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Man, that thing didn't fly worth a...

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by Ryan, Dec 18, 2003.

  1. Ryan
    Joined: Jan 2, 1995
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    Ryan
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    SHIT! Those Wright brothers really had their heads up their asses...
     
  2. Unkl Ian
    Joined: Mar 29, 2001
    Posts: 13,509

    Unkl Ian

    I think it needs a bigger motor.
     
  3. From what I understand, there are 4 or more temas building replicas. DOnt know which one tried today? I believe it was the best funded "official" team
     
  4. Yer kiddin, right?
     
  5. Ummmmmmm-think they forgot the udder rudder........ [​IMG]
     
  6. hatch
    Joined: Nov 20, 2001
    Posts: 3,667

    hatch
    Member
    from house

    I watched a documentary last nite about the guys that built the replica....They got it done and were doing a "taxi test" on the runway....welllll.....for some reason, the pilot figured he couldn't stop at the end of the runway, so he launched the plane....over the trees...almost. Stuck 30 feet off the ground in a tree...WTF...couldn't he just shut the engine off????...coast to a stop at the end of the runway???...engineers...I just don't understand.
     
  7. Looks like we haven't learned much in 100 years!
     
  8. lakes modified
    Joined: Dec 2, 2001
    Posts: 1,283

    lakes modified
    Member Emeritus

    I think they needed a few hot rodders to help them. then that sucker would have got off the ground in a hurry.
     
  9. AnimalAin
    Joined: Jul 20, 2002
    Posts: 3,416

    AnimalAin
    Member

    Just reemphasizes the importance of the event 100 years ago. The aircraft was marginal at best, and needed just about perfect conditions to fly. It went 120 feet in 12 seconds..... figure it out, that is quite a bit less that 10 miles an hour. Today, there wasn't enough headwind. Oh well, tomorrow is another day......
     
  10. Nads
    Joined: Mar 5, 2001
    Posts: 11,875

    Nads
    Member
    from Hypocrisy

    Yeah man it was pretty comical.

    Ya think the Russkies are gonna send up a replica Sputnik in 2057?

    I wonder how well that will work?

    If I'm still alive I'll be 96.
     
  11. Humboldt Cat
    Joined: Feb 20, 2003
    Posts: 2,235

    Humboldt Cat
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    from Eureka, CA

    Purple's been working with some guys in Redding (or Anderson?) on a replica. Seeing last night's PBS flyer made me wonder if it was the one they (Purple & Co.) were working on.
    Still found it interesting, though. You can only imagine what they were thinking when trying to take that thing down from the trees. Any ideas...?
     
  12. KCTA Chris
    Joined: Jan 16, 2002
    Posts: 459

    KCTA Chris
    Member

    I think lakes modified is right....
    Wright boys were hot rodders in my book, built there stuff in a garage. No big money sponsors and made yearly trips to a tent in the sand to run and test their machine, improving each time they went out. Run it hard, break it, fix it and plan to build it better for next year. Sounds kinda like some guys on the salt back in the 30's or maybe some guys on a straight track in the 50's. Not like todays event... large groups of people adding their advice, high dollar corporate sponsors, all that computer planning and training. Don't know, maybe that hot rod spirit does make a difference... or just some wind.
     
  13. av8
    Joined: Mar 3, 2001
    Posts: 1,716

    av8
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    I'm gonna assume that this is a humorous post, Ryan. Otherwise I can't imagine you being so clueless about the pioneering work of the Wrights.

    Zip, zilch, nix, nada was known even about the fundamentals of flight at the time. The Wrights not only understood lift and drag, they recognized roll, pitch, and yaw, and how they related to a flying machine, then sussed the ways in which they could be controlled. Langley and some of the other high-profile heavily funded plodders could barely undertstand what the Wrights had discovered and knew to be true.

    I can usually wade around most of the silly shit that surfaces on the HAMB, but pointed, wrong-headed threads like this just can't be ignored in all good conscience.

    Sorry, pal, but I suggest you do some homework before you start taking shots at the Wright brothers.



