Howdy all, it's been ages since I've posted, but other than the day to day stuff that any Aerospace Engineering Master's student has to go through, nothign interesting to report... until today.

Great News! My thesis topic is a go! For those not in the loop, my thesis is composite z-pinning. this is the process where single strand fibers are inserted perpendicular to the composite layup before curing. this has the effect of increasing the compressive strength, and preventing delaminations without affecting tensile strength. it's a relatively new technology, only about 10 years old, and there's very little documentation on this. most of it is proprietary.

In industry the normal pin density is about 200 pins/in^2. since I'll be inserting these pins by hand, I'm only going to do about 25 at max. see, this was a major hangup for my advisors, they didn't like the idea of me trying to insert 200 pins before the matrix dried. and that was jsut for one side of the lap joint. so in all I'd have to insert 400. I wasn't to fond of this idea either. Si decided that since there is very little documentation out there, that I would do a proof of principle.

what this means is that I will have normal samples, samples pinned with a 3x3 pattern, samples with a 4x4 pattern, and samples with a 5x5 pattern. a percentage of all the samples will need to be tested in tension to ensure that the tensile strength is not affected. the rest will be subjected to compressive loadings. now, to demonstrate that the z pins are increasing strength, they will all have a double step joint layed up in the composite. the z-pins will be inserted through the joint.

Is this cool or what?! anyway. I don't know when I will begin work, depends on if my advisors are going to be here over summer or not. we'll see.

anyway, off to play games in celebration. I'll keep you all posted

Currently Reading Shadow of the Giant (Ender) By Orson Scott Card see related

OK. So I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday because I heard a rumor that the 4th book in Orson Scott Card's Shadow series was going to be released early... the rumors were right. For those of you not familiar with the shadow series, it's actually a parallel series to Ender's game. and if you haven't read that, you need to. now. when I first read the book, it was a birthday present from my friend Michael. he had been trying to get me to read that book for a year or more. for some reason I just couldn't take his reccomendation. so he gave me a copy. I read it in one day. I couldn't put it down. it was awesome. and as I fliped over the last page, I remember feeling awe, sadness... the works after you've ready a truly great book. so I closed it, and stared at the cover for a few minutes, then I picked it up and read it again. since then I've been hooked on Ender and his adventures. the books in this series are as follows:

Ender's Game

Speaker for the Dead

Xenocide

Children of the Mind

and while xenocide is an extreamely long and tedious read, noting much happens in it, Children of the Mind more than makes up for it. Then Orson Scott Card dipped back into this universe, and began the Shadow series. it takes place during the same time as Ender's game, but from a different point of view. it's about how Ender's friend helps Ender's brother take over teh world. I just finished the last book in this series, and it's awesome. you should read this series as well. I couldn't put it down, and while I coudl have read it in a day, I had a midterm that I appearently didn't study enough for. BUt I just finished Shadow of the Hegemon. read it. you won't be disappointed.

Ender's Shadow

Shadow Puppets

Shadow of the Hegemon

Shadow of the Giant

Read them all. you won't be disappointed.

I'm updating from school this time. I have to admit, I'm alittle bummed out right now. I just took my composites midterm. for those of you who don't know anything about composites, there is this crucial 6x6 matrix used to figure out anythign and everything about a laminate. it's a pain in the ass to calculate, and you need a computer if you have more than 4 layers. but each term in this matrix appearently is related through mode I coupling to various other terms in the blasted thing. it really sucks when the prof asks, "what coupling occurs with a [0/90] laminate? which terms go to 0? how does this coupling compare to a [(theta)/-(theta)] layup? what coupling would you expect to occur here? I suppose it would be analagous to asking a geneticist how the 27th base pair changes with cellular mytosis or some such thing. there is a thing as to much detail. details are for theses, dissertations, and cool tidbits of info. not midterms. midterms are supposed to test overall comprehension and ability to perform the calculations covered in class. not to see if we memorized the 36+ modes of coupling in the ABD 6x6 matrix.

sorry for the tirade, but I just had to bitch about the midterm. most people have been agreeing that it sucks, so we can cross our fingers and hope for a curve.