The Wall Street Journal Saturday ran a fabulous piece on the DC-3 airplane, an estimated 500 of which are still flying. Tens of thousands were made, 3,000 during the war effort in the Soviet Union. What struck my eye was the wing testing when the plane was designed. According to an interview in 1985 with chief designer Arthur Emmons Raymond to celebrate the plane’s 50th birthday, bulldozers were run over the wings to test their strength. When was the last time you heard about stress testing like that? A cursory check of the web revealed no DC-3 ever crashed from structural failure. I wonder if I should suggest bulldozers to the 787 stress test folks at Boeing. Famous for their relative size and strength, the DC-3 could glide back to earth even when it was under half power or without it entirely. Here’s one recent account of a crash after an engine failed. All walked away without serious injury.
The legendary Raymond died at 99 in 1999 and his obituary reads like a veritable (and brief) history of commercial aviation in its formative years. PBS aired an episode on the venerable plane in a series on commercial aviation called “Chasing the Sun” a few years ago. The DC-3 more than any other plane ushered in the era of commercial air travel.
Almost every automaker has had to 'pick a side' when it comes to alternative fuel options and ways to divest from a reliance on gasoline. Fiat is looking to back compressed natural gas or liquid propane as an interim solution.
Plastic may not be the most beloved of materials to the more environmentally minded, but Plasti 2012 aimed to mold a different opinion of the material in people's minds.
The rare earth element market has become steadily more rational, and new sources coming online will continue to reduce costs. Still, it is unlikely that prices will drop to their former lows.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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