     
  14. Humboldt Cat
    Joined: Feb 20, 2003
    Posts: 2,235

    Humboldt Cat
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    from Eureka, CA

    I agree, no doubt they were hot rodders of their time. Talk about fabricating- the show brought up the fact of having to fabricate airplane propellers, to basically invent or re-invent them, having to base them off of water propellors. Pioneers, but also hot rodders leaping for the sky.
     
  15. Ryan
    Joined: Jan 2, 1995
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    Ryan
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    Mike, take a joke homeboy... jesus...

    And I don't need a history lesson. I just watched the discovery channel show on the Wright Bros. for four hours...
     
  16. voneyeball
    Joined: Mar 5, 2001
    Posts: 184

    voneyeball
    Alliance Vendor

    a guy here just finished a replica too. was TOO windy, and he slung the chain...

    the wright brothers rocked. they achieved all of their knowledge in a short time with a wind tunnel. they re-established every theory in aviation. mainly wing shape. and propellor shape (same cross section as wing). their biggest achievement was the "scale" they used to measure force in their miniature wind tunnel. still accurate within something like 1 or 2 percent of the most modern equipment. and it was made from hacksaw blades...

    langley's shit broke in half and the pilot nearly drowned. it was launched off a boat. government funded crap.
     
  17. <font color="green"> Well, what can I say Ryan....
    The following could be worth pondering.... [​IMG]
    <font color="red"> A Tribute to Man's First Powered Flight </font>
    By Richard Pearse, on the 31st of March, 1903
    Popular history has it that the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk in the US were the first to fly, but this is not true! The first actual flight was by a rather clever New Zealander chap by the name of Richard Pearse. Pearse is not generally known outside New Zealand for this wonderful feat, as there has been very little publicity about it, the first real mention of his achievement being in the newspaper in 1909.

    Richard was an enthusiast, and perhaps a turn of the century 'mad scientist' type inventor. Certainly most of his other creations - mostly to do with farm machinery - were far from the mainstream and thus didn't get much credit.

    But he did get a few things right on his flying machine that were amazingly advanced for the time. Here's a photo of a replica of the flying machine, where Man's first powered flight took place in a little-known place on the south island of New Zealand called Waitohi, just near Timaru.

    The witnesses' account of the flight vary, from "50 to 400 yards in length", but it seems most likely that it was around 350 yards long, and it ended prematurely when the flying machine landed in a large hedge - 4 metres off the ground!

    The aircraft was the first to use proper ailerons, instead of the wing warping system that the Wright's used. The flying machine also had a modern tricycle type landing gear, thus negating the need for ramps, slides, or skids. Any suitable road would do. The flying machine was aerodynamically crude, for sure, but did the job on the day, and in fact for months afterwards. By the end of July 1903, Pearse had achieved flights of around 1 kilometre in length, and perhaps even more amazingly, some of them included turns! An absolutely fantastic achievement for the time.
    Pearse also built the engine, which was estimated at about 15 - 22hp, but hampered by a much cruder propellor than the Wright's machine.
    He didn't realise the historic importance of the event, and so he didn't bother to have any photographs taken of his machine flying, though there is extensive evidence from witnesses describing his flights.
    NZ was first....
    </font>


     
  18. Skate Fink
    Joined: Jul 31, 2001
    Posts: 3,472

    Skate Fink
    Member Emeritus

    [ QUOTE ]
    "engineers...I just don't understand."

    [/ QUOTE ]

    ........ask UnklIan.....he'll explain them to you..... [​IMG]
     
  19. autocol
    Joined: Jul 11, 2002
    Posts: 589

    autocol
    Member

    cruisin'...

    he was an aussie, wasn't he? [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]

    you know, like russell crowe, crowded house, and edmund hillary!
     
  20. Flat Ernie
    Joined: Jun 5, 2002
    Posts: 8,406

    Flat Ernie
    Tech Editor

    Cruisin'

    Not to take anything away from your down-under contributors, but there have been several claims of first in flight to include Germans &amp; French as well.

