that appear and function like humans. Efforts are currently underway to develop such robots, and impressive capabilities have already been reported where human-like robots can conduct conversation with limited vocabulary and respond to body and facial expressions, as well as avoid obstacles while walking and other capabilities (Bar-Cohen and Hanson, 2009). The focus of this chapter is on biologically inspired innovation in aerospace. In general, Nature’s materials and processes are far superior to man-made ones. The bodies of biological creatures are laboratories that process chemicals acquired from the surroundings and produce energy, construction materials, multifunctional structures and waste (Mann, 1995; Nemat-Nasser et al., 2004). Some of the capabilities of Nature’s materials include self-replication, reconfigurability, self-healing, and balancing the content of various chemicals, including the pH of fluids, as well as temperature and pressure. Recognizing the advantages of these materials, for thousands of years humans have used them as sources of food, clothing, comfort, construction and many other applications. These materials include fur, leather, honey, wax, milk and silk (Carlson et al., 2005). The need to make these materials in any desired quantity led to developing approaches for enhancing their production from the related creatures as well as producing imitations. Many man-made materials are processed by heating and pressurizing, and this is in contrast to Nature, which uses ambient conditions. Materials such as bone, collagen or silk are made inside the organism’s body using nature-friendly processes with minimal waste, and the resulting strong materials are biodegradable and recyclable by Nature. Besides the multifunctional structures that make up biological creatures, they also have the capability to produce structures using materials that they make or pick up from the surroundings. The skeletons of animals’ bodies are quite marvellous – they are able to support enormous physical actions even though they are not rigid structures. Also, the produced structures (such as the nest, cocoon’s shell and underground tunnels that gophers and rats build) are quite robust and support the structure’s required function over the duration that it is needed. Often the size of a structure can be significantly larger than the species that builds it, as in the case of the spider’s web. An example of a creature that has a highly impressive engineering skill is the beaver, which constructs dams as its habitat on water streams. The honeycomb is also an inspiring structure, and it provides the bees with a highly efficient packing configuration (Gordon, 1976). Using the same configuration, the honeycomb is used to create aircraft structures benefiting from the low weight and high strength that are obtained. Even plants offer inspiration, where mimicking the adherence of seeds to animals’ fur led to the invention of Velcro and to numerous applications including clothing and electric wire strapping. The development of biomimetic systems and devices is supported by a growing number of biologically inspired technologies, including artificial intelligence, which mimic the control of biological systems (Amaral et al., 2004; Hecht-Nielsen, 2005; Serruya et al., 2002). The invention of the wheel made the most profound impact on human life, allowing the traverse of enormous distances and performance of tasks that otherwise would have been impossible to perform within the lifetime of a single person. While the wheel enabled enormous capabilities, it has significant limitations when used for mobility in complex terrains that have obstacles. Obviously, legged creatures can operate in many such conditions and in ways far superior to an automobile. Legged robots are increasingly becoming an objective for the developers of robotic machines, and these include even human-like ones (Bar-Cohen and Breazeal, 2003; Bar-Cohen and Hanson, 2009). Generally, the mobility of legged mechanisms currently is enabled via motors. While motors have numerous advantages, since they require gears they are relatively heavy, structurally complex and have many potential points of failure. Advances in electroactive polymers (EAP), also known as artificial muscles, are expected to enable new possibilities for legged robotics, with the potential of turning science fiction ideas into engineering applications (Bar-Cohen, 2004). As a model for inspiration, it is important to remember that Nature’s solutions are driven by survivability of the fittest, and these solutions are not necessarily optimal for technical performance. Effectively, all organisms need to do is to survive long enough to reproduce. Living systems archive the evolved and accumulated information by coding it into the species’ genes and passing the information from generation to generation through self-replication. There are great benefits to better understanding how Nature’s marvels work and how to adapt them in human-made mechanisms. These include such capabilities as: • The dragonfly’s flight performance, its ability to fly backwards, as well as stopping and starting using its relatively small body (Huang and Sun, 2007). • The toughness of spider silk and the ability of the spider to produce silk at room temperature and pressure conditions (Trotter et al., 2000). • The navigational capability of the Monarch butterfly, migrating over great distances and reaching targeted locations to which, as an individual, it has never before been. This information is coded into the genes of its small body (Sauman et al., 2005). • The strength of seashells, which is quite enormous even though they are made of calcium carbonate, which is, effectively, a soft material also known as chalk (Yang, 1995). • Our ability to identify people whom we have not seen for many years and who have changed appearance enormously. The above list is only a small number of examples, and covering them all can be an enormous task, and the challenge to adapt them can be much more complex. This chapter examines various examples that are relevant to aerospace. 2.2 Biologically inspired or independent human innovation
Nature and its...