Tiny Water Droplets Can Ground Billion-Dollar Supersonic Vehicles. BU Engineers Are Working to Change That
Rockets, regularly blasted into space by companies such as SpaceX and agencies including NASA, are meticulously designed to withstand the harshest of environments. Engineers construct the bodies from heavy-duty aluminum-lithium and stainless steel alloys, but the equipment can be devastated by something as minuscule as pinpricks of water; as spacecraft sail through the atmosphere at supersonic speeds, a single droplet can hit with more force than a bullet, cutting directly through the metal or pitting it until it resembles the surface of the moon.
Delivery Drones and Rotor-Powered Rideshares Sound Great—and Noisy
Combining expertise in mechanical engineering, fluid mechanics, and urban hydrology, BU researchers with NASA funding will lead a multimillion-dollar, multi-institution project to help develop quieter vertical lift air vehicles