    The bottom line is this: no one has been able to document anything other than the Wright Bros. Certainly, folks have gone "back" to document with witness accounts, etc - and I'm not saying they're incorrect or even accusing them of being patriotically enthusiastic (ie - lying for their country), what I'm saying is that history that is undocumented isn't really history, it's an estimate. Go get 10 eyewitness accounts of a car accident that happened an hour ago and you'll get 10 different stories - imagine how much that changes with the passage of time. History, in my book, is documented proof. For example, all Roman "history" that isn't written down by scholars of the time in first-hand accounts, is either a guess or hear-say. Does that mean it's wrong? No, it just means you have to keep it all in context.

    The impact of the aircraft on civilization as we know it is tremendous. The important thing to take away is many clever individuals realized this (or they were just hot rodders &amp; wanted to do something no one else had done!) and were working toward human flight. The production side of engineering finally allowed these early attempts all at about the same time just after the turn of the century and with inventors being secretive, those that didn't document end up being the second place finishers - fair? I don't know. But do you KNOW who did it first? In the end, it really doesn't matter since no one patented powered flight, no one is losing any money and that's really all the world cares about [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  21. purple
    Joined: Mar 2, 2001
    Posts: 1,331

    purple
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    <font color="purple"> I had heard of the one that was called for weather, but I don't know how the others turned out besides ours. It was also the last one to try, as we did it at 4:30PST, or California time. Ours is the low dollar, all volunteer, garage built one. The main man Tom lived and worked off donations, but had no sponsors. Since we finished building ours at the last minute still working on it at the wieght station. Today's attempt was our first time to see if ANYTHING worked. We didn't even know if we could taxi through the airfield.

    www.thewrightflight.com </font>
     
  22. 286merc
    Joined: Mar 3, 2001
    Posts: 1,793

    286merc
    Member
    from Pelham, NH

    It's all up to the wind.
    The Wrights launched into about 18 knots, the one in NC yesterday was barely 10.
    If you read some of the articles from yesterday you will even find engineers from Halliburton, of all places, predicting the flight would fail due to low wind speed.

    The Wrights flight wasnt so much about getting it airborne but more about control. Once they got that licked, and rewrote the book of aerodynamics of that era, the rest was easy.

    And if it wasnt for engineers you guys would all still be riding behind a horses ass.
     
  23. Roothawg
    Joined: Mar 14, 2001
    Posts: 25,917

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    In 1903 the first flight lasted 12 seconds and about 200 ft. That was early in the day. The second flight which was later that evening was 59 seconds and it was over 800 ft. They failed 2 days earlier. Funny part is, they had everything right. The weather, the dihedral of the wing, the ground speed.

    100 years later with the original for a reference they still can't re-create what a couple of bicycle mechanics did.
     
  24. I'm with Flat Ernie on this thing. Not to take anything away from the guts and genius of the Wrights, especially in aerodynamics. (Man, they sweated the details...inspired...methodical...determined!). But the TECHNOLOGY was finally coming together, although just barely. Try to think of light powerful engines in 1902/03! We're talking IRON PISTONS!! Compression ratios just a gnat's hair over atmospheric. And the Wright's motor was a little anemic even for the day. The plane was just barely more than a glider, as yesterday's light wind showed.

    I guess I believe the multiple flight theory. The Wrights, New Zealand, and Voisin in France (first closed course kilometer). Some well documented, some not. It was something that just HAD to happen.

    What still amazes me is the techno progress in the following 15 years (First World War). Light powerful multi-cylinder Liberty, Hispano-Suiza, Bentley rotary (finally aluminum pistons), Rolls-Royce and Mercedes engines!!

    Was a great gearhead book on this, "The Power to Fly" (LJK Setright), now O/P I think.
     
  25. Antibilly
    Joined: Apr 6, 2002
    Posts: 3,487

    Antibilly
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    I need pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!! to much reading [​IMG]
     
  26. disastron13
    Joined: Sep 22, 2002
    Posts: 332

    disastron13
    Member

    Actually it was a hod rod motor for it's time, delicate 1/16th wall steel pistons, and a power-to-weight ratio that wouldn't be equalled til the end of WWI.
    Show some respect.
     
