canceled.2021.1
#AMERICAISDEAD
What is more successful, the Dreamliner or the Chevy Volt?
Dreamliner?? More like a nightmare liner!!
- Thread starter cancel2 2022
- Start date
Airstrip One
Completely Effed
I wouldn't go there. Boeing unions make the auto union look really good.
canceled.2021.1
#AMERICAISDEAD
Like I said, 'twas the market that brought Enron down. Not your precious regulations. It was you precious regulations trying to stop another Enron that made the financial crash worse.
Educate yourself and look up mark to market
Lowaicue
英語在香港
Batteries are dangerous? Bloody hell... all those lonely women!
cancel2 2022
Canceled
They are bigger versions of laptop and mobile phone batteries.
cancel2 2022
Canceled
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was supposed to be the company's bold entry into the future of air travel—an environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient world traveller. Using 20 percent less fuel than Boeing's similarly sized 767, it was the most heavily pre-ordered widebody aircraft ever.
But now, the entire fleet of 787s has been grounded because of a series of mishaps involving the plane's batteries. On January 7, a Japan Airlines 787 just in from Tokyo caught fire at Boston's Logan International Airport when the batteries in the aircraft's auxiliary power unit ignited; eight days later, a battery scare forced an All Nippon Airways 787 flying from Yamaguchi, Japan to make an emergency landing and evacuate.
The batteries at the heart of the problem, manufactured by the Japanese firm GS Yuasa Corporation, are essentially giant versions of the lithium-ion batteries used in cell phones and laptops. Like those batteries, the Dreamliner's use a lithium-cobalt oxide cathode, which is "an inherently unsafe cathode," said Mark Allen, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. And in the larger form used by Boeing, they pose an even larger risk. When overcharged or damaged, they can become essentially a firebomb inside the airplane—one that burns without air and can't be put out by usual aircraft fire suppression systems.
The batteries are an essential part of the Dreamliner's core innovation—using electricity in place of jet engine "bleed air" and hydraulic energy to power the aircraft's controls. They help start up the plane's onboard power plant, which generates 5 megawatts of electricity—five times more than any other aircraft.
But the electrical system's complexity has been a particular stumbling block for the plane model in the past. And with the whole plane being essentially a flying network (the plane's avionics are wired together with a derivative of 100 megabit Ethernet to reduce the amount of wiring and corresponding weight) and the controls entirely dependent on electrical power, any problem with electrical systems can become a disaster.
Where there's smoke
Six hours into a test flight in November of 2010, in the skies over Texas just after 2:30 in the afternoon Central Time, the pilot of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner Number 2 declared an emergency. There was smoke in the cabin, and the airplane's "glass cockpit"—its computerized displays and controls—had partially failed, its primary flight displays and automatic throttle controls gone.
As he touched down at Laredo International Airport and brought the plane to a halt, the crew and passengers—Boeing company execs and technicians monitoring flight data—evacuated the plane, jumping down the emergency slides. The cause of the emergency was an electrical fire that took out the aircraft's primary and auxiliary power units. The Dreamliner would have become a nightmare without the emergency power source—a Ram Air Turbine, which dropped down from the fuselage to convert airflow past the plane into power for essential controls. The incident led to further delays for the Dreamliner, as Boeing went back to redesign the entire electrical distribution system of the aircraft. But the redesign didn't eliminate the hazard of the batteries themselves.
Batteries using lithium-cobalt oxide of any size are prone to overheating when they're charging because of their small electrical resistance. But because the batteries in phones and computers are relatively small, they can usually shed the heat unless they're charged too quickly or past their designed capacity.
The Dreamliner's batteries, however are not your garden-variety laptop battery. Manufacturer GS Yuasa started in the business making motorcycle batteries and now makes large-scale specialty batteries for all sorts of power applications—including powering satellites. The batteries selected for the Dreamliner "were very large scale—65 amp-hour batteries which is very, very large," said Allen. "They are very high power batteries, and they charge them to 90 percent (of capacity) in about 70 minutes. That's a very fast charge for any lithium battery of this size. And that's a problem when there isn't a cooling system incorporated."
The problem escalates as the battery gets hotter. "When these batteries reach a certain temperature—about 140 degrees Celsius—they reach a thermal runaway where they basically go out of control," Allen said. And that can turn the battery—the one in a plane, or the one in your cell phone—into a firebomb.
"The cobalt in the cathode is in a plus-four oxidation state, which is very unstable," he explained, "and it's sitting in an electrolyte which is organic and very combustible. It's a highly oxidized system with a fuel, so it becomes a combustible system very quickly."
When a battery overheats, the electrolytes in it can start to leak. "As long as it's away from some sort of oxidant, (the chemicals) are very safe," said University of Michigan Chemical Engineering Professor Levi Thompson. Normally, the only time when there's a risk of battery combustion is during charging. The batteries are discharged during the plane's startup, when the Auxiliary Power Unit—essentially a jet-powered generator for the aircraft's electrical systems—is first started. In the Boston incident, the batteries were likely being recharged when they caught fire; in the airborne incident, they may have entered thermal runaway while on the ground, or they may have been taking a charge from the APU itself after take-off and continued to overheat.
Safer alternatives
There are a number of fixes Boeing could make to reduce the risk from the batteries. One is to use batteries with a cooling system—either water or air cooling.
But there are also much safer choices for the cathode material in large lithium batteries that can reduce the risk of explosive combustion. Allen hopes that the Dreamliner issues will lead to wider adoption of safer battery technology. "They are available and becoming more popular," Allen said. "Lithium nickel manganese oxide cathodes are safer, and iron phosphate ones are much safer because they don't actually release oxygen when you arc it or when it's damaged."
Dr. Ann Marie Sastry, President and CEO of battery technology company Sakti3, said her company is developing a solid-state lithium-ion battery that would address many of these issues. "To eliminate risk in energy storage systems, the best thing to do is to eliminate the liquid electrolyte in favor of solid materials that are not combustible," she said. Solid state lithium-ion batteries could improve both safety and performance of batteries, but she added that they'll "add substantial cost."
Whatever the solution, there are larger engineering concerns about the Dreamliner to be addressed as the aircraft experiences what some have called "teething pains." And Boeing isn't the only aircraft manufacturer that should be concerned—Airbus also uses lithium-ion batteries for its newest APUs.
http://arstechnica.com/business/201...eries-inherently-unsafe-and-yours-may-be-too/
But now, the entire fleet of 787s has been grounded because of a series of mishaps involving the plane's batteries. On January 7, a Japan Airlines 787 just in from Tokyo caught fire at Boston's Logan International Airport when the batteries in the aircraft's auxiliary power unit ignited; eight days later, a battery scare forced an All Nippon Airways 787 flying from Yamaguchi, Japan to make an emergency landing and evacuate.
The batteries at the heart of the problem, manufactured by the Japanese firm GS Yuasa Corporation, are essentially giant versions of the lithium-ion batteries used in cell phones and laptops. Like those batteries, the Dreamliner's use a lithium-cobalt oxide cathode, which is "an inherently unsafe cathode," said Mark Allen, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. And in the larger form used by Boeing, they pose an even larger risk. When overcharged or damaged, they can become essentially a firebomb inside the airplane—one that burns without air and can't be put out by usual aircraft fire suppression systems.
The batteries are an essential part of the Dreamliner's core innovation—using electricity in place of jet engine "bleed air" and hydraulic energy to power the aircraft's controls. They help start up the plane's onboard power plant, which generates 5 megawatts of electricity—five times more than any other aircraft.
But the electrical system's complexity has been a particular stumbling block for the plane model in the past. And with the whole plane being essentially a flying network (the plane's avionics are wired together with a derivative of 100 megabit Ethernet to reduce the amount of wiring and corresponding weight) and the controls entirely dependent on electrical power, any problem with electrical systems can become a disaster.
Where there's smoke
Six hours into a test flight in November of 2010, in the skies over Texas just after 2:30 in the afternoon Central Time, the pilot of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner Number 2 declared an emergency. There was smoke in the cabin, and the airplane's "glass cockpit"—its computerized displays and controls—had partially failed, its primary flight displays and automatic throttle controls gone.
As he touched down at Laredo International Airport and brought the plane to a halt, the crew and passengers—Boeing company execs and technicians monitoring flight data—evacuated the plane, jumping down the emergency slides. The cause of the emergency was an electrical fire that took out the aircraft's primary and auxiliary power units. The Dreamliner would have become a nightmare without the emergency power source—a Ram Air Turbine, which dropped down from the fuselage to convert airflow past the plane into power for essential controls. The incident led to further delays for the Dreamliner, as Boeing went back to redesign the entire electrical distribution system of the aircraft. But the redesign didn't eliminate the hazard of the batteries themselves.
Batteries using lithium-cobalt oxide of any size are prone to overheating when they're charging because of their small electrical resistance. But because the batteries in phones and computers are relatively small, they can usually shed the heat unless they're charged too quickly or past their designed capacity.
The Dreamliner's batteries, however are not your garden-variety laptop battery. Manufacturer GS Yuasa started in the business making motorcycle batteries and now makes large-scale specialty batteries for all sorts of power applications—including powering satellites. The batteries selected for the Dreamliner "were very large scale—65 amp-hour batteries which is very, very large," said Allen. "They are very high power batteries, and they charge them to 90 percent (of capacity) in about 70 minutes. That's a very fast charge for any lithium battery of this size. And that's a problem when there isn't a cooling system incorporated."
The problem escalates as the battery gets hotter. "When these batteries reach a certain temperature—about 140 degrees Celsius—they reach a thermal runaway where they basically go out of control," Allen said. And that can turn the battery—the one in a plane, or the one in your cell phone—into a firebomb.
"The cobalt in the cathode is in a plus-four oxidation state, which is very unstable," he explained, "and it's sitting in an electrolyte which is organic and very combustible. It's a highly oxidized system with a fuel, so it becomes a combustible system very quickly."
When a battery overheats, the electrolytes in it can start to leak. "As long as it's away from some sort of oxidant, (the chemicals) are very safe," said University of Michigan Chemical Engineering Professor Levi Thompson. Normally, the only time when there's a risk of battery combustion is during charging. The batteries are discharged during the plane's startup, when the Auxiliary Power Unit—essentially a jet-powered generator for the aircraft's electrical systems—is first started. In the Boston incident, the batteries were likely being recharged when they caught fire; in the airborne incident, they may have entered thermal runaway while on the ground, or they may have been taking a charge from the APU itself after take-off and continued to overheat.
Safer alternatives
There are a number of fixes Boeing could make to reduce the risk from the batteries. One is to use batteries with a cooling system—either water or air cooling.
But there are also much safer choices for the cathode material in large lithium batteries that can reduce the risk of explosive combustion. Allen hopes that the Dreamliner issues will lead to wider adoption of safer battery technology. "They are available and becoming more popular," Allen said. "Lithium nickel manganese oxide cathodes are safer, and iron phosphate ones are much safer because they don't actually release oxygen when you arc it or when it's damaged."
Dr. Ann Marie Sastry, President and CEO of battery technology company Sakti3, said her company is developing a solid-state lithium-ion battery that would address many of these issues. "To eliminate risk in energy storage systems, the best thing to do is to eliminate the liquid electrolyte in favor of solid materials that are not combustible," she said. Solid state lithium-ion batteries could improve both safety and performance of batteries, but she added that they'll "add substantial cost."
Whatever the solution, there are larger engineering concerns about the Dreamliner to be addressed as the aircraft experiences what some have called "teething pains." And Boeing isn't the only aircraft manufacturer that should be concerned—Airbus also uses lithium-ion batteries for its newest APUs.
http://arstechnica.com/business/201...eries-inherently-unsafe-and-yours-may-be-too/
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Lowaicue
英語在香港
yes, I know.
Indeed we had a spate of Chinese phone batteries bursting into flames a few years ago. One guy had his phone in his trouser pocket!
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I bet that toned his ring!!
cancel2 2022
Canceled
Even before two battery failures led to the grounding of all Boeing 787 jets this month, the lithium-ion batteries used on the aircraft had experienced multiple problems that raised questions about their reliability.
Officials at All Nippon Airways, the jets' biggest operator, said in an interview on Tuesday that it had replaced 10 of the batteries in the months before fire and smoke in two cases caused regulators around the world to ground the jets.
The airline said it told Boeing of the replacements as they occurred but was not required to report them to safety regulators because no flights were canceled. National Transportation Safety Board officials said Tuesday that the battery replacements were now part of their inquiry.
The airline also, for the first time, explained the extent of the previous problems, which underscore the volatile nature of the batteries and add to concerns about whether Boeing and other plane manufacturers will be able to use the