Moving Faster
Speed and aviation: It’s more than just a cool factor. Moving faster through the atmosphere or through space means advancements in travel and exploration, but speed and convenience determine whether people are going to get “on board.” Imagine if you could go from New York to LA in two hours. Better yet, imagine if you could take a week’s vacation on Mars! Scientists and engineers are working on spacecraft that may make the words “space travel” a common occurrence.
The speed of today’s plane travel has revolutionized the way people live their lives, but racing through the sky hasn’t come quickly or easily. Structural dynamics played critical role in creating aircraft that set speed records and are the backbone for the way commercial aircraft are being built today and the spacecraft of tomorrow are being studied.
Bell X-1
On October 14, 1947 the Bell X-1 (Glamorous Glennis) was the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound. Many important structural and aerodynamic advances were first employed in the Bell X-1, including extremely thin yet exceptionally strong wing sections and a horizontal stabilizer that could be adjusted up and down to improve control, especially at transonic (near the speed of sound) speeds. Because of the stabilizer’s success, later transonic military aircraft were designed with similar moving horizontal stabilizers as standard equipment.
On September 1, 1974 the SR-71 Blackbird set a new speed record by traveling from New York London in 1 hour, 54 minutes, and 56.4 seconds. To accomplish this, the aircraft reached a speed of Mach 3.2. The Blackbird is able to achieve supersonic speeds because of its powerful Pratt & Whitney J58s turbojet engines. However, the engines use great quantities of air and, like a super-sized vacuum cleaner, also ingest all kinds of debris from the runway. Because of the tortuous path that the air takes through the complex engine nacelle structure, every little bit of gravel, fragments of metal, or forgotten tool causes major damage to the engine. But engineers have designed jet engines to survive debris ingestion and safely land the aircraft.
SR-71 Blackbird
Hyper-X
In March 2004, the X-43A Hyper-X made speed history, flying at Mach 7 – seven times the speed of sound! Then in November 2004, the Hyper-X broke its own record by flying at Mach 9.8 or 7,000 mph. To achieve this feat, the Hyper-X had to undergo years of study and testing, during which structural dynamics played a crucial role. The research program attempted challenges never before done. This vehicle was the first air-breathing vehicle powered by a scramjet engine to travel at hypersonic speeds. Because of the heat generated by a vehicle moving at these speeds, the Hyper-X had to be made of special material to handle extreme temperatures.