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DUT MTech Student Puts Aircraft Safety In The Spotlight At Conference

DUT MTech Student Puts Aircraft Safety In The Spotlight At Conference

Wade Evans, DUT MTech Mechanical Engineering student presented his group research: Crashworthiness analysis of a composite light fixed-wing aircraft including occupants using numerical modeling which focused on better methods of building aircrafts to eliminate the severity of injuries in airplane crashes during day two of the First International Conference on Composites, Biocomposites and Nanocomposites (ICCBN) conference.

The conference was held at DUT’s Ritson Campus and was organised by Professor Mervyn Kanny, Head of the Composite Research Group (CRG) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The conference gave international scientists and researchers an opportunity to discuss topical issues pertaining to the field of engineering while also allowing them to network. Various topics involving the processing, testing, analysis and modeling of composites, biocomposites and nanocomposites were discussed at the conference.

Evans worked with David Johnson, Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at DUT, and Moeletsi Moletsane, DUT MTech Mechanical Engineering student, on the research. The research looked at ways of improving on the current methodologies employed for crashworthiness, using numerical modelling. The research further looked at human tolerance factors which are determined by magnitude, direction and duration of the force the crash as well as age, gender and general health as having definite impacts on the tolerance limits.

Evans said, “I believe that if the current methodologies are improved on, it will lead to having safer aircrafts and this lowers the impact crashes have on passengers.”

In addition, he said a survivable accident could be defined as “an accident in which the forces transmitted to the occupant through his seat and restraint system do not exceed the limits of human tolerance to abrupt accelerations and which the structure in the immediate environment remains substantially intact”. The methodologies that Evans and his group members used tested the old ways and improved on them to make aircrafts safer to the passenger. The impacts of crashes were tested on rigid and soft soil terrains which revealed different responses, however, typical limitations encountered on previously published work were overcome, and thereby eliminating inaccuracies.

The research was funded by the Durban University of Technology and ARMSCOR, South Africa’s official arms procurement agency.

– Mbali Madlala

Pictured: Wade Evans, DUT MTech Mechanical Engineering student, who presented on day two of the ICCBN conference.

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