A Vision for Shape-Adaptive Aircraft

Over the last couple of months, a number of readers of the blog and listeners of the podcast have asked me about my research. Although there is a brief overview on the Contact page, the information there probably leaves too many things unsaid to form a clear picture of what the research group I am part of is trying to achieve. (more…)

Loads Acting on Aircraft

The flight envelope of an aeroplane can be divided into two regimes. The first is rectilinear flight in a straight line, i.e. the aircraft does not accelerate normal to the direction of flight. The second is curvilinear flight, which, as the name suggests, involves flight in a curved path with acceleration normal to tangential flight (more…)

The Evolution of Airplanes

Adrian Bejan is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University and as an offshoot from his thermodynamics research he has pondered the question why evolution exists in natural i.e. biological and geophysical, and man-made i.e. technological realms. To account for the progress of design in evolution Prof. Bejan conceived the constructal (more…)