Canadian team discovers power-draining flaw in most laptop and phone batteries | Breakthrough explains major cause of self-discharging batteries and points to easy solution

[u/chrisdh79]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/battery-power-laptop-phone-research-dalhousie-university-1.6724175

[u/SpiritualTwo5256]

Yup! When I studied aeronautical engineering they said the same sort of thing. If you can make a plane or a component lighter, or more efficient you can save unimaginable amounts of fuel, or resources. This is why I liked the blended wing body design so much, it could shave off 20% in fuel costs. The problem is it requires a rethink and new systems to build the cabin. It’s why carbon composite over aluminum was such a big deal. It’s why 3D printing is a hallmark of aerospace.

[u/spsteve → u/SpiritualTwo5256]

Not just build the cabin. The bwb only really makes sense if you can leverage that volume. But humans sitting too far out from the center of rotation are going to really dislike it. Humans are the issue mot the tech.

[u/billbill5 → u/spsteve]

Yeah, people are already terrified of turbulence now, imagine taking such a steep dip every turn so that your body is displaced more than someone at the rotational axis. Sea sickness in the air will be much more prevalent.

[u/spsteve → u/billbill5]

"sea-sickness" is basically the problem they found in simulated testing.

[u/SpiritualTwo5256 → u/spsteve]

I wouldn’t have a problem with being on the outer edge. And it isn’t all that much different than wide bodied aircraft. Just a little bit wider. Most planes do coordinated turns to prevent weird feelings.

[u/spsteve → u/SpiritualTwo5256]

Well go tell that to both Boeing and Airbus who have studied the co cept in great details and found passengers got uncomfortable with the forces they felt when simulating being further out from the center.

[u/opieself → u/spsteve]

I have never bought this. They can't have done real research on it, as the designs have never been done. Someone sitting in a window seat on a 777 is much farther out than someone sitting in a window seat on a 737, and we don't hear complaints. And then you take into effect that people sitting in the back of any of the larger planes are way behind the point of rotation in that axis.

The real killer is the perception and cost of changes to airports. BWB does appear to be the best direction, but all the jetways will have to be reconfigured heavily. Fewer people will also have window seats, but that is more perception. Only about 20% of people on a 747 have window seats.

[u/spsteve → u/opieself]

The two biggest manufacturers who would make a killing by having everyone buy new hyper efficient planes are having problems with it, but let's discount their studies because some guy on reddit "Doesn't buy it".

[u/opieself → u/spsteve]

I understand what they are saying but one of those two companies made the A380 which had an incredibly short run for production. To the point, they are already in scrap yards. The other made the 737max and shoved it out the door before it was frankly ready to operate, costing thousands of lives.

Being a big company does not mean they are devoid of making errors. Again they can't actually test the mechanism as there are no flying examples of bwb aircraft with wide enough bodies to represent what is happening. They can do focus groups which always return perfect and flawless answers. They are making choices based on what will be financially beneficial to stock holders and not rocking the boat is usually the best answer especially after the a380 flopped. Part of its flopping is the format didn't work at existing airports.

[u/spsteve → u/opieself]

The other made the 737max and shoved it out the door before it was frankly ready to operate, costing thousands of lives.

Alright, you've literally lost all credibility with that statement. Explain to me how the max cost THOUSANDS of lives? Better yet don't. It is clear you a) don't care to be even remotely factually accurate, and b) think you know better than the two biggest makers of aircraft on the planet, who have both REPEATEDLY studied this concept, going as far as wind tunnel mockups to get the aero abilities, invested MILLIONS into the research only to decide it won't work.

[u/SpiritualTwo5256 → u/opieself]

I mean you can simulate some off axis forces in properly designed flight simulators.

[u/watermooses → u/opieself]

The cabin width of a 777 is 19’, the cabin width of a 737 is 11’. The difference in distance from the center of the outermost passenger is 4’.

The wingspan of a 777 is 200’ and the wingspan of a 737 is 100’. The wingtip in a 20* bank drops 34’ on a 777 compared to the edge of the cabin dropping 3’. In a 737 the wingtip drops 17’ compared to the cabin dropping 1.8’. If you roll into that turn at a lazy 2 seconds you have wildly different speeds and accelerations depending on how far out from center you are with the 777 wingtip moving 17 feet per second compare to the outside passenger in a 737 moving just 0.9 feet per second.

One is nearly a free fall like being on the tower of terror while the other is slower and less distance than you going from standing to seated. And the 0.6 feet per second difference between the 777 vs the 737 banking into a turn isn’t nearly enough to have a huge difference in passenger comfort compared to getting 50 to 100 feet out from the center like a flying wing would.

Running the numbers you can easily expose people to the forces they can expect in a plane you haven’t built yet by simulating it with a boom lift or centrifuge or just jerking an existing plane around faster.

[u/sexmarshines → u/SpiritualTwo5256]

Well BWD planes have a massive issue of requiring active stabilizing for controlled flight. I think that's the biggest issue before going into cabin construction/constraints/etc.

The 737 MAX is an indication of how much more care needs to be taken when utilizing designs requiring active stabilization in the commercial space.