Why are the windows in an Airplane Round? Have you ever wondered why the windows of Airplanes appear to be round and not square, rectangle etc.?
Ever wondered why aircrafts are manufactured with only round windows whereas other building structures could have different shapes of windows including rectangular, square and of course round ones.
Background
There might have been a time in the past where in fact the norm was the use of square or rectangular windows in the manufacture of airplanes.
They worked just fine for a few years until certain tragic happenings called for engineers to employ a new window design. By the 1950s commercial airlines were getting bigger and they were occurrences of aircrafts losing their control in mid-air. Two of such airplanes that disintegrated during flight were de Havailland Comets, which fell to ground on separate occasions in 1953 and 1954.
Discovery
Engineers found the cause of these happenings to be the square windows in the build of the airplanes.
It was discovered by engineers that these square or rectangular windows had sharp edges that constituted for pressure and created weak spots in the plane. This was found to cause metal fatigue failure. At high altitudes these already stressed corners of the windows were further weakened by the air pressure.
Why the windows in an Airplanes are Round
Round windows were deemed suitable by engineers since they were capable of ensuring that the pressure is evenly distributed since they had no sharp corners where stress could concentrate. Also rounded shapes were found to be resistance to cracks, breaks and other forms of deformation giving them a higher ability to cope with the unbalanced pressure caused by differences in pressure inside and outside of the aircraft. So here is the reason why the windows of Airplanes are round and not seen as any other shape such as rectangle or triangle.
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