Crossing Boundaries: New Composites Center Takes Flight
FAA-sponsored collaboration puts UW Engineering in pilot’s seat
- Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Chair Adam Bruckner, left, chats with U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Professor Kuen Lin at a press conference announcing the new FAA Composites Center of Excellence.
Engineers at the University of Washington are preparing to build the air and spacecraft of the future.
The College of Engineering recently won funding from the Federal Aviation Administration for a research center that will help build the Boeing Company’s new 7E7 airliner as well as other craft in the coming generation of lightweight, fuel-efficient air and spacecraft.
The new Composites Center of Excellence will receive as much as $500,000 a year from the FAA for three years. The UW and a number of private sector partners will contribute an additional $500,000 a year during that period. Boeing led the way with an initial pledge of $250,000.
Research at the center will play a key role in development of Boeing’s new 7E7, which officials expect to be constructed of nearly 60 percent composite materials, including the entire fuselage and wings. To meet the challenge, the center will draw from across the engineering disciplines and tap the skills of researchers in aeronautics, material science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, nanotechnology and other areas.
Composites, with their strength and light weight, offer the potential of huge savings in fuel costs, an important factor for an industry in which airlines often struggle to stay financially aloft.
The advanced materials also offer radical high-tech properties through manipulation at the atomic level. For example, composites could sport a special coating that would automatically de-ice an aircraft’s surface -- a much simpler and quicker alternative to spraying a plane down with chemicals in cold weather.
Materials may eventually be engineered that could alter shape when signaled electronically, according to Adam Bruckner, chair of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Such advances could spawn wings that would respond to changing conditions by changing shape, avoiding the wear and tear of moving parts.
The new research hub will be co-directed by Mark Tuttle, a UW mechanical engineering professor, and Kuen Lin, a UW aeronautics professor. In addition to experts from the UW and private industry, faculty from Washington State University, Oregon State University and Edmonds Community College, located just north of Seattle, will participate in the effort.