4 ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | MARCH 2024 ASM International 9639 Kinsman Road, Materials Park, OH 44073 Tel: 440.338.5151 • Fax: 440.338.4634 Joanne Miller, Editor joanne.miller@asminternational.org Victoria Burt, Managing Editor vicki.burt@asminternational.org Frances Richards and Corinne Richards Contributing Editors Anne Vidmar, Layout and Design Allison Freeman, Production Manager allie.freeman@asminternational.org Press Release Editor magazines@asminternational.org EDITORIAL COMMITTEE John Shingledecker, Chair, EPRI Beth Armstrong, Vice Chair, Oak Ridge National Lab Adam Farrow, Past Chair, Los Alamos National Lab Rajan Bhambroo, Tenneco Inc. Daniel Grice, Materials Evaluation & Engineering Surojit Gupta, University of North Dakota Michael Hoerner, KnightHawk Engineering Hideyuki Kanematsu, Suzuka National College of Technology Ibrahim Karaman, Texas A&M University Ricardo Komai, Tesla Bhargavi Mummareddy, Dimensional Energy Scott Olig, U.S. Naval Research Lab Christian Paglia, SUPSI Institute of Materials and Construction Amit Pandey, Lockheed Martin Space Satyam Sahay, John Deere Technology Center India Kumar Sridharan, University of Wisconsin Jean-Paul Vega, Siemens Energy Vasisht Venkatesh, Pratt & Whitney ASM BOARD OF TRUSTEES Pradeep Goyal, President and Chair Navin Manjooran, Senior Vice President Elizabeth Ho man, Vice President Mark F. Smith, Immediate Past President Lawrence Somrack, Treasurer Amber Black Ann Bolcavage Pierpaolo Carlone Hanchen Huang André McDonald Christopher J. Misorski U. Kamachi Mudali James E. Saal Dehua Yang Carrie Wilson, Interim Executive Director STUDENT BOARD MEMBERS Kingsley Amatanweze, Karthikeyan Hariharan, Denise Torres Individual readers of Advanced Materials & Processes may, without charge, make single copies of pages therefrom for personal or archival use, or may freely make such copies in such numbers as are deemed useful for educational or research purposes and are not for sale or resale. Permission is granted to cite or quote from articles herein, provided customary acknowledgment of the authors and source is made. The acceptance and publication of manuscripts in Advanced Materials & Processes does not imply that the reviewers, editors, or publisher accept, approve, or endorse the data, opinions, and conclusions of the authors. SOARING INNOVATIONS The evolution of aluminum use in aircraft applications over the past 100 years is chronicled in this issue by co-authors from Novelis. In fact, an aluminum alloy was initially used by the Wright brothers in their first aircraft’s engine. The rest of that early plane consisted of wood and canvas. During a recent trip to Dayton, Ohio, I visited a reconstruction of the original 1905 Wright Flyer III on display at Carillon Historical Park’s Wright Brothers National Museum in a building partially designed by Orville Wright himself. My docent provided more details about the Flyer’s original wood and canvas materials. The wings of that early aircraft were covered in cotton muslin. The fabric was sewn on a bias—not vertically or horizontally—in order to better control air flow. The frame was made of wood— spruce painted gray to look like metal. It was a clever ploy to give potential imitators the impression the frame was metal, which would have been too heavy for flight in that day. Other minor parts were created from ash wood. Steel was only used in the springs located under each wooden bar to provide some give. The propeller was made of laminated spruce, which had to be carefully hand carved, to achieve just the right balance. In addition to settling on those materials, the Wrights had to solve many design and mechanical issues. To eliminate the distortion put on the blade by the pressure of the flight, they angled the tip and thus created a “bent end” feature on the propellers. They solved control and balance issues by mimicking a bird’s motions, which led to their experiments with “wing warping.” And they famously used a wind tunnel to test out new wing designs. On October 5, 1905, Wilbur Wright circled above Huffman Prairie, near Dayton, for over 39 minutes. This achievement exceeded the total time of the brothers’ 109 combined flights in 1903 and 1904, setting a new aviation milestone. Recognized as the world’s first practical airplane, the Wright Flyer III is designated as a National Historic Landmark. The Wright brothers had to innovate everything as they explored the new world of flight. Fast forward to the early pioneers of space exploration— they too learned to innovate for a radically different environment. As discussed by our lead article’s author, Tom Ackerson of Blue Origin LLC, new challenges are faced every day by those creating rocketry and launch systems for travel to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Yet, engineering ingenuity continues to provide solutions through new materials, processes, and technologies. For those involved in solving today’s challenges in air and space, we invite you to attend AeroMat 2024 this March in Charlotte, North Carolina. Check out the Show Preview for details. Tack on an excursion to the Outer Banks and stand atop the hill where two famous sons of Ohio launched more than 1000 glider flights. Then visit the Monument to a Century of Flight at Kitty Hawk and begin to imagine the aeronautical engineering feats of the next century. joanne.miller@asminternational.org Wright Flyer III. Courtesy of Dayton History.
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