Aeronautical & Manufacturing Engineering Editing Service

Aeronautical and manufacturing engineering

Mankind has dreamed of developing the ability to fly for longer than we have had the ability to express such dreams to one another, almost as long as we have had the ability to create tools out of objects at our disposal to achieve objectives. Parables such as the hubris and downfall of Icarus for flying too close to the Sun after his father Daedalus made him a set of wings from wax. Dropping from the sky has been a constant fear and challenge to overcome for pilots and aeronautical engineers alike, as aircraft contain a vast array of systems, the failure of any of which can bring the craft back to Earth with less control than would be ideal and the environment during flight could only be approximated in ground-level models such as wind tunnels for the better part of the first century of aircraft development.

The history of early tool making is rather less grandiose, but significantly more important to human development, from early tools carved from wood and various types of stone such as flint through to bronze, steel, and then modern tools such as computers and wind tunnels, one of homo sapiens’ defining characteristics is the ability to think beyond our own bodies to create devices that extend our capabilities in remarkable and ingenious ways. There are still mythical tools such as Thor’s hammer Mjolnir (though arguably more of a weapon than a blacksmith’s hammer) and mysterious artefacts such as the Antikythera mechanism (Wikipedia, 2017).

Communicating engineering research

One of the most important aspects of getting a modern tool to the market in the modern age is filing a patent to ensure that the designer’s hard work is properly credited to them and that they are able to fund the development of future tools. They may also be able to write academic papers about the effects of using that which they have created when their inventions have scientific merit and there is public interest in the improvements that such devices can bring, as is the case for (for example) comparing the efficacy of ocular implants (Kraff, 1982).

Alacrity is paramount when attempting to bring a product to market, particularly when multiple designs of an object are being designed concurrently by multiple design teams such as was the case for the light bulb. Hence, designers will often engage an aeronautical and manufacturing engineering editing service to help check that their work is fit for publication as such companies typically have the necessary experience in both engineering and article editing to properly assess and correct common mistakes.

Aircraft design and safety

There was a thorny issue when attempting to develop supersonic aircraft, as travelling at such speeds alters the trim of an aircraft, knocking them out of the sky. Various fixes were attempted, but these often increased the craft’s drag coefficient to an unusable degree (Robinson, 1959) or resulted in unfortunate roll-coupling modes (such as in the NASA AD-1) that made the aircraft extremely unstable (Curry, 1983). Supersonic commercial travel used to be possible in one of the two types of craft, Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144, but their high cost both environmentally and economically, difficult political circumstances, and one fatal Concorde crash have seen these discontinued.

Aircraft have long had to contend with so-called bird strike. Whether the animals smash into the vehicle’s windscreen or get sucked into the engine, and various coping strategies have been advanced to deal with such incidents from non-lethal solutions such as habitat relocation, chemical and tactile repellents such as methyl anthranilate (Mason, 1991), and anti-perching spikes to more lethal solutions such as avian population control. Finding new ways to address this issue, whether the emphasis is on humane methods, effectiveness, or minimal disruption has proven a profitable industry and interesting research area, and aeronautical and manufacturing engineering editing services are often engaged to help speed up the process of getting such work published so that the information can be disseminated more quickly and in a more understandable form, aviation safety remains an important area of engineering research.

Aircrafts’ ability to withstand bird strike during operation has to be tested by conducting controlled bird-impact tests on models of the engine, windscreen, propeller, wing, etc.; this is typically carried out in a wind tunnel using air cannons, as there are too many variables to predict all potential inputs and outcomes using a simulated model. Jet engine blades have to be manufactured with astonishing precision and be able to withstand heat, vibration, incredible G forces, and assault from organic matter that can get sucked in.

In addition, drones are a newly emerging hazard as their metal framework components, battery materials, and electronic equipment they typically carry can all cause much more severe damage to aircraft components than biological material.

Drones and new applications

Drones represent a fusion of aeronautical and manufacturing engineering, both in their production and utilization, as they both require extensive knowledge of aeronautics to create and are capable of transporting and utilizing tools in places that were considered extremely inaccessible prior to the widespread utilization of drones. One use is as safety inspection tools, whereby a camera is attached and they are flown to an area of interest to record visual, infra-red/thermal, sonic, or another form of information about an area that would typically require a helicopter at great expense or climbing equipment, highly qualified climbers, significant time, and moderate-to-severe risk to inspectors’ lives.

Drones’ popularity means that their range of uses is continually expanding in novel and interesting ways.

References

Antikythera mechanism. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 10, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Bird strike. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 10, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike

Curry, R. E., & Sim, A. G. (1983). Unique flight characteristics of the AD-1 oblique-wing research airplane. J. AIRCRAFT., 20(6), 564–568.

Kraff, M. C., & Sanders, D. R. (1982). Planned extracapsular extraction versus phacoemulsification with IOL implantation: a comparison of concurrent series. American Intra-Ocular Implant Society Journal, 8(1), 38–41.

Mason, J. R., Avery, M. L., Glahn, J. F., Otis, D. L., Matteson, R. E., & Nelms, C. O. (1991). Evaluation of methyl anthranilate and starch-plated dimethyl anthranilate as bird repellent feed additives. The Journal of wildlife management, 182–187.

Robinson, R. C. (1959). The Effect of Lower Surface Spoilers on the Transonic Trim Change of a Wind-Tunnel Model of a Fighter Airplane Having a Modified Delta Wing.