XB-1's wings are officially closed out
blog.boomsupersonic.com
XB-1's wings are officially closed out
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Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out
#2Broken link
Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out
#3I keep wondering if planes could benefit from the new materials developed by SpaceX. If they really have a stainless steel that's significantly lighter, it could be a game changer.
Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out
#4Broken link
Working for me here.
Although, it isn't listed on their Medium profile page yet so maybe something is up with it: https://medium.com/@boomsupersonic
Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out
#5XB-1? Is it named after Ikarie XB-1 from the classic Czechoslovak sci-fi?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_to_the_End_of_the_Unive...
Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out
#6i'm in no way qualified to give any praise/criticism, it just caught my attention (from the linked post on their cockpit/fuselage bonding https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/20-hour-bonding-event-speeds... )
"It’s the following morning and bonding appears to be successful, but it’s essential to confirm that the bond lines are shaped correctly or “filleted.” A member of the engineering team, who is certified in the process, begins non-destructive tap testing to audibly listen for voids such as air bubbles within the bond. With several decades experience, he knows what to listen for. Using specialized tools, he taps all bond lines and listens for different and unusual noises. He confirms that bonding is a success."
In general it seems that their main fabrication cost is labor, and it would probably be very hard to scale for production. I wonder why wouldn't they choose titanium - the price of material doesn't seem to matter here, and while it is hard to work with than say steel, i'd think it is still more mass production friendly than carbon fiber.
Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out
#7I keep wondering if planes could benefit from the new materials developed by SpaceX. If they really have a stainless steel that's significantly lighter, it could be a game changer.
Not in this case. With SpaceX they also need high (de-entry, Mach heating) and low temperature (cryo fuel & oxygen) resistance but in the case of Boom the surface won’t heat enough to need high temp materials.
That said, I’m not sure their choice of materials is the good one for a startup.
Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out
#8Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out
#9The blog post is hyper focused on the wings and didn't make a lot of sense without context. This link[1] was extremely useful to better understand what Boom is doing and how far along they are.
Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out
#10I keep wondering if planes could benefit from the new materials developed by SpaceX. If they really have a stainless steel that's significantly lighter, it could be a game changer.
As I understand it, they are using 300-series stainless steel instead of carbon composites. Which relates to some novel techniques in manufacturing parts from stainless [1]. But they don't have a lighter stainless steel, which mostly doesn't make much sense because any steel is basically iron in terms of weight--plus or minus depending upon the additives. Some steels are lighter or heavier than others but within a relatively narrow range.