Imagine if cars, planes etc were spray painted in colours which matched the surface stress or fluid velocities which numerical models predict.
Today’s invention is a spraypaint shop with whose robots can interpret the FEA or CFD design imagery for a given model and reproduce those patterns in paint.
The colours used on a given vehicle or other product need not be garish but could come from a restricted palette as chosen by the buyer -thus making one’s car or bike look unique -and ubertechie at the same time.
The stress pattern will be different at different speeds (standstill), why not making the paint stress sensitive => adaptive?
elaborating on that
– paint your wheels to see the pressure inside …(deformation of the wheel indicates low pressure => red circle)
– paint all parts under the hood with a paint that recolors when hotter than touch. (just dots are enough)
– a glow in the dark paint under the hood for nightly repairs?
– glow in the dark bumpers! A broken light becomes less fatal (maybe)
cheers,
Rob
Hi Rob,
There are people working on stress-sensitive paint (on bridges etc) and you can certainly buy temperature-sensitive coatings eg for teamugs and postcards…but they tend to be non-durable or too expensive.
I *REALLY* like the hotter-than-touch idea.
It’s generally quite interesting that we hide the engine bay in cars -unless they are ‘supercars’. There is all sorts of scope for having the engine bay of the future visible through a transparent bonnet window…and illuminated with different coloured light according to engine speed…?
Cheers,
P
I followed this up on my Metro blog: http://blogs.metro.co.uk/olympics/london-2012-olympic-inventions-rainbolympics/
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