  27. Ryan
    Joined: Jan 2, 1995
    Posts: 22,717

    Ryan
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    Ok, if everyone could just take a second to step off their soap boxes and use a little COMMON SENSE they will see that this post was meant to be funny. A joke. Comical.

    To me, the achievements of these two fellas are so incredible that any suggestion otherwise should immediately be suspected as sarcasm.

    Either I am not funny in the least or some of you guys really lack a sense of humor. Or maybe you like the conflict and chest puffing stuff?
     
  28. Bruce Lancaster
    Joined: Oct 9, 2001
    Posts: 21,681

    Bruce Lancaster
    Member Emeritus

    Yeah--they had to make their own engine because anything available with their power requirement was too heavy by a factor of 10 or so. There was an article on this engine a few years ago that was almost spooky:
    Only scraps of the original engine remain. A broken piece of aluminum crankcase was tested, and found to be essentially the same as Duraluminum aircraft alloy--something not invented until about twenty years later. Now that's some serious backyard engineering they did!!
     
  29. Fat Hack
    Joined: Nov 30, 2002
    Posts: 7,709

    Fat Hack
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    from Detroit

    "Don't sell the bike shop, Orville!!" [​IMG]

     
  30. Bruce Lancaster
    Joined: Oct 9, 2001
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    Bruce Lancaster
    Member Emeritus

    AHA--found the article. Oh, the joy of working in a research library:

    The following article has been sent by a user at DREW UNIVERSITY LIBRARY via ProQuest, an information service of the ProQuest Company

    Precipitation hardening in the first aerospace aluminum allo
    Science
    Washington
    Nov 11, 1994

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Volume: 266

    Issue: 5187

    Start Page: 1015

    ISSN: 00368075

    Subject Terms: Metallurgy
    Engines
    Aluminum
    Alloys
    Aerospace industry

    Personal Names: Wright, Wilbur (1867-1912)
    Wright, Orville V


    Abstract:

    An examination of the aluminum copper alloy used in the engine of the first
    flight of the Wright brothers showed that it is precipitation-hardened
    by Guinier-Preston zones in a bimodal distribution. The precipitation
    hardening occurred earlier than the first aerospace application of precipitation-hardened
    aluminum in 1910.
    Copyright American Association for the Advancement of Science Nov 11, 1994

    Full Text:

    Aluminum has had an essential part in aerospace history from its very inception:
    An aluminum copper alloy (with a copper composition of 8 percent by weight)
    was used in the engine that powered the historic first flight of the Wright
    brothers in 1903. Examination of this alloy shows that it is precipitation-hardened
    by Guinier-Preston zones in a bimodal distribution, with larger zones (10
    to 22 nanometers) originating in the casting practice and finer ones (3
    nanometers) resulting from ambient aging over the last 90 years. The precipitation
    hardening in the Wright Flyer crankcase occurred earlier than the experiments
    of Wilm in 1909, when such hardening was first discovered, and predates
    the accepted first aerospace application of precipitation-hardened aluminum
    in 1910.

    Progress in the aerospace industry, from the development of commercial
    airliners to the space shuttle, has been dependent on the great strength
    and fracture toughness provided by precipitation hardening (1), especially
    in aluminum-based alloys. In the historic first flight of 17 December 1903,
    Wilbur and Orville Wright used an Al-8% copper alloy (with about 1.0% iron
    and 0.4% silicon as impurities) (2) for the crankcase of their self-designed
    internal combustion engine because of the alloy's strength and the weight
    requirements of the aircraft. This alloy represented the state of the art
    in casting alloys at the turn of the century, primarily because of its
    good casting qualities (3). The crankcase of the original engine has recently
    been identified (4, 5); because it was the only Al part on the Wright Flyer,
    it thus became the first aerospace Al. Our study here reports the microstructure
    and strengthening mechanisms operating in this crankcase alloy.

