Currently viewing the tag: "Aerospace"
A very important parameter when designing jet engines is specific power – the amount of power output divided by the mass of the engine. In general, a good heuristic to keep in mind when designing anything that moves is that maximising the power output per unit mass leads to a more efficient design. Afterburning is […]
J.E. Gordon, a leading engineer at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough and holder of the British Silver Medal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, wrote two brilliant books on engineering: “The New Science of Strong Materials” and “Structures – Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down”. Elon Musk
From Wright Flyer to Space Shuttle
On February 15, 2017 · In Case Studies, Engineering, General Aerospace, History, Rocket Science, Technology
On December 17 1903, the bicycle mechanic Orville Wright completed the first successful flight in a heavier-than-air machine. A flight that lasted a mere 12 seconds, reaching an altitude of 10 feet and landing 120 feet from the starting point. The Wright Flyer was made of wood and canvas, powered by a 12 horsepower internal […]
At the start of the 19th century, after studying the highly cambered thin wings of many different birds, Sir George Cayley designed and built the first modern aerofoil, later used on a hand-launched glider. This biomimetic, highly cambered and thin-walled design remained the predominant aerofoil shape for almost 100 years, mainly due to the fact that […]
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 […]
This is the fourth and final part of a series of posts on rocket science. Part I covered the history of rocketry, Part II dealt with the operating principles of rockets and Part III looked at the components that go into the propulsive system.
One of […]
This is the third in a series of posts on rocket science. Part I covered the history of rocketry and Part II dealt with the operating principles of rockets. If you have not checked out the latter post, I highly recommend you read this first before diving into what […]
Rocket technology has evolved for more than 2000 years. Today’s rockets are a product of a long tradition of ingenuity and experimentation, and combine technical expertise from a wide array of engineering disciplines. Very few, if any, of humanity’s inventions are designed to withstand equally extreme conditions. Rockets are subjected to awesome g-forces at lift-off, and […]
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 […]
Sign-up to the monthly Aerospaced newsletter
Recent Posts
- Podcast Ep. #49 – 9T Labs is Producing High-Performance Composite Materials Through 3D Printing
- Podcast Ep. #48 – Engineering Complex Systems for Harsh Environments with First Mode
- Podcast Ep. #47 – Möbius Aero and MμZ Motion: a Winning Team for Electric Air Racing
- Podcast Ep. #46 – Tow-Steered Composite Materials with iCOMAT
- Podcast Ep. #45 – Industrialising Rocket Science with Rocket Factory Augsburg
Topics
- 3D Printing (4)
- Aerodynamics (29)
- Aerospace Engineering (11)
- Air-to-Air Refuelling (1)
- Aircraft (16)
- Autonomy (2)
- Bio-mimicry (9)
- Case Studies (15)
- Composite Materials (25)
- Composites (7)
- Computational Fluid Dynamics (2)
- Contra-Rotation (1)
- Design (2)
- Digitisation (2)
- Drones (1)
- Education (1)
- Electric Aviation (11)
- Engineering (23)
- General Aerospace (28)
- Gliders (1)
- Helicopters (3)
- History (26)
- Jet Engines (4)
- Machine Learning (4)
- Manufacturing (12)
- Military (2)
- Modelling (2)
- Nanomaterials (2)
- NASA (2)
- New Space (11)
- News (3)
- Nonlinear Structures (1)
- Novel Materials/Tailored Structures (14)
- Personal Aviation (5)
- Podcast (45)
- Propulsion (9)
- Renewable Energy (2)
- Renewables (1)
- Rocket Science (17)
- Satellites (8)
- Shape Adaptation (1)
- Smart Materials (1)
- Space (12)
- Space Junk (1)
- Sport Airplanes (2)
- Startup (19)
- STOL (1)
- Structural Efficiency (5)
- Structural Mechanics (1)
- Superalloys (1)
- Supersonic Flight (2)
- Technology (18)
- UAVs (2)
- Virtual Reality (2)
- VTOL (3)
- Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
