jake_c
Sep 13, 2009
Undergraduate / Cornell Engineering Essay - Aircraft doors [4]
Engineers turn ideas (technical, scientific, mathematical) into reality. Tell us about an engineering idea you have or your interest in engineering. Explain how Cornell Engineering can help you further explore this idea or interest
It may seem odd, but whenever I'm on the jet way waiting to board the plane, it is neither the impeccably dressed air stewardess greeting passengers nor the spooling of the aircraft engines waiting to take the plane to its next destination that catches my attention. It is the unassuming aircraft door that seemingly screams to me to catch my attention since I had read about how it works in David Blatner's "The Flying Book" when I was 14.
Simple as it may seem, the aircraft door is full of engineering ingenuity. The doors of most modern commercial aircrafts are made larger than their openings. When the aircraft reaches its cruising attitude, the pressure difference between the pressurised cabin and the outside air creates a huge force that pushes the "plug" shaped door onto its frame, making it physically impossible to open in-flight. These doors only can be opened on ground or at lower attitudes first by opening inwards first then swung outwards at an angle in a way as to allow it to pass through the smaller aperture.
So many thoughts have been given to the design of a modest door: the force created by pressure difference at high attitudes that makes the doors impossible to open for safety reasons; the doors that must be opened inwards first before swinging out at an angle to overcome the frame that is smaller than itself. This has sparked my interest in engineering - a field which I believe provides a link between the theoretical and the practical.
Being able to solve plaguing problems excites me most and most of these problems we face today are a messy entanglement that involves solutions from multi-disciplines. I hope that the ample opportunities that Cornell provides to learn from world-class researchers in their fields will allow me to gain insights to current perspectives. I also hope that the programs in Engineering Simulation and enterprise engineering will allow me to come up with creative and viable solutions to the broad array of everyday engineering problems and sustain my passion for engineering.
Thanks for any comments, greatly appreciated
Engineers turn ideas (technical, scientific, mathematical) into reality. Tell us about an engineering idea you have or your interest in engineering. Explain how Cornell Engineering can help you further explore this idea or interest
It may seem odd, but whenever I'm on the jet way waiting to board the plane, it is neither the impeccably dressed air stewardess greeting passengers nor the spooling of the aircraft engines waiting to take the plane to its next destination that catches my attention. It is the unassuming aircraft door that seemingly screams to me to catch my attention since I had read about how it works in David Blatner's "The Flying Book" when I was 14.
Simple as it may seem, the aircraft door is full of engineering ingenuity. The doors of most modern commercial aircrafts are made larger than their openings. When the aircraft reaches its cruising attitude, the pressure difference between the pressurised cabin and the outside air creates a huge force that pushes the "plug" shaped door onto its frame, making it physically impossible to open in-flight. These doors only can be opened on ground or at lower attitudes first by opening inwards first then swung outwards at an angle in a way as to allow it to pass through the smaller aperture.
So many thoughts have been given to the design of a modest door: the force created by pressure difference at high attitudes that makes the doors impossible to open for safety reasons; the doors that must be opened inwards first before swinging out at an angle to overcome the frame that is smaller than itself. This has sparked my interest in engineering - a field which I believe provides a link between the theoretical and the practical.
Being able to solve plaguing problems excites me most and most of these problems we face today are a messy entanglement that involves solutions from multi-disciplines. I hope that the ample opportunities that Cornell provides to learn from world-class researchers in their fields will allow me to gain insights to current perspectives. I also hope that the programs in Engineering Simulation and enterprise engineering will allow me to come up with creative and viable solutions to the broad array of everyday engineering problems and sustain my passion for engineering.
Thanks for any comments, greatly appreciated