    Small samples of the Flyer crankcase were taken from three locations in
    the crankcase wall (6), which was approximately 4 to 5 mm thick. The microstructure
    (Fig. 1) consists of a typical solidification structure of alpha-Al dendrites
    (7) [face-centered-cubic (fcc) crystal structure] with interdendritic blocky
    theta-Al sub 2 Cu and needlelike omega-Al sub 7 Cu sub 2 Fe phases. (Fig.
    1 omitted). Dendrite arm spacings ranged from 40 to 80 mu m, which suggests
    that the local solidification time was approximately 2 min (8). A gradient
    of Cu content across the dendrites, or coring, is expected in Al-Cu solidification
    structures and was analyzed by electron microprobe (9). The concentration
    of Cu was about 2.25% near the dendrite centers and approximately 4.75%
    near the surface of the dendrites (10). Most of the Cu in the alloy is
    thus present in the interdendritic intermetallic phases Al sub 2 Cu and
    Al sub 7 Cu sub 2 Fe.

    A higher spatial resolution than that attainable with optical microscopy
    is required to detect precipitates formed in the solid state in Al alloys.
    Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) (Fig. 2) revealed a remarkably well
    developed Guinier-Preston (GP) zone structure (1, 11, 12). (Fig. 2 omitted).
    These metastable GP zones consist of disks of Cu, a single atomic layer
    in thickness, lying on the three equivalent {100} planes within the fcc
    Al matrix. GP zones are readily imaged in TEM because of the large strain
    field associated with the zone, resulting in images several atomic layers
    in apparent thickness. Two mutually perpendicular variants, viewed edge-on,
    are apparent in this specimen orientation, viewed down a cube orientation
    of the matrix, or B = [001]. The zones are predominantly 10 to 20 nm in
    diameter. An occasional precipitate of theta'-Al sub 2 Cu with a neighboring
    region free of GP zones (a result of solute depletion) was also observed,
    but occurs with a statistically unknown number density because of the small
    volume examined by TEM.

    Coring, or microsegregation of Cu during solidification, had a pronounced
    effect on GP zone size and distribution. The regions richest in Cu, near
    the edges of the dendrites, contained a very dense zone structure, with
    individual zones about 10 nm in diameter (Fig. 2A). Intermediate Cu levels
    resulted in a somewhat lower density of zones, although the zones were
    significantly larger (up to 20 nm in diameter) (Fig. 2B). The Cu-poor regions,
    near the dendrite centers, contained a low density of GP zones, with diameters
    from 18 to 22 nm. Close inspection of this region revealed a second distribution
    of GP zones, consisting of a large number of very fine zones, typically
    3 nm in diameter (Fig. 2C).

    Electron diffraction patterns for the Cu-rich and Cu-poor regions confirm
    the presence of GP zones. In a cube orientation, Bragg reflections from
    the fcc matrix planes occur as bright spots in a square array. Reflections
    from the GP zones appear as continuous streaks because of the very thin
    disk morphology of the zones (one unit cell in thickness). The continuous
    nature of the streaks shows that the zones are monoatomic layers of Cu
    atoms known as GPI zones: streaks from GPII zones, or theta", would show
    intensity maxima halfway between the fcc Bragg reflections (13). The streaks
    are very pronounced in regions with dense GP zones (Fig. 2A, inset) and
    are only barely visible in the regions with small amounts of Cu (Fig. 2C,
    inset).

    The appearance and bimodal distribution of GP zones in the Flyer crankcase
    can be understood in terms of the phase diagram (Fig. 3) that describes
    the metastable equilibrium between alpha-Al and GP zones as well as the
    equilibrium Al-theta(Al sub 2 Cu) system. (Fig. 3 omitted). The requirements
    for precipitation of a phase (whether stable or metastable) are (i) sufficient
    supersaturation for nucleation of the precipitate or for spinodal decomposition
    (a thermodynamic instability whereby nucleation is not necessary) and (ii)
    adequate atomic diffusivity. In the Al-Cu system, GP zones are not normally
    observed to develop at room temperature, a fact that can be attributed
    to the low diffusivity of Cu in Al (14).

