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Self-Healing System Applied to Aviation
ScienceDaily is reporting that the self-healing materials are being used in some new aircraft designs. We covered several self-healing systems in the past months, but it is nice to see it starting to find practical applications. "This simple but ingenious technique, similar to the bruising and bleeding/healing processes we see after we cut ourselves, has been developed by aerospace engineers at Bristol University, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It has potential to be applied wherever fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are used. These lightweight, high-performance materials are proving increasingly popular not only in aircraft but also in car, wind turbine and even spacecraft manufacture. The new self-repair system could therefore have an impact in all these fields."
So long as they came with their handy dandy bipedal humanoid repair agents...
Since I am far from an expert on the subject... what are the chances this same technology could be applied to prosthetics? If that were doable, I think it'd be an excellent market for allowing people to use prosthetics and be able to do more rigorous physical work.
Might cut down on the profits of companies that make prosthetics, though, if the things just fix themselves instead of needing to be replaced. :)
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The plane will heal itself after a crash. Great for the plane, not so much for the passengers.
There are some things already implemented similar to this. At least in concept. Many helicopters are getting new fuel tanks made of special plastics (I'm not really sure) that seal themselves when you shoot a bullet through them so there is little or no leakage. Also there are chromate conversion coatings that allow scratches but over time will repair to be almost like new.
I'm no engineer, but wouldn't the use of new self-healing polymers be inferior to a mechanical failsafe or backups. If damage is done to an aircraft, the component of the structure that was carefully designed for a specific use is compromised. When under intense air pressure, self healing doesn't seem to make the cut. Wounds don't heal when aggravated, and bones have been known to heal badly (which could translate to a greater problem). If there is a new "healing" system that is to be used, I think it's a long way down the road before we see them implemented in commercial/military aircraft.
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Any gain in weight over the normal composite material is far made up for in the fact that more and more non-composite parts can be replaced with these self-healing composite parts.
"A key benefit would be that aircraft designs including more FRP composites would be significantly lighter than the primarily aluminium-based models currently in service."
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self sealing fuel tanks.
Many concerns with this kind of system.
Airplanes aren't like cars; cars are mass-produced, throwaway items that seldom see more than 10-15 years of use. Yes, there *are* 30 year old cars, but they represent a rather small fraction of the actual cars in day-to-day use.
Airplanes, on the other hand, are in a different category. Airplanes are all-but hand made. They are very expensive, so it's usually cheaper to fix an existing plane than to buy a new one. I got my pilot's license in a 1971 Cessna 172 that was older than I am. This isn't a particularly old plane, C-172s go all the way back to 1955 or so, and there isn't a whole lot that changed in the plane characteristics from 1959 to 2006 - mostly just newer instrumentation and a few minor tweaks.
Since we can be fairly certain that many (most?) of airplanes made today will be flying 40 years from now, how well does this "self healing" work then? Composites are much more sensitive to extreme temperatures - how well does it "heal" at below freezing? (typical of high altitudes, as well as high lattitudes)
Aviation is very risk averse - KISS is the rule of survival! Most planes are leaned MANUALLY just to avoid the possibility that some little spring in the carburetor would die while flying over mountains to the detriment of the plane occupants.
Yes, even though I'm a technocrat, I remain a bit skeptical.
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You know the great thing about bleeding robots? Put enough holes in them and they die just as easily as humans.
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healing processes we see after we cut ourselves,
Speak for yourself, emo kid.
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The new Lockheed L9 CLERIC. It can resurrect itself, but only if it makes that dreaded system shock check...
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I suspect that the purpose is similar to that of the self-inflating tires. They keep you running until you can fix it properly. Since not all cars are equipped with flat-proof tires, it's a good idea for drivers to be acquainted with how to pull over and change a flat. However, manually patching hull cracks in mid-flight is an unreasonable expectation of a pilot, so this technology has found a niche.
...Reading that as "self-hating system" and thinking it was a good idea, though probably "self-loathing" would do.
This self-healing mechanism essentially injects new polymer into the crack thus reseating the fiber within the polymer, sealing the polymer dislocations, and restoring the polymer's ability to transfer load between fibers. The dye to indicate a failure is to catch an inspector's attention just in case the stresses exceeded the fiber's breaking strength (e.g. from a rock or birdstrike). The presence of the dye does not in itself indicate the part is now substantially weaker than a new part (aside from the self-repair mechanism being used up).
Yes, the "healing" polymer is probably not as strong as the original polymer. But because of the nature of the failure mechanisms I've described above, any FRP already has plenty of leeway for polymer failure built into it. If it didn't, the material would be incredibly susceptible to fatigue failure after just a few load cycles.
That's actually caused by the fact that its used in Aerospace applications. The testing/qualification process to get a part into operation takes 4-5 years minimum, and usually more like a decade. If they forecast this being in use in 4 years, then its got to be pretty much ready for full scale testing now.