Hypergravity helps in development of light, aircraft-grade alloy
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Titanium aluminide, created using hypergravity, would reduce the weight of jet trbine blades by over 45 percent (Photo: A. Rueda via Flickr)
Conventional jet turbine blades are made from nickel superalloys (Photo: Bleuchoi via Flickr)
The Large Diameter Centrifuge (LDC) at ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) at Noordwijk in the Netherlands (Photo: ESA)
Article Summary
In the quest for more efficient commercial aircraft to help reduce fuel consumption, weight reduction without compromising safety is one of the most obvious areas of focus. Researchers at the European Space Agency (ESA) working in the Intermetallic Materials Processing in Relation to Earth and Space Solidification (IMPRESS) Project have used hypergravity to help develop an aircraft-grade alloy they claim is twice as light as the nickel superalloys currently used in conventional jet engines, but boasts equally good properties.
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