    From this and the observation of a duplex size distribution of the zones
    in the crankcase, we conclude that the large GP zones, with diameters from
    8 to 22 nm, must have precipitated during elevated temperature exposure.
    Because the crankcase cracked after the four flights on 17 December 1903,
    when a gust of wind flipped the aircraft over, this elevated temperature
    exposure did not occur after the first flight, but only through testing
    of the engine before the first flight or during the slow cooling associated
    with the sand casting. From the phase diagram, it is apparent that the
    GP zone development must have occurred at temperatures below 200deg C for
    the 4.75% Cu regions and below 130deg C for the 2.25% Cu areas, because
    the zones would not be stable above these temperatures.

    In an Al-Cu alloy with significant supersaturation, GP zones develop by
    spinodal decomposition. The spacing between zones (before coarsening) is
    determined by the fastest growing wavelength during decomposition. The
    favored wavelength is inversely related to the second derivative of the
    free energy versus composition function, which is zero at the spinodal
    line (located inside but near the GP zone solvus curve) (Fig. 3) and increases
    (negatively) with an increase in Cu or a decrease in temperature (15).
    Thus, the favored wavelength in the region with a large amount of Cu is
    smaller than in the regions with small amounts of Cu, and the resulting
    spacing between zones is smaller. The growth of zones is ultimately limited
    by solute depletion in the matrix. Despite its high solute concentration,
    the region with a large amount of Cu is depleted of solute by the time
    the zones have grown to about 10 nm. With a longer optimal wavelength or
    spacing between zones, in the regions with smaller amounts of Cu the zones
    grow to about 20 nm in diameter before solute is depleted. Thus, the regions
    with large amounts of Cu developed a fine, dense structure of GP zones,
    whereas regions with smaller amounts of Cu developed a less dense structure
    with larger zones.

    Such precipitation of GP zones--for instance, at 100deg C--would deplete
    the Cu content of the matrix to about 1%. As seen in the phase diagram,
    on cooling to room temperature the equilibrium solubility of Cu is reduced
    to about 0.2%, and consequently the supersaturation is increased dramatically.
    However, room temperature diffusivity in the Al-Cu binary system is so
    low that zones have not previously been observed to develop in the regime
    with small amounts of Cu (that is, 1% Cu). Nevertheless, for compositions
    within the spinodal regime, the solid solution is unstable and will decompose,
    given enough time. This "experiment" has been underway for 3 X 10 sup 9
    s (90 years). The passage of this time apparently has resulted in the precipitation
    of the very fine GP zones (3 nm) observed in the regions with small amounts
    of Cu. On the other hand, the areas with large amounts of Cu do not contain
    a distribution of the smallest zones because the increased room temperature
    supersaturation can be easily depleted by growth of the finely spaced zones
    formed at higher temperatures.

    To investigate the possibility that the GP zone-strengthened structure
    in the Wright alloy was a result of the casting practice, we attempted
    to reproduce the microstructure by casting a similar alloy. Anecdotal evidence
    from builders of replicas of the Flyer emphasizes the difficulty of obtaining
    a sound casting in such a complex, thin-walled design (16), which suggests
    that some degree of mold preheat was used. We cast an Al-8%Cu-1%Fe-0.4%Si
    alloy into sand molds to produce the same 4 to 5 mm wall thickness as the
    sample locations in the crankcase. The molds were either at room temperature
    or preheated to 100deg or 170deg C. Figure 4 shows the resulting microstructures:
    with no preheating, there was no GP zone formation, but some theta' on
    grain boundaries (Fig. 4A); with preheating to 100deg C (Fig. 4B), there
    was an abundance of GP zones; and at 170deg C (Fig. 4C), theta'-Al sub
    2 Cu was quite abundant, sufficient to deplete the matrix of solute so
    GP zones did not form during the cooldown. (Fig. 4 omitted). For comparison,
    Fig. 4D shows a rare precipitate of theta' in the Wright crankcase, which
    generated a small GP zone-free area only in its immediate vicinity. Thus,
    it appears that mold preheating or insulation equivalent to somewhat more
    than a 100deg C preheating may have been used for the casting of the crankcase,
    generating the conspicuous precipitation-hardened microstructure observed
    in the Wright alloy. No very fine (== 3 nm) GP zones were observed in the
    regions with small amounts of Cu of the replicated castings, which supports
    the interpretation that these zones in the Wright alloy resulted from ambient
    aging that required decades to develop.

