Future aircraft might repair themselves

By Charles Q. Choi

updated 6:52 p.m. ET May 20, 2008

Damaged aircraft could repair themselves automatically, even during flight, by mimicking healing processes found in nature, a researcher said this week.

One method could be as simple as a resin that oozes into cracks on demand.

Not only might such a breakthrough lead to safer planes, but it could also lead to lighter craft that would save fuel, drop costs and reduce global warming gas emissions as well.

"At oil approaching $130 a barrel, if you can strip weight off, you could save money," said researcher Ian Bond, a materials scientist at the University of Bristol in England.

Damage common
Aircraft routinely suffer damage from day-to-day use. A great deal of aerospace research goes into materials that can resist damage.

"You would be surprised how often trucks drive into aircraft when parked at airports," Bond told LiveScience. "And then you have tools dropped on planes at maintenance hangers, or hailstones when flying through storms. Very subtle damage, little dings and cracks and bangs that, if left undetected, could grow into something serious. At aircraft hangers, a lot of time is spent trying to find these defects."

Aircraft designs that nowadays help cope with damage end up adding weight.

"The idea is that you'd want what structure you'd have left after damage to be able to sustain all the loads you'd be likely to see," Bond said. "This ends up adding weight, which as you can imagine is at a premium with aircraft."

Humans do it
A system that could help planes repair themselves "would definitely help with safety, and by not worrying as much about damage, there could be huge savings in weight," Bond said. "The human body repairs itself all the time, sometimes after quite severe damage. Why can't we make structures do the same sort of thing?"

The key would be hollow fibers loaded with epoxy resin and hardener. Such vessels could be embedded in any part of the structure of the aircraft — its fuselage, wings, nose or tailfin — and would bleed out when cracked to seal any hole, mimicking scabs over a wound. The damaged material could recover up to 80 to 90 percent of its original strength, comfortably allowing a plane to function.

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