Drawn from the archives of the Capital Times and Wisconsin State Journal, this feature focuses on individuals who made an impact on Madison and Dane County.
Article source: https://madison.com/news/local/obituaries/johnson-oscar-w/article_c2895d3c-598e-5913-b103-0348906e5195.html
The investigation of the fatal crash of a Lion Air jet that Boeing delivered less than three months ago — the first of the new 737 MAX model to suffer such a tragedy — will be painstaking, as the plane appears to have disintegrated on impact after a violent, high-speed plunge into the water Monday.
Yet initial clues as to what may have gone wrong on Flight JT610, leaving all 189 passengers and crew aboard presumed dead, may come relatively soon.
The crash site is in the relatively shallow coastal waters of Indonesia’s Java Sea, roughly 100 feet deep. The black-box flight data and cockpit voice recorders should be recovered quickly.
There is no information yet as to what caused the crash.
However, one immediate line of inquiry is into the handling of a technical fault on the airplane’s previous flight that, according to a flight log circulating online, indicated a problem with the jet’s air speed and altitude system.
Investigators will also study Boeing’s detailed records of how each part of this jet was built, particularly because it was completed during the chaotic production issues in Renton this summer.
Lion Air Chief Executive Edward Sirait said in a news conference that the fault reported on the jet’s previous flight, which he didn’t specify, had been fixed after instructions from Boeing before the plane took
Article source: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/search-for-cause-of-deadly-737-lion-air-crash-begins/
Oil spills are messy and harmful to local ecosystems—just ask anyone on the Louisiana coast. So far, there’s no foolproof way to clean them up, and some methods—like burning the oil—can result in even more pollution. Now, researchers have come up with a potential solution: reusable, oil-wicking sponges made of wood that can absorb more than 40 times their weight in oil.
To make the sponges, scientists started with balsa wood, a low-density material often used in model airplanes. The researchers used chemicals to break down the wood’s cell walls and remove the polymers, lignin and hemicellulose, that make it rigid and strong. The resulting highly porous “scaffold” had a density just one-third that of balsa wood. The researchers then topped the scaffold with a coating that repelled water but readily absorbed oil.
The team tested its sponges on a variety of oils—such as motor oil and the industrial solvent dichloromethane—dispersed in water. The sponges wicked up between 16 and 41 times their weight in oil and could be used as a filter to continuously remove oil from a solution (video above). What’s more, the sponges could be reused more than 10 times after they’ve been wrung out, the researchers report this month in ACS Nano.
These sponges are promising for cleaning up a real oil spill in the ocean, say researchers, though they still need to test their technology at scale.
Article source: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/watch-these-wooden-sponges-wick-spilled-oil
COMSOL_MS17_MTC – .PDF file.
The Manufacturing Technology Centre takes a new approach to part design and interdisciplinary research, using simulation and computational apps to support teams across the company
One of the greatest challenges in designing high-precision parts is being able to quickly fabricate them in a repeatable way to meet very tight specifications. If you’re designing aircraft engine fuel injectors, for instance, you need precisely measured parts in order for airplane machinery to perform properly and for passengers to entrust their safety to the airline. In order to achieve this, engineers must often optimise not only a specific part, but the manufacturing process itself.
Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, has been on the rise in recent years as a novel and promising way to create parts with less material waste and even to build shapes that were previously impossible to fabricate through more traditional methods.
The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry, UK, researches additive manufacturing techniques and supplies designs and prototypes to part producers in the aerospace industry. One additive manufacturing method they employ frequently is called laser powder bed fusion, which uses powder layers tens of microns thick to build parts layer by layer using a laser. The system follows a predefined toolpath to fabricate a part with very fine geometrical details.
In order to verify the quality and performance of their additively manufactured parts, the MTC has used COMSOL Multiphysics® software for virtual design testing, validation, and performance prediction. Over the past couple of years,
Article source: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/mtc-develops-simulation-app-to-revolutionise-design-for-additively-manufactured-parts/
When the C919, China’s indigenous long-haul airliner, successfully completed its maiden flight in May 2017, officials were quick to announce that the country was edging closer to clinching the “crown jewels” of the modern manufacturing industry: aircraft.
The one-hour-20-minute flight may only have taken five crew members about 200km from Shanghai and back, but it also carried the huge weight of a nation’s ambition to be a major player in the global aviation industry.
China’s aviation market is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest by 2022, and the country is estimated to need over 7,000 planes in the next 20 years. Being able to make its own would not only help disentangle Beijing from the political complications of having to deal with the global manufacturing duopoly of Boeing and Airbus, but would also be a statement that it had the technological prowess to match its economic might.
“Building an aircraft brings together all the major disciplines in engineering. I think that’s why it’s so important to China. It’s the top of the mountain as far as complexity. That’s why it’s so strategic,” said Kevin Michaels, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace and aviation consultancy.
“China is playing the long game, it’s not about the 2020s. China is looking at the next 20, 30 or 40 years.”
That ambition explains why the aviation industry was listed as one the key 10 areas of focus in the “Made in China 2025” (MIC2025) industrial plan, unveiled in 2015 with the aim of lifting the
Article source: https://www.scmp.com/business/article/2170746/chinas-aviation-industry-has-steep-climb-made-china-2025-goals
JAKARTA, Indonesia—Divers searched for a Lion Air jetliner that crashed into the Java Sea carrying 189 people shortly after takeoff Monday morning from Jakarta, in what was the first major accident involving a new variant of the popular Boeing 737.
About 30 divers faced a quick current in waters about 115 feet deep off the north coast of Java, the archipelago nation’s main island. By midafternoon, they hadn’t located the plane, a Boeing 737 MAX 8.
…
Article source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/plane-with-188-people-on-board-crashes-off-indonesia-1540784983
DENVER — The Rocky Mountain Hobby Expo, running through Oct. 28, gives people of all ages hands-on experience with a number of different toys.
“We cover everything from radio-control cars, trucks, airplanes, drones, boats, model railroads, rocketry… if it’s a hobby, with hands-on, it is here,” says Jim Marski, the executive director of the expo.
Marski expects about 6,000 people to attend the second annual event. He says it’s a great opportunity for both hobby stores and consumers.
“There’s a lot of things going on in the industry, that individual hobby stores and specialty toy stores are really poised to take advantage of some increased sales this year,” says Marski. “It’s wonderful for the consumer, because at a brick-and-mortar store, you will get the service to find the right product, to support that product and support your local economy.”
The expo runs through Sunday, Oct. 28, 10-5 p.m. A list of retailers at the event can be found online.
AlertMe
Article source: https://kdvr.com/2018/10/27/rocky-mountain-hobby-expo-features-the-latest-in-toy-tech/
