HW 4

The self healing technology that comes from the concept of the self-healing power of the animals and plants could be used to fix things like aeroplanes by themselves on the fly. Also this technology could further be used to point out minuscule holes to the mechanics after landing. Imagine if this thing is put in effect then we are not far that this technique could be used along with aeroplanes to wind turbines and also to the spaceships of the future. As we will be having most of such technology with embedded circulatory systems and some kind of epoxy resin that can bleed into the holes and cracks and then it fluoresce under the ultraviolet light and show up some kind of mark when there is any kind of inspection.

            I personally believe that such a technology could be add a lot to the fiber-reinforced polymers which are lightweight and plastic based composites. Recently such polymers have been used as a protective layer of skin and the growing advancement of the aircraft technology, spacecraft, wind turbines would take it to much advanced levels.

            According to some of the aerospace engineers there are many possibilities of certain parts of the aircraft to get damaged and most of the time they are undetectable to the eye. Often times the users of composites have taken a very long time in order to detect such kind of damages and worry about the growing of the damage areas on the aircraft if left undetected. Also I think that the renewable energy industry will also benefit a lot from such self healing surfaces.

HW 2

As we see our present generation computers contains transistors, wires and electricity. But this might not last for long as the next generation computers will not be using any of these but will shift towards atoms, fibers and light. We don’t need to be bothered as how its going to work but what needs to be considered is that are we getting our work done or not. Just imagine that while drinking water we accidently spill it on our present laptop, it will surely cost us like 700-800$ but the next generation computers will be safe from such problems.

                But lets keep this aside and if we are still in our latest laptops then we can imagine how it might look when the computer becomes the size of a molecule and those computers are in front of us. Imagine the computers like everywhere and we are not able to see it due to its nano size bio computers and then researchers will be able to target specific areas inside the body. Further if we shift towards the next technology of it by using giant networks using those molecules size computers and start imagining huge networks in our clothes, in our house and in our car also. Then there would be computers all around and we don’t even need to give a single thought about them.

                According to the research the quantum computer is a computer that makes direct use of the distinctively quantum mechanical phenomena to perform operations on data. As according the classical computer the amount of data is measured by bits but in the quantum computer, the data is measured by qubits.

HW 3 (flexible wings)

Imagine the planes having flexible wings like that of a bird as it is believed that it could add much more towards controlling the aircraft. Some years ago one of the research in NASA told that they are working towards that goal that a plane can bend and this could help in achieving a superior flight control which would like much to that of a bird. This will benefit the future planes to respond automatically by varying flight conditions and in enabling new benchmarks in terms of aerodynamics controlling.  

                Such kind of research had already started and is trying to explore the aerodynamic benefits that are being offered in these early times. Things like the wings having the property of deflecting whenever there is any kind of activation during the special leading and trailing edge control surfaces. According to some papers its said that even the Wright brothers also understood this principles and that was the reason they added the wing-warping property in their first plane to enable it to turn.

                But the biggest question is that how could this be possible i.e. how can the automatic responses be generated based on the flight control. The answer is “sensors”, this will help in measuring the pressure over the entire surface of the wing and will help in giving signals to the actuators to direct it and this will help in increasing the aerodynamic efficiency.

                What about the various applications of such a technology, in terms of military applications could help in providing better quality anti-radar stealth by using the surfaces and for the regular passenger could experience the new generation much smoother flights. But this would give rise to another research i.e. the shape of the aircraft would change in order to meet the requirements of the future!!