    Our finding of precipitation hardening in the Wright alloy leads to revisions
    of the history of technology and the history of flight. At present, it
    is an accepted fact that the first precipitation-hardened alloy in the
    history of technology (18) and the history of flight was an Al-Cu-Mg-Mn
    alloy called "duralumin." The development of duralumin was an outcome of
    the observations by Alfred Wilm in 1909 (published in 1911) of an Al-Cu-Mg
    alloy that increased in strength with time when held at room temperature
    after a high-temperature thermal treatment (17, 18). Commercial production
    of this alloy began in 1909 in Germany and found immediate application
    in the structure of airships. The first such airship crashed in 1911, but
    a total of 97 zeppelins were subsequently produced in Germany for use during
    World War I, each requiring up to 8 metric tons of duralumin.

    The conditions under which precipitation hardening occurred, however, were
    not understood until 1919, when seminal works on the theory and practice
    of precipitation hardening in alloys were published by Merica and his colleagues
    (19) at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute
    of Standards and Technology). This opened an era of phase diagram and alloy
    development (20) and the commercial application of many age-hardened alloys.
    The practical application of precipitation hardening, especially in Al-based
    alloys, with the resulting improvements in important properties such as
    strength and fracture toughness, has been essential to the development
    of the aerospace industry. We have shown here that the use of a precipitation-hardened
    alloy in the first aerospace application occurred 16 years before the theory
    of precipitation hardening was proposed, and several years before the first
    report of a precipitation-hardened alloy and the use of such an alloy (duralumin)
    in airships. The Wright Flyer, the first powered heavier-than-air aircraft,
    can now be recognized as the first application in the aerospace world of
    technologically vital precipitation-hardened alloys.

    REFERENCES AND NOTES

    1. Precipitation hardening results from the nucleation and growth of a
    fine distribution of second-phase particles in a solid matrix that is supersaturated
    with respect to one or more elements. This supersaturation often occurs
    after quenching from a high temperature (where the solid solubility is
    large) to a low temperature (where the solubility is much lower). GP zones
    are a special class of precipitate where the structure of the phase is
    identical to that of the matrix but the precipitate has a different composition
    than the matrix. Fine precipitates cause an increase in hardness and strength
    of the alloy by impeding dislocation motion during deformation.

    2. All percentages herein are by weight.

    3. W. E. Sicha, in Aluminum, K. R. Van Horn, Ed. (American Society for
    Metals, Metals Park, OH, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 277-302. The crankcase, which
    included a water jacket to cool the engine and four legs for mounting to
    the airframe, was cast in a commercial cast shop. Aluminum at that time
    was no longer a precious metal, costing about a dollar a pound. The Wrights
    requested the strongest Al alloy available, which contained 8% Cu. Iron
    and Si, at less than about 1% each, were typical impurities found in Al
    of the period. Aluminum was chosen not only for its good strength-to-weight
    ratio, but also because it could be cast to near net shape.

    4. R. Leyes, "The Wright Flyer engine: A summary of research," National
    Air and Space Museum Report 1986 (Washington, DC, 1986), pp. 186-197.

    5. M. Goodway and R. A. Leyes II, JOM 45 (no. 11), 16 (1993).

    6. The samples were taken from three locations near a fracture in the crankcase.
    The crankcase was broken when the Flyer, which was not tied down, overturned
    in a gust of wind after the fourth and final flight of 17 December 1903.
    The crankcase is in the collection of the U.S. National Park Service and
    is on display at Kitty Hawk, NC. See (5) for figures of the crankcase showing
    the sampling locations.

    7. As is common in cast Al alloys, coarsening during solidification has
    modified the classical treelike dendrites, such that the observed structure
    shows rounded dendrites.

