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Technology Update

Defense

Automated drilling machine takes the burr out of fuselage joint

More than 1200 large-diameter (up to ¾-in) holes must be drilled into titanium/ carbon stacks for the side-of-body joint on a particular Boeing commercial aircraft fuselage. This...

Briefs

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Rotating Detonation-Wave Engines

All Navy aircraft and missiles use gasturbine engines for propulsion. Many ships are also dependent on gasturbine engines to generate both propulsive power and electricity. These engines are fundamentally...

Articles

Aerospace

Testing Ethernet Based Avionics in Aircraft

Since the 1970’s, military aircraft avionics systems have communicated via the MIL-STD-1553 bus. This has proven to be a very effective method, and is still in widespread use today. MIL-STD-1553 is...

Articles

Aerospace

Using Java in Avionics and UAV Applications

Though developers of avionics software are among the most conservative in the software engineering community, and rightly so, Java is beginning to penetrate even this very specialized industry. The...

Articles

Communications

Network Keeps Line of Communication Open to Convoys

An airman riding as part of a convoy escort team in Iraq keys his radio microphone to check in with his base, and hears nothing but dead air. The U.S. Air Force is leading a joint...

Briefs

Materials

Strain-Induced Porosity Model

AFRL scientists developed advanced computer models to improve the processing and quality of titanium alloys used in manufacturing gas turbine engine parts and critical structural components for military aircraft....

Briefs

Materials

Design of Lightweight and Durable Composite Structures

In the field of engineering design, "factors of safety" are derivatives of inadequate knowledge and therefore are a necessary, but costly, element of engineering design. Designing...

Briefs

Electronics & Computers

The Next Frontier of Networking—The Airborne Network

It is the next frontier of networking—a frontier where communication nodes may move at Mach speeds, wireless line of sight covers hundreds of miles, and weather affects communications...