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Expensive test - $9 millions

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eblc1388

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Last night I saw on TV probably the most expensive test I have ever seen. It lasts for only a few seconds and costed $9 million US dollars for the part under test. The part is totally destroyed afterwards.

It is a Rolls Royce jet engine for the new A380 AirBus. The test is to break off one of the rotating turbine blades when these blades are rotating at some 30,000rpm(my guess). The object is to prove that the flying blade would not puncture the casing of the engine and endanger the aircraft.

The blade was broken off using explosive mounted on the roots of the blade. Just image the difficulties to set off a charge on something rotating at 30,000rpm by throwing a switch. The person to do so is a woman who is the head of the project.

How would you wire up the circuit to send the signal/power to something rotating at 30,000 rpm? Slip rings & brushes? Radio signals?
 
If you were observant, you would have seen a rod going from a triangular support structure to the hub where the blade was attached. I think it is resonable to assume that the connection was through slip rings between the rod and the hub.

JimB
 
There is already signals going to the Trent900 (the engine used) vanes. THere are vane actuation to change the pitch so prolly wire since there is already acomidation for such.

I doubt that that is the most expensive. RR always destroy their engines. One of their favoite tests is to take a frozen turkey, defrost and fire it at running engine to test for in-flight collisions (the dum-ass Yanks too this on board (P&W) but fired a frozen one at one of their engine's and completly destoyed it!!!)

Anyway what I am saying is RR/P&W/GE all test their engines to destruction. this time next year when the Trent1000 (for the Boeing 787) gets tested it too will cost alot - but shouldn tthat be in pounds since RR is British or at lest in € since the main engine testbed is in spain for RR)


Anyway that isnt the most exposive test.
The US gov'n and I think NASA wanted to test (since couldn't simulate) a wing rupture on landing (fully fueled) to see what is vulnerable and how to protect.

They took a 747 filled it with Fuel and dummies, lots-o-camera's and sensors and flew by remote control

The idea was to fly over these big metal poles to rupture the wing (where the fuel is) to the start the fire on final aproach, however didn't quite hit is square on and relly ripped it to shread's huge fireball, uncortolled and wasted data

https://www.alexisparkinn.com/photogallery/Videos/720test.mpg

here is a vid clip - all I could find. So that is is alot of test equip, a 747 (which cost a few hunder mil) and four GE engines... not to mention test data that was unrepestative - the data they could salvage....
 
Styx said:
They took a 747 filled it with Fuel and dummies, lots-o-camera's and sensors and flew by remote control

Now you have said it I vaguely remembered seeing video about a flaming crushing 747 with wings painted in those black/white checker squares.

About last night show, I was not happy with the emergency release of the landing gear getting stuck to the cover. Putting on a non stick coating to reduce friction does not seem to be good engineering solution to me.
 
Styx said:
They took a 747 filled it with Fuel and dummies, lots-o-camera's and sensors and flew by remote control
....

The plane in the clip is not a 747. An old 720 maybe, look at the title of the link for a clue.

But going back to the A380 programme, what amused me was the number of highly payed engineers needed to determine that the strange white mark on the engine air intake was in fact "caca de oiseau" (bird sh*t)!

JimB
 
JimB said:
"caca de oiseau"
You mix languages. Shouldn't it be "merde de oiseau"?
My Spanish wifey insists on "mierda de pajaro", or "caca de pajaro". He, he. :lol: :lol:
 
JimB said:
The plane in the clip is not a 747. An old 720 maybe, look at the title of the link for a clue.

maybe, I know they did it with a 747 and it went extreamly wrong, so that prolly not the clip I was after
 
Styx said:
Anyway that isnt the most exposive test.
The US gov'n and I think NASA wanted to test (since couldn't simulate) a wing rupture on landing (fully fueled) to see what is vulnerable and how to protect.

They took a 747 filled it with Fuel and dummies, lots-o-camera's and sensors and flew by remote control

The idea was to fly over these big metal poles to rupture the wing (where the fuel is) to the start the fire on final aproach, however didn't quite hit is square on and relly ripped it to shread's huge fireball, uncortolled and wasted data

The way I heard it, a manufacturer had invented a fuel additive that was supposed to make the fuel not burn in a crash. Apparently it worked well enough in the lab to make them want to spend the money to prove it to the FAA. The pylons were there to rip up the wing tank because they were afraid it might not blow out convincingly.

The fact that it burst into a fireball was still valid data- it proved the additive didn't work. The fact that it did so without even hitting the pylons only intensified the conclusion.

I'm not sure of those fact though. I'd like to know, since that footage is one of the earliest universal memes- cliches- of television and movies. Anybody know the NAME of that test? I tried to Google it and got swamped with hits from crackpot theories on 9/11 and TWA Flight 800.
 
I'm sure the military ( and their contractors ) has wadded plenty of money into the ground, or blew piles up, etc. Nuclear testing comes to mind.

Here's a good example:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/missile/technology/tests.html

The video clip in the post above, along with lots of others is also here:

**broken link removed**

I don't have a problem with the testing per se, but it all kind of reminds me of the old demolition engineer joke..... man, what a great explosion... we should have saved that bomb.
 
Oznog, THATS THE ONE!!!
saw a docu on it a few years ago but couldn't remember all the details. amazing footage tho
 
I thnk we are all talking about the same one.

In the link I posted above, the details of the test is described.

snip--

In 1984 NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) teamed-up in a unique flight experiment called the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID), to test the impact of a Boeing 720 aircraft using standard fuel
with an additive designed to suppress fire. The additive FM-9, a high molecular-weight long chain polymer, when blended with
Jet-A fuel had demonstrated the capability to inhibit ignition and flame propagation of the released fuel in simulated impact tests.


----

This flight, called the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID), was the culmination of more than a year of preparation in a joint research project by NASA and the FAA to test the effectiveness of anti-misting kerosene (AMK) in a so-called survivable impact. Added to typical Jet A fuel, the AMK was designed to suppress the fireball that can result from an impact in which the airstream causes spilled fuel to vaporize into a mist.

snip ----


It was featured on many TV shows, some more slanted than others. It gets airplay alot when ever there is a crash of a commercial airliner and fire plays a large role in the deaths of passengers.

**broken link removed**
 
audioguru said:
JimB said:
"caca de oiseau"
You mix languages. Shouldn't it be "merde de oiseau"?
My Spanish wifey insists on "mierda de pajaro", or "caca de pajaro". He, he. :lol: :lol:

Yes I would have used the expression "merde de oiseau" if I had been describing it (in French), but "caca de oiseau" was the expression used by the guy in the programme.


JimB
 
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