🚀 go-pugleaf

Doug Smith Wrote:
> Uh, I am no metalurgist, but the aluminum sheets that
> they make aircraft skins out of is NOT brittle. they are
> QUITE ductile.  I could believe that a tear would propagate
> to a frame or a sheet edge.  I have seen pictures of DC-3s
> which flew home and landed safely with DOZENS of 20mm holes
> in the skin.  Modern alloys and materials are even better.
<==========================================>

 MWE: Doug, slap a piece of .040 2024-T3 Aluminum in a break - bend it
at a 90 degree angel without the proper bend radius and it will snap
in two faster than you can shake a stick. Heat Treated Aluminum is
only ductile up to a point. Exceed that point and it cracks. A bullet
doesn't leave a clean hole -T- conditions aluminum. It leaves stress
cracks all around the hole and it shatters its way through.

 Your DC-3s took hits from the outside and they were NOT pressurized.
The pressurized aircraft are stressed quite differently than your OLD
DC-3 was.

 A pressurized container (which is essentially what an aircraft
fuselage is) reacts quite differently if punctured from the inside OUT
verses the outside IN. A non pressurized aircraft will just end up
with holes in the skin that are slightly larger than the projectile
that punched them.
-- 

   (Mike Eglestone)

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