Many thanks CliveL!

Cable runs & Expansion
 

Concorde grows as she gets warmer. How does the mechanical cable connection of the controls cope with the growth ?
I assume the electrical cabling has nice loops to allow growth but a mechanical cable connection needs to be pretty taut all the time.
One theory today was that the cables expand as they warm up at the same rate as the structure but surely they aren't as warm ?

johnjosh43,
You're quite right about the cable 'problem'.
It's not even typical to Concorde.... airframes are aluminium, while the control cables are steel, so the expansion factor is not the same, and the same problems exist even in subsonic aircraft.

The problem is solved with 'cable tensioners'.

Unfortunately I have no drawing instantly to hand. Maybe some other reader here does, and can post it.... if not I'll try and do a sketch from memory and post it.

As said, the problem is/was much older than Concorde, and we just 'borrowed' from existing technology.

And of course, the expansion differential, and the length and flexibility of the airframe, were some of the reasons why Concorde went for 'fly-by-wire', or - as we called it at the time - 'electrical signalling'.

CJ

PS And yes, there was deliberate 'slack' in the electrical wiring, and also various arrangments of expansion joints in the fuel and hydraulic systems.

Hello
 

This is one of the most incredible and informative threads on Concorde that I have found!

An introduction: I'm an artist currently living in NYC, and I've been in love with aviation since I was very little. Concorde has a very special place in my heart ever since I saw a very bad VHS copy of Airport '79 when I was 3.

The reason why I bumped into this thread was soon after her retirement, I wanted to understand how she worked, and why she was shaped and built the way she is.

I had a lot of questions, for example how was she built to allow for thermal expansion? what are those small canards behind the nose for? How do the landing gears shorten, etc. Although I am an artist, I have an above average understanding of mechanics, physics, and aviation -- at least compared to the general public.

Since I also build 3D models for animation, I decided that the best way to learn about the aircraft was to actually build one in 3D. This is a very very ambitious project, but it's the same way famous painters learnt to paint by copying the masters before them.

So, my question is, where did some of you get all those detailed diagrams of internal structures from? They're unlike any of the other line drawings I see on the internet. I'm looking for them because I want to accurately model the internal structure as a way to learn on how the plane dealt with thermal expansion / contraction and the stresses that resulted from it.

At some point I plan to release the 3D model for the public to use in CFD simulations, and to "peel back the skin" and look inside. An interactive model is better than a flat 2D drawing!

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to let you guys know where I'm coming from.

Thank you!

I think you might find you're conversing on this thread with some of the people who actually had a hand in creating the diagrams in the first place, etc.

Someone's done the same sort of thing, albeit on a smaller scale, for the Bugatti Type 35. Is this the sort of thing you're contemplating?

1924 Bugatti Type 35

Yes! That's exactly what I am contemplating.

One of the best things about this thread and what makes it very informative.

I think I'll try modeling the nose cone w/cutouts and the visor operations when I get some time next week. It's very simple, and a good place to begin animating the mechanics of lowering/raising the nose cone/visor.

I'm not sure to what extent you intend to model the mechanism... but I wouldn't call it simple.

It's not Rube Goldberg, but it's still a pretty complex mechanism, with rails, hydraulic cylinders, uplocks (both hydraulic and manual), intermediate stops for the 5° and 12.5° positions, etc.
And you'll discover that (even on the production aircraft) the nose can still be lowered to 17.5° by removing a set of mechanical stops (IIRC the reason for that is already mentioned earlier in the thread).

Wishing you luck and courage with your venture, and I will be curious to see the final result!

CJ

If you succeed, it will be the most fantastic resource, but I don't envy you the task. The Bugatti took 4000 hours to complete and has around 3000 components. Anyone care to hazard a guess at how many components Concorde contained?

Shanewhite, define "components"....
If you count every rivet, every bolt, every resistor in the electronics... you'l easily get to a few million....
I don't think YearoftheTiger is going to quite that level of detail.

CJ

One would hope not! I suppose you just have to make a decision about what sort of level of detail to co to. Brilliant idea though, if it's feasible.

Concorde modelling
 

Year of the Tiger

I don't envy you your self imposed task, you will I'm afraid find it quite difficult to get any detailed drawings as they were long ago buried in the archives of two now non-existent companies - Sud Aviation and British Aircraft Corporation.

The best source of overall structure drawings I have seen is that on the HeritageConcorde.com site. which also gives some explanations of the structural concepts. The Haynes Concorde Owners Workshop Manual also has some interesting data. One problem is that the loading conditions on the various bits of the wing varied so much and the whole thing was so finely optimised for weight saving that there are many different structural concepts used.

You (and others here) may find a 1999 lecture given by Dudley Collard (a much respected Concorde design engineer) of interest. You can find it at www.svfw.ch/Archiv/ConcordeDev.pdf

Felicitations!

I agree with all of you. It's a very very difficult challenge, but I figured I might merge two things I enjoy very much: studying airplanes and being creative.

The modeling in it self isn't difficult, I've been doing it for many years. To me, proportions and correct dimensions are more important than detail, so the real challenge is finding drawings that show major structural components accurately.

As for the detail, ideally I'd love to capture it all, but that is impossible. In my experience helping friends who were studying Industrial Design in college, once you have the correct proportions down for the main components, you can continue adding smaller and smaller parts / details later on with relative ease as information on them become available. Whereas building the smallest detail and working up is a very bad way to start.

Thank you all for your support. I'll keep reporting back as I make progress. Hopefully I haven't come across too crazy (but a little bit is OK and probably a given).

Not crazy at all. If it's in any way feasible, it's a brilliant project. Best of luck, and keep us posted!

YearoftheTiger,
Good sources of detailed drawings are the 'IPC' (illustrated Parts Catalogue) and the 'SRM' (Structural Repair Manual).
Originals (paper) are rarer than the proverbial rocking horse poo.... but they also exist on CDs. Those occasionally pop up on the well-known auction site, but maybe some of the readers here have them and would be willing to make you a copy.

Also see my PM.
CJ

Someone I know said he flew Miami to Washington and then on to London on Concorde. He said the turn around time at Washington was only 30 mins. The leg from Miami to Washington was partially supersonic. This seems to be hard to believe, as I know it takes the best part of an hour to refuel a 747. Surely topping off the tanks on Concorde would take more than 30 mins????

This says 20 minutes. I can't verify it.

Concorde Refueling Operations « Heritage Concorde

There's a lot of info on Heritage Concorde that would be useful to Year Of The Tiger as well, come to that.

Heritage Concorde

MIA-IAD is less than a 1000 nm hop, so the question is really "was the fuel cheaper in Miami, so they tanked up there and only topped up in Washington?" (unlikely, flying fuel around is a waste of money in most cases).

Otherwise, the max fuel on Concorde is listed as 26,400 gallons (Imp), so if you feel like it, you can do the sums with the figures quoted on the Heritage Concorde site.

Christiaan
 

I don't remember it being stated that Concorde was designed to have a 'rapid pit stop' capability, but those refuelling speeds seem to bear it out.

Do you know of anything to support this?