    8. W. Kurz and D. J. Fisher, Fundamentals of Solidification (Trans Tech
    Publications, Aedermannsdorf, Switzerland, 1986), p. 90.

    9. Compositional analysis by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) was conducted
    at 15 keV and 1 nA beam current with pure Al, Cu, Fe, and Si standards
    to model EDS spectra. The mass concentration ratios were calculated as
    I sub unknown/I sub standard, where I is the x-ray intensity. Corrections
    were made for absorption and fluorescence. Measured weight percent composition
    totals were 96 to 101% before normalization. The probe excitation volume
    is about 1 mu m in diameter, thus encompassing large numbers of GP zones,
    if present, and ruling out effects of underlying substructure.

    10. Note that in the Al-Cu binary system, where the value of the partition
    coefficient, k, is 0.15, the minimum possible Cu concentration at the dendrite
    center is 1.2%, but higher values may result from diffusion. The maximum
    Cu content expected in an Al solid solution with normal casting practices
    is 5.65%, but this amount may be reduced because of subsequent precipitation
    reactions.

    11. A. Guinier, Nature 142, 569 (1938); G. D. Preston, Proc. R. Soc. London
    Ser. A 167, 526 (1938).

    12. Specimens for TEM were prepared by electrochemical jet polishing at
    -20deg C to ensure that no precipitation was induced during specimen preparation.
    TEM examination was carried out at 120 keV accelerating voltage, with a
    point resolution of approximately 2.8 Angstroms.

    13. J. M. Papazian, Metall. Trans. A 12A, 269 (1981); J. B. Cohen, Solid
    State Phys. 39, 133 (1986).

    14. Fine GP zones (-4 nm) have been observed in an alloy with a large amount
    of Cu (3.9% Cu), which was solution-heat-treated and held 12 years at room
    temperature [X. Auvray, P. Georgopoloulos, J. B. Cohen, Acta Metall. 29,
    1061 (1981); K. Osamura et al., ibid. 31, 1669 (1983)]. On the other hand,
    no zones were found in Al-6.3% Cu, which was cast and held at room temperature
    for 6 months (F. W. Gayle, unpublished results).

    15. J. W. Cahn, Trans. Metall. Soc. AIME 242, 166 (1968).

    16. P. D. Hay, personal communication.

    17. A. Wilm, Metallurgie 8, 225 (1911); A. Wilm, German Patent D.R.P. 244554
    (1909).

    18. H. Y. Hunsicker and H. C. Stumpf, The Sorby Centennial Symposium on
    the History of Metallurgy, C. S. Smith, Ed. (Gordon and Breach, New York,
    1965), pp. 271-311.

    19. P. D. Merica, R. G. Waltenberg, J. R. Freeman, Scientific Papers of
    the U.S. Bureau of Standards 337 (1919), vol. 15, p. 105; Trans. AIME 64,
    3 (1920); P. D. Merica, R. G. Waltenberg, H. Scott, Scientific Papers of
    the U.S. Bureau of Standards 347 (1919), vol. 15, p. 271; AIME Bull. 150,
    913 (1919).

    20. J. W. Cahn, Bull. Alloy Phase Diagrams 4, 349 (1983).

    21. J. L. Murray, in Binary Alloy Phase Diagrams, T. B. Massalski, Ed.
    (ASM International, Materials Park, OH, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 141-143.

    22. G. W. Lorimer, in Precipitation Processes in Solids, K. C. Russell
    and H. I. Aaronson, Eds. (TMS-AIME, Warrendale, PA, 1978), pp. 87-119.

    23. We thank T. L. Hartman of the National Park Service for permission
    to sample the crankcase; F. S. Biancaniello at the National Institute of
    Standards and Technology for producing the experimental Al-Cu-Si-Fe castings;
    M. Williams for TEM specimen preparation and scanning electron microscope-EDS
    analysis; L. Smith for the optical metallography; M. Vaudin for a critical
    review of the manuscript; D. Smith for assistance in the Wright Archives
    at Wright State University; and K. Henson for assistance in the archives
    at ALCOA.

    Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.
    Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.


    =============================== End of Document ================================




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