It's still just a guess that the composites are woven or even that they include fiber; that's not been verified. It's worth considering, though, that composites have been used for wind turbine blades, although the stresses involved are obviously quite different.
I'd also like to see how much more efficient this new engine is. It would be interesting to understand how much more fuel this new design would save over the older design it is replacing.
Dave, I also wish we could have gotten more detail about the nature of the hybrid metallic material. Like those other sources, we do mention here that the blade has a titanium leading edge. It's possible that "hybrid metallic" means including plastic composites, but from what I've seen, that term can also mean metal-plus-ceramic, or multiple metals, or some combination of the above.
@Ann: Thanks for this article. It would be interesting to know more about the composition of the hybrid metallic blade, although I'm sure that since it's a proprietary design, Pratt and Whitney may not be forthcoming with the details. From what I've read on some other websites, the blade is made from a composite, but has a titanium leading edge, along with metallic cross-ply reinforcement. (This is why it's called a "hybrid"). Interestingly enough, this is something that Pratt and Whitney has been working on since the 1970s.
Andrew Morris designed a circuit that could detect a stroke victim's groan and convert the sound into a signal so caregivers would know when help was needed.
New disc magnet motors fit into the design trend of stepping up to closed loop performance while maintaining the cost advantage of stepper motor technology.
At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
On April 21, NASA launched a novel project, putting into orbit three satellites that employ an off-the-shelf commercial smartphone as the control system.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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