heat barrier
- noun
- Specialized
:
barrera térmica
- Pilots must be aware of the heat barrier limitations to ensure safe flying at high speeds.
Examples
-
Exceeding the heat barrier can result in catastrophic structural failure of the aircraft.
-
The engineers designed an aircraft to withstand the heat barrier during supersonic flight.
-
We're approaching heat barrier.
Synonyms
A limit to how fast planes or spacecraft can go because the air makes them very hot at high speed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound 'heat barrier' is compositionally built from 'heat' (thermal energy) + 'barrier' (an obstacle or limit), so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes an obstacle/limit caused by heat. Although the full technical sense (an aircraft speed limit due to aerodynamic heating) is specialized, the general idea of a heat-imposed limit is directly derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
Heat barrier comes from the image of an invisible wall of hot air that a plane meets when it goes very fast. The words heat and barrier suggest a 'speed limit' you must cross carefully because the heat can make parts too hot and cause damage.
