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Okay. Let me tell you a tale between two universes, our universe and Aeroville universe.
Now in our universe a man is going for a run in the park, all of a sudden his head gets smashed
by a rock falling from a tree. Now when this happens his skull will fracture but luckily
he can get sent to the hospital and the surgeon will take care of the problem. Everyone walks
away happy. Now all the way in Aeroville universe exactly the same thing happens but
only this time replace the human with an aircraft. So an aircraft is strolling on the runway and it gets
smashed by this FOD. They don't call it rocks in this weird universe, they fall it FOD,
foreign object damage. They are objects around the aircraft that can cause it damage
and that can be metallic objects lying around or even angry birds striking [laughter].
So when these FOD smashes into the landing gear it fractures. The material used for the landing gear
is high strength steel and it is as fracture sensitive as a human skull.
Now here is the problem, there is no surgeon to repair this component.
So this component must be completely replaced causing long and expensive
replacement costs. That is a huge problem. So this is me, I've travelled all the way
into Aeroville and this is where I am now [chuckles]. I am a surgeon and my job
is to repair this high strength steel landing gear. The surgeon's got his tools and
I've got my tool here and this tool is called laser cladding and here's how it works.
You get a high strength steel component, you get high strength steel in powder form,
place it where the damage is and fire the laser and this'll melt the powder and
fuse it into the component.
But, the ultimate question is to be or not to be. Whether laser cladding can successfully
restore the integrity and the strength of the component or whether this method
will crash and burn. That is the ultimate question and that is what I'm investigating.
By analysing the clad characteristics of a clad sample and comparing it to an undamaged
clad sample so we can test the viability of this repair method and so far
the results are promising. So ladies and gentlemen, when you imagine a rock please think of
foreign object damage. When you imagine a human skull please think of landing gear
and when you imagine a surgeon please think of me [laughing]. Thank you.