Fiber optics is used for many things in our modern society, as it turns out to be a very good way to send information quickly. But did you know that fiber optics also works well on security fences? How does this work, you ask? Well, fiber optic strands are laid out on a surface, rolled up, and reconnected, so if someone breaks the connection, the cables can pinpoint exactly where the break is and alert the system. This may sound complicated, but it really isn’t and there are many patents that explain how this works if you do a Google patent search – each one refers to the others.
Now, I propose that we use such a system in aircraft structures; fuselages, wings, tails, control surfaces, wing pylons, engine mounts, landing gear, and major substructures (Quote: 1). If there is an outage, the system will know immediately. So could a fiber optic mesh strategy work along the rivet and rib lines, would the stringers help prevent collisions? I think so, as you will see, over the years I have noticed many Airworthiness Directives (AD) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and I constantly read relevant reports from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on crashes, incursions and incidents related to commercial and private companies. aircraft.
Now this might be difficult to do on older aircraft, but it would be easy to do during production. Think of the capability of a fiber optic mesh system along the fuselage of a Boeing 737 that is known to have failed rivets and skin on the top of the fuselage due to corrosion and fatigue (Quote 2), and this it takes nothing away from Boeing. since the Boeing 737 is one of the best aircraft ever built and is still being built; The Boeing 737 MAX has backorders for more than 2,000 aircraft at this time; I’m just using this as an example of how valuable such a system could be to airline security.
What about the oldest seaplane (Grumman G-73) that crashed in the port off Miami due to structural failure and corrosion? What about older C-130s with wing box flaws? (Quote: 3) What about all the old military aircraft that are way beyond their years like tankers, B-52, F-15, F-16, A-10? Do you see my point here? As engineers, we know where stresses are most likely to occur and even if we build these aircraft structures for 150% of the expected abuse, we still need to know when those structures have reached their limits and damage has occurred. Why take a plane apart for inspection when we can tell if everything is already intact?
This is the same principle with bridges, buildings in known earthquake regions. Aircraft are often expected to fly in adverse conditions and Murphy appears to be an unwanted co-pilot often. Consider all of this and think about it.
Appointment:
1. “Aircraft Design Sketch Book” published by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank CA, 1940 ..
2. “Evaluation of flight data of an airworthiness structural health monitoring system integrally integrated in an unmanned aerial vehicle”, by I. KRESSEL, et. al., published in the 6th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring – Tu.4.A.4.
3. “The interaction between corrosion management and the structural integrity of aging aircraft”, by A. JAYA, UH TIONG and G. CLARK, Blackwell Publishing, 2011, DOI: 10.1111 / j.1460-2695.2011.01562.x . Published in the Journal of Fatigue & Fracture of Engineering Materials & Structures, Volume 35, Number 1, pages 64-73, January 2012.