Old school fatigue testing. Mechanical strain gauges. No computer simulations here!...
Old school fatigue testing. Mechanical strain gauges. No computer simulations here! http://totallycoolpix.com/2012/05/the-siberian-research-institute-of-aviation/
HOLY %$^@. My jaw literally dropped. That place is insane. Being a relatively young test engineer, seeing that kind of thing has me just shaking my head. Very, very cool pictures.
Mechanical load gauges. Likely used as a means to quickly check load distribution and hysteresis within the whiffle tree. Sometimes 'old school' is the most efficient way to get things done! Reminds me of my college internship at the Air Force Structures Test Facility at WPAFB, a long time ago.
Fantastically cool pix! Could make a sweet noir film there in dusky light.......sounds must be awesome in that volume of space also....(daydreams....) On another commercial note; I can see turning that space into the most incredible condominiums you can imagine, the lofts would be insane..... And finally; isn't that sort of research done all 'virtual' now? Spasso? Any guesses on the timeframe for that facility?
notice the computer in the last pic, and the computer behind it, and the other electronic gadgets behind it. they cant be that old
They used to call it the "Iron Bird". In light of the 787's construction, would the new one be called the "Plastic Bird"?
I believe the 'Iron Bird' referred to the systems test article, whose only resemblence to an airplane was that there was a longitudinal beam (the fuselage) and a lateral beam (the wing). The simple beams were used to hang the various systems, e.g. hydraulics/electrical/possibly cables, in order to perform early testing of the systems architecture. I don't recall a specific name for the fatigue test article.
You're right, but I've also heard "Iron Bird" applied secondarily to the fatigue test article. It is true that it is usually just called the "fatigue test article", not very creative.
Remember the James Stewert movie (with Marlene Dietrich) where he was the aero engineer convinced that the tail would fall off the new airliner? They flexed that test fuselage into the ground for days to simulate it. I believe this was inspired by the BOAC Comet disasters of the 1950s - sadly, even though the Comet's days were ended as an airliner, they did fix the problem, and it served the RAC for years as a sub spotter and AWACS platform.
That was "No Highway in the Sky", which still has not been issued on DVD. While it seems to have been inspired by the Comet disasters, the Nevil Shute book on which the movie was based preceded the Comet situation by several years, so the similarities are coincidental.
Those are tremendous pictures! However, testing is still done that way even here. I watched a stress test of a modified 757 once-- they loaded it up with pallets of wood chips (I think) and watched the fuselage bend. Of course, they used lasers to measure it, but you could see the wrinkling and buckling with the naked eye.
