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Is it possible to harness some of the kinetic energy and friction which is involved with landing a large airliner, and reusing that energy to stop the aircraft quicker? I believe it is, and I believe there are new materials being made now that can easily make that possible. If you have a few moments, I'd like to explain.
You see, when a large airliner lands those giant tires go from 0 to 125 miles per hour in one second, some tires spin as the aircraft flies while on approach already. Nevertheless when the aircraft touches down it puts a lot of wear and tear on the tires, and the aircraft braking system is under tremendous amount of pressure.
If we can reduce the weight of the tires by speeding up the tire prior to landing, and the tires wouldn't need to be so heavy, or heavy duty, have to be made so strong with so much steel belts inside. These tires are extremely expensive, and quite costly to keep replacing all the time. What if there was a propeller system underneath the aircraft which would cause the tires to spin using the relative wind or ram air flow from the forward motion of the aircraft? That makes sense right?
Sure it does, and now I'd like to discuss with you the regenerative component to this propeller, which will be mounted on the landing gear frame. You see, after the tire touches the ground, the shock absorber will push the tire upward, and that can switch the propeller the other direction, as the tire spins around once it has the weight of the plane on the runway. In other words the propeller would then act as a reverse thruster, which will slow the aircraft down quicker, meaning the aircraft doesn't need such giant brakes.
Remember brakes weigh a lot, and on an airliner they are rather large and a very important component to the aircraft. They also require hydraulic fluid, hydraulic pumps, and all sorts of other things. By making those components smaller, as the aircraft will now be slowed down with reverse propeller thrust, that means we can shave even more weight off this aircraft. Now then, these small modifications may not seem like much, but if the propeller blade is the proper type, and creates a fan like condition, it could provide quite a bit of reverse thrust. Plus the propeller will be made very light materials, which are very strong - perhaps a carbon nanotube composite material.
Maybe more research and development along this line of thinking makes sense at this point. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it. If you have any other aerospace design questions, concerns, or other similar topics please shoot me an e-mail.
Lance Winslow is the Founder of the Online Think Tank, a diverse group of achievers, experts, innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers, futurists, academics, dreamers, leaders, and general all around brilliant minds. Lance Winslow hopes you've enjoyed today's discussion and topic. http://www.worldthinktank.net/ - Have an important subject to discuss, contact Lance Winslow.
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