The article is very vague on how the radioactivity allows detection of leaking gas.
The video at the bottom explains from 7:50 in. Gas pressure pressing on a spring holds a radiation shield in place. If the gas leaks the shield moves and the radiation can be detected.
The titanium spar is filled with gas. If there was a crack in the spar the gas would escape, therefore tripping the pressure sensitive radiation shield. Releasing radiation that can be detected inside the helicopter.
Often in software development I encounter code that seems overly complex. It's not always obvious at first glance whether that complexity is because it's solving a really difficult problem, or because the developers made it more complex than it needed to be.
Having no domain knowledge of the problems of detecting cracks in blades, this sounds like either a genius solution to a super hard problem, or unnecessary complexity.
What if the helicopter would have to operate in a contaminated area? Wouldn't it cause false positives?
> The CH-53 Sea Stallion first entered service in 1966
1966 is Cold War era, so, I think, an idea that a military helicopter would have to fly in an area that has been recently nuked wasn't totally inconceivable...
Exposure to a nuclear blast doesn't necessarily make things radioactive. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not radioactive wastelands. Even in Chernobyl, the other reactors continued to operate for a time after the accident, and nature is thriving.
But, the radiation detector is on the upper surface of the tail. Hypothetical Beta particles from the ground will strike the underside of the tail and not the detector.
The video at the bottom explains from 7:50 in. Gas pressure pressing on a spring holds a radiation shield in place. If the gas leaks the shield moves and the radiation can be detected.
Wireless systems aren’t used for opsec reasons.
Having no domain knowledge of the problems of detecting cracks in blades, this sounds like either a genius solution to a super hard problem, or unnecessary complexity.
> The CH-53 Sea Stallion first entered service in 1966
1966 is Cold War era, so, I think, an idea that a military helicopter would have to fly in an area that has been recently nuked wasn't totally inconceivable...
But, the radiation detector is on the upper surface of the tail. Hypothetical Beta particles from the ground will strike the underside of the tail and not the detector.