Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: tommya300 on 09/06/2010 19:27:04

Title: Can a 1 inch nylon orb penetrate and pass through a steel billet ?
Post by: tommya300 on 09/06/2010 19:27:04
Can a 1 inch nylon orb penetrate and pass through a steal billet?

If a flying bird can damage a windsheld can a plastic ball do damage to steel?

What are the results when a bird hits a P51 Mustang?
Title: Can a 1 inch nylon orb penetrate and pass through a steel billet ?
Post by: LeeE on 10/06/2010 08:17:19
Can a 1 inch nylon orb penetrate and pass through a steal billet?

If it has enough kinetic energy, or in other words, if it is traveling quickly enough, yes (note that this might only be possible in a vacuum though, as the speed is likely to be high enough to result in sufficient frictional heating to melt or burn the nylon ball if done in an atmosphere).  Think about the damage that can be done to a space craft if hit by a micrometeor.

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If a flying bird can damage a windsheld can a plastic ball do damage to steel?

Hmm... sounds like you're thinking in terms of an aircraft windscreen/windshield here...

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What are the results when a bird hits a P51 Mustang?

If it's just parked on the ground, then not a lot.  I'm not sure of the low altitude max speed of a P-51 but it'll be quite a bit less than its max speed of 437 mph at 25000ft.  If a P-51 flew into a bird (which is the right way around to think of it, and not of the bird flying into the P-51, for the bird is traveling much slower than the aircraft and can be treated as being essentially stationary), which would be at low altitude, then I would expect damage to the propeller and lots of feathers.

Because of the lower speeds of propeller driven aircraft at low altitude, when compared with jet aircraft, I understand that bird-strikes are less damaging and hazardous.
Title: Can a 1 inch nylon orb penetrate and pass through a steel billet ?
Post by: SeanB on 10/06/2010 19:30:06
Bird strikes are bad if the bird is big enough, or there are a lot of them, and the aircraft is at a critical part of its flight like takeoff or landing, and if the bird hits the right wrong spot.

Jet engines can absorb a lot of damage, like pebbles and stones on the runway, as well as the odd bird. Look on youtube for the videos showing engines being tested by birds being blown into them ( mostly a domestic turkey or cornish hen, suitably defrosted (if still frozen it totally destroys the engine, and you don't normally find frozen birds in real life) and ingested by the engine at full power.

Propellors generally are slower moving, and are mostly lower loaded stress wise, so they will survive the impact whilst making bird slices.

Title: Can a 1 inch nylon orb penetrate and pass through a steel billet ?
Post by: LeeE on 11/06/2010 01:01:42
...suitably defrosted...

There's an old apocryphal story that relates back to the early development of these chicken guns:  A UK aircraft development establishment borrowed an early chicken gun from a US aeronautical company to test the windscreen (windshield) of a new aircraft they were developing against bird strikes but every time they fired a chicken at the windscreen, not only did it entirely shatter the windscreen but it also passed right back through the cockpit cabin and through the cabin bulkhead too.  Of course, when they faxed off (this was well before e-mail) the details of the test to find out what was going wrong they got back the response "thaw the chicken!"
Title: Can a 1 inch nylon orb penetrate and pass through a steel billet ?
Post by: SeanB on 11/06/2010 15:54:35
Ever seen how an engine looks after a spanner goes though it on startup?
Title: Can a 1 inch nylon orb penetrate and pass through a steel billet ?
Post by: tommya300 on 14/06/2010 20:12:56
...suitably defrosted...

There's an old apocryphal story that relates back to the early development of these chicken guns:  A UK aircraft development establishment borrowed an early chicken gun from a US aeronautical company to test the windscreen (windshield) of a new aircraft they were developing against bird strikes but every time they fired a chicken at the windscreen, not only did it entirely shatter the windscreen but it also passed right back through the cockpit cabin and through the cabin bulkhead too.  Of course, when they faxed off (this was well before e-mail) the details of the test to find out what was going wrong they got back the response "thaw the chicken!"

Using a demo fighter jet body, a 9" id x 25 foot long barrel, a thawed flash frozen chicken, breaks more than a bit conservative Mach 1.75, in 25 feet over point blank range into the windshield
loaded with strain gage stamps. Earth shaking event