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A sharpshooting beetle may trigger new ideas for aircraft engineers
Andy McIntosh has enlisted an unusual partner for his engineering research-one with six legs.
A professor of thermodynamics and combustion theory at the University of Leeds in England, McIntosh is seeking a more reliable way to reignite aircraft gas turbine engines, which sometimes go out in flight. When this happens, an electrode fires, producing a small explosion that sends a stream of charged particles into the engine. Unfortunately, these particles don't always travel far enough to kindle a reaction.
It's here that McIntosh has found a biological inspiration. Common throughout the world, the bombardier beetle (Brachinus) has a uniquely adapted defense against predators. By producing a set of repeated chemical explosions in a combustion chamber in its abdomen, the insect creates a biological Gatling gun that can fire a pulsed jet of boiling fluid in almost any direction. "It will scald you if you put your hand nearby," McIntosh says. "Frogs, spiders, ants and birds which try to eat this creature get stopped by this ejection, so they learn not to touch it."
The natural designs involved are so efficient that McIntosh wants to adapt them to improve engine reigniters. Specifically, he's found that the shape...