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.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
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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