Using Composite Materials to Make Air Travel Greener

Air travel, as we have already mentioned is one of the biggest offenders against the environment. Efforts are underway however to mitigate the future impacts of this industry. This article too is about an interesting approach to reduce carbon emissions from air travel, and thereby make the industry cleaner and greener.

How?

By the use of composite materials for wing panels in air craft!

Didn’t quite grasp the idea yet?

The idea is to use carbon fibers to produce damage-tolerant, buckle-free structures.

This will lead to substantial cost and weight savings of between 10 and 30 per cent on structural components, saving fuel and reducing CO₂ emissions from the aviation industry.

All this will obviously help reduce the impact of air travel on the environment.

Who is behind this project?

It is a collaboration between engineers from the Universities of Bath and Bristol and the aerospace industry.

The Bristol-based team will be leading the development and manufacturing of the new carbon fibre materials, and the Bath team will be investigating different designs for the structures of wing panels to test their damage tolerance.

Both teams will be using mathematical modeling techniques to optimize and test their designs.

The engineers emphasize that their efforts will push the boundaries of composite technology and achieve thousands of tonnes in fuel saving over the life of an aircraft!

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via: University of Bath and AlphaGalileo