Reshma Maurya

The initial brainstorming yielded ideas for the concept of modularity. Some promising ideas which emerged were detachable tail, extra modules, symmetric dual modules, double-decker, and baby plane.

The table summarizes the pros and cons of all the designs considered. In this table, the more the stars, the better is the concept in that area. Colours denote the rankings.

The Double Decker Concept rendered in Autodesk 3ds max.

The Double Decker Concept rendered in Autodesk 3ds max.

The joint mechanism used is a sliding type mechanism.

Sliding Joint male part.

Sliding Joint female part.

Sliding joint mechanism lock.

Electrical connections

The life cycle of an aircraft starts with the design and manufacturing of its individual parts. These are then transported and assembled at one place to make the entire aircraft. The supply chain to various customers involves the safe transportation of the product to the airlines. Aircrafts typically undergo a usage life of around 25 years after some of the aircrafts are also used as a freighter for some time. They are then decommissioned, dismantled and put to recycling with taking out the spare parts (70%), testifying and reusing them.

A major concern for any product is the death of it and what will be its fate after that. We propose three possible uses of the upper module after its life cycle is over. 1) The fuselage can be emptied and modified to be used as a subway underground. Since the interior part of it would be anyways removed, the structure can be used to make the walls of a subway. 2) Similarly, overhead bridges on the airport itself could be made out of the fuselage structure. 3) Few of the upper module fuselages can be joined/welded together to make the roof of hangers at the airports. In this way, the dead aircrafts would not have to be taken anywhere else and can be put to use at the nearest.

Loading unloading of the the modules.