February 3, 2014

UC Researchers at Ground Control in Launching the Fastest Plane of the Future


(February 3, 2014)  UC researchers try to understand whether airplane models will be safe enough in the extreme environment of Mach 7 and above.

It’s a sci-fi concept that’s at the center of a 25-year exploratory project: building a hypersonic aircraft that takes off from the runway and doesn’t need a rest, inspection or repair after it lands – unlike the space shuttle – but can zip back around the world within an hour’s landing. University of Cincinnati researchers are developing the validation metrics that could help predict the success or failure of such a model before it is even built, as test data becomes available from component, to sub-system, to the completely assembled air vehicle. That’s among the UC research that will be presented from around the world at IMAC XXXII: A Conference and Exposition on Structural Dynamics. The conference takes place Feb. 3-6 in Orlando, Fl.

Randy Allemang, a UC professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Structural Dynamics Research Lab in the UC College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS), will present a validation metric that involves principal component analysis (PCA) decomposition of simulation and test data to measure the uncertainty in how well the models match with measured data, which will ultimately determine the success in approaching how such a plane could be built. That 25-year exploratory project is led by the U.S. Air Force.