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"General Aerospace"
In the early 20th century, a group of German scientists led by Ludwig Prandtl at the University of Göttingen began studying the fundamental nature of fluid flow and subsequently laid the foundations for modern aerodynamics. In 1904, just a year after the first flight by the Wright brothers, Prandtl published the first paper on a […]
Despite the growing computer power and increasing sophistication of computational models, any design meant operate in the real world requires some form of experimental validation. The idealist modeller, me included, wants to believe that computer simulation will replace all forms of experimental testing and thereby allow for much faster design cycles. The issue with this […]
John Partridge is the founder of the deap-sea instrumentation company Sonardyne, and also graduated from the University of Bristol, my alma mater, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1962. Since the founding in 1971, Sonardyne has developed into one of the leading instrumentation companies in oceanography, oil drilling, underwater monitoring and tsunami warning systems.
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One of the key factors in the Wright brothers’ achievement of building the first heavier-than-air aircraft was their insight that a functional airplane would require a mastery of three disciplines:
Lift Propulsion Control
Whereas the first two had been studied to some success by earlier pioneers such as Sir […]
“We must ensure this never happens again.”
This is a common reaction to instances of catastrophic failure. However, in complex engineering systems, this statement is inherently paradoxical. If the right lessons are learned and the appropriate measures are taken, the same failure will most likely never happen again. But, catastrophes in themselves are not completely preventable, […]
How airplanes fly is one of the most fundamental questions in aerospace engineering. Given its importance to flight, it is surprising how many different and oftentimes wrong explanations are being perpetuated online and in textbooks. Just throughout my time in school and university, I have been confronted with several different explanations of how wings create […]
“Engineering is not the handmaiden of physics any more than medicine is of biology”
What is science? And how is it different from engineering? The two disciplines are closely related and the differences seem subtle at first, but science and engineering ultimately have different goals.
A scientist attempts to gain knowledge about the underlying structure of the […]
Earlier this year, I had the privilege of working on a research project at NASA’s Langley Research Centre. Apart from interacting with world-renowned scientists and engineers, what impressed me most was the mind-blowing heritage of the site.
NASA Langley is the birthplace of large-scale, government-funded aeronautical research in the US. It was home to […]
“Big data” is all abuzz in the media these days. As more and more people are connected to the internet and sensors become ubiquitous parts of daily hardware an unprecedented amount of information is being produced. Some analysts project 40% growth in data over the next decade, which means that in a decade 30 times the […]
When I was travelling in Chile a short while ago I took a flight from the capital Santiago de Chile to the city of Calama in the Atacama dessert. What was interesting about this flight, was that on its way to Calama the airplane landed for a short stop in Copiapó. Immediately after leaving the runway […]
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