China masters fatigue-resistant tech for chopper rotors
Thread Starter
Joined: Apr 2010
Aviation Qualifications: ATPL(H)
Posts: 104
Likes: 5
From: Geordieland
China masters fatigue-resistant tech for chopper rotors


Joined: Jun 2016
Aviation Qualifications: CPL
Posts: 1,318
Likes: 387
From: Brantisvogan
It's not like they are fond of propaganda or anything

Joined: May 2011
Posts: 1,358
Likes: 3
From: NEW YORK
Seems quite plausible, the Russians have world class metallurgy and have been using titanium rotor hubs for a long while.
Claim is doubled fatigue life, no fine print details however.

Joined: Apr 2008
Aviation Qualifications: Spotter
Posts: 611
Likes: 249
From: on the ground
Twenty five years ago I was working in durability testing in the car industry. We had fatigue resistant tech back then; it was called "steel".
Steel has a really interesting characteristic few other materials exhibit; it has a fatigue limit; a stress below which repeated cycles cause no fatigue damage regardless of the number of cycles. This makes it really useful for things like wheel studs and crankshafts and so on, which obviously experience millions of cycles within quite a short time. It's the reason we still build car bodies from steel rather than aluminium for example.
According to Wikipedia (font of all dubious knowledge!), titanium alloys may also exhibit the same property, which is presumably what the Chinese are working on. Not saying they've achieved it yet, but don't discount the possibility!
Steel has a really interesting characteristic few other materials exhibit; it has a fatigue limit; a stress below which repeated cycles cause no fatigue damage regardless of the number of cycles. This makes it really useful for things like wheel studs and crankshafts and so on, which obviously experience millions of cycles within quite a short time. It's the reason we still build car bodies from steel rather than aluminium for example.
According to Wikipedia (font of all dubious knowledge!), titanium alloys may also exhibit the same property, which is presumably what the Chinese are working on. Not saying they've achieved it yet, but don't discount the possibility!




