Professor Lajpat Rai was one of the likable profs at IIT-Delhi. He had been a part of the Indo-Russian LCA(light combat aircraft) design team and would often regale us with anecdotes from that stint. This is a favourite from that collection:
A standard problem faced by airplanes plying in cold regions is that of ice-formation at the propeller tips(the low pressure at the tips causing the low temperature). The ice so formed is sucked in and goes on to severely harm the propeller blades. The solution? Heated oil. This used to be delivered to the propeller tip (and then taken back for reheating) through expensively machined concentric tubing along the axis of the propeller shaft(expensive, because of the precision engineering. Unbalanced forces don’t sit well with high RPM.) Then one fine day, out of the blue, along came this great whirl of an idea. Or shall we say, little whirl? It was suggested that the tip of the propeller be made slightly eccentric. This would create local eddies that generated just enough heat to prevent the ice from forming. Simple, and absolutely brilliant! passing thought : Could it be that our day-to-day concerns and apprehensions are in fact the eddies which keep the ice of angst & ennui from forming?
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AuthorSachin Jha. Archives
September 2020
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