A-level Physics courswork help? Which material?

[Rusty Cessna]

Hi there all,

For my A-level Physics course, over the half term I have been tasked with finding a material, any of my choice that I have to research and find out about, and them do a presentation on.

Now naturally I want to do something aviation related but I honestly don't know where to start.

I was thinking of Propeller materials or something in the engines. Could any of you bright sparks give me some ideas and if so how do I go about researching this??

All help and any ideas greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Rusty

[near enuf is good enuf]

Food for thought:

Stolen from Tech Log.

"A Rolls Royce engineer was interviewed on telly recently, and he held a blade (about 3 inches long) out of the power turbine in a Trent engine in the palm of his hand. Can't remember the exact text but I think he said that one blade took the same power out of the gasflow as a Formula one racing engine develops. And it sits in a gasflow which is at a temperature of more that twice the melting point of the blade. It's only because the blade's air cooled internally that it doesn't instantly melt.
Amazing stuff."

This could be quite interesting but make sure you cover a topic that is of interest to you. That will make it a hell of a lot easier.
As for contact info, stick your neck out and contact RR directly.
Hopefully someone here can give you further details on that or maybe even works for RR. (Derby I think)



------------------
So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk, get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or vitrtue,
as you choose!"

[Lu Zuckerman]

Here is a research project:

Titanium has a characteristic that may need explaining. When an electrical current is passed through a sheet of titanium the material will change color. Depending upon how long the current is passed through the material the color will deepen. Depending upon the level of the current/voltage the color will vary. In this way,you can actually "paint" pictures on a sheet of titanium. There is a company in the UK that does this and the pictures that they make are fantastic. Here is a contact point however it may have changed as this info is twelve years old.

Stow Green Supplies
Stow-On-The-Wold
Gloucstershire
0451-30998

It is my understanding that there is a museum in either Spain or Portugal that is constructed entirely from titanium. Can you imagine what would happen if it were struck by lightning?

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The Cat

[spannersatcx]

http://www.rolls-royce.com/education/jetengine/default.htm try this at RR may be of use.
Also try GE and Pratt and **** don't know the url's though. http://www.rolls-royce.com/education/jetengine/pressures.gif

[Genghis the Engineer]

I'd go lo-tech myself for this.

Wood is not all that glamourous these days, but it's an incredibly interesting and versatile material. You'll probably have to dig back into some 1930 - 1950 era textbooks to get some really good gen on it's use in aircraft design. Because it's anisotropic, the art of designing it into an aeroplane is a very deep on.

Consider: -

DH Vampire
BAe EAP
CFM Shadow
TEAM Minimax

as four aeroplanes using the material in totally different ways.

G