Posted on 07/09/2007 9:40:53 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
The U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing has unveiled its latest airliner model with great fanfare, and great focus on technological advances in its construction. At a ceremony at a company hangar in the state of Washington Sunday afternoon, some 15,000 guests saw Boeing's 787 Dreamliner for the first time.
Boeing says the new airliner will use 20 percent less fuel than other similarly sized planes because of the carbon composite material used in its airframe. An airplane made of composites weighs less than a metal plane, and requires less fuel to do the same job. The 787 has not yet left the ground. It is expected to make its first flight later this year - and to go into airline service next year.
Boeing, which is in competition with the European manufacturer Airbus, already has 677 orders for the Dreamliner. The company says the Dreamliner is the company's most successful new model to date.
The 787 is designed to make long-haul flights with a seating capacity between 210 and 330.
It’s a carbon fiber composite, lighter and strong then steel, perfectly safe.
The seats sure look comfy.
Mil-Hndbk-17 or mmpds, google on those.
Raytheon Aircraft Company (i.e., Beechcraft + Hawker) has been building composite business jets and propeller airframes for years.
Carbon fibre composites - and they are safe if applied and produced correctly.
This stuff is used in lightweight constructions because it can take more load per weight then steel.
Other then steel it doesn’t bend or transform. If CFCs are destroyed they crack or even pulverize - this property is used in the manufacturing of racing cars to absorb a lot of energy in case of a crash.
With Airplanes it’s certainly all about the weight and - about the prevention of cracks and the pulverizing part ;-)
The production is quite high techy because the large parts of the fusilage have to be molded with nearly no tolerances - and with no bubbles between the carbon fibre layers. So far there’s no other company capable of doing that. Boeing is believed to have a 5 year head start on airbus with the manufacture of these parts although Boeing didn’t have much experience with composites in jet-liners before this project.
So this is a daring and remarkably global project (2/3 not from the US - wings from japan )
... and the safety regulations for aircraft are quiet strict so certainly it will be safe.
When I worked for Boeing in the late 60s, the wing leading edges on the 747 used composit construction. At the time it was fiberglass and honey comb sandwiches.
I have to say it is a handsome aircraft. Ain’t America great! Oh, and can you elaborate on the shape of the wings?
Would it help if I emailed you some vowels? Just kidding. Thanks for the reference points.
I really wonder what the general public thinks about composites with all the bad press from Airbus. We have a joke in my circle of friends “Friends don’t let friends fly plastic airplanes.” But it is only a joke. There are companies such as Diamond Aircraft and Cirrus Design that have been producing composite aircraft for years. They have one big advantage in that you can fabricate large structural panels in one piece that you can’t out of aluminium. Yeah, Airbus developed friction-stir welding, but that can only do so much. You can only make a sheet of metal so big before it’s too big to handle.
I like to put it this way, carbon fibre and fibreglass are in the same material class as concrete :D:D. (Yeah, I’m simplifying things.) But the principles are the same. You have a resin and a substrate, the civil engineers like to use the terms binder and aggregate, different name, same idea. The idea is you have a cloth woven from either graphite or glass fibers. When you apply the adhesive (resin) properly, and without air pockets, the material dries to form and is hard as a rock. This has one major disadvantage. The strengths of these materials lie in the fact that they’re made up of interwoven strings, so if you break some strands, you significantly weaken the material. That’s where they must be careful in ground handling.
Well it is my personal opinion that the Boeing engineers borrowed the idea from the eagle.
Fiberglass boats and surfboards are an early example of this type of technology. However, newer carbon fiber, stronger resins and improved constructions techniques (large autoclaves to bake the carbon fiber) have gone way beyond fiberglass for light weight, strength and the ability to maintain strength through out all temp. ranges.
Also? The FAA is a very pragmatic bunch asn was very slow to embrace composite construction. Raytheon (Beechcraft) had to jump through lots of hoops to get approval for their Starship.
Airbus and others have been using composites in their aircraft for years. As long as inspections are kept up, the use is perfectly safe.
How many people do we have to squeeze in here?
I was actually letting the original poster know what the material was.
I’m actually the guy who recruited the engineers that helped develop this for Boeing, my company actually had our hands in supplying engineers for the development of almost all systems in that aircraft, we’re a contract staffing firm.
Old Number 4....
State of the art for 1929.
As one old Aviator in the Springfield Ma area told me, had the Chamber of Commerce been more accommodating, The Grandville Brothers could have became a major player.
They also pulled a bone-head move on Indian Motorcycles, but enough spleen venting for one day....
Safe, but doesn't have the 'give' that aluminum does in a minor accident. Composite planes tend to shatter and absorb less energy in a crash. There is a long-running debate among home-builders on this issue. Big planes crash so infrequently that it's not going to be an issue.
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