February 17th 07, 12:57 AM
posted to alt.aviation.safety,rec.aviation.misc,rec.travel.air,alt.disasters.aviation,can.aviation.misc
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Aviation Disasters,Plastic Planes Solution
Airliners shaped like Coke bottle tops? We're talking about the future
here.... Disposable transport.
Tom Sanderson wrote:
"Gordon" wrote:
I have experimented with plastic and found the corkscrew part of coke
bottles very strong and cheap plastic
It's strong *for plastic*. It's vastly weaker than any aeronautical
structural material, like aluminum, titanium, or carbon graphite.
if the plane crashed
it would not disintegrate or catch fire and if it crashed at sea it
would float and could be towed back to land by a ship.
Since plastic is weaker than structural metals, a plastic plane would
disintegrate even worse (or earlier) than a conventional aircraft during
a crash. It would also burn more vigourously and loose strength as it
heated up.
http://www.scaled.com
I came across this composite plastic website who make small plastic
planes and who made the composite plastic space shuttles for Richard
Branson.
Scaled Composites is very very good at compsite prototypes (primarily
aramid and carbon composites). Until recently, it was cost-prohibitive
to use this technology for mass production of large aircraft. Boeing's
787 and Airbus's A350XWB will both make extensive use of composites.
Don't forget though, it's the fibers, not the plastic, that gives you
most of your strength.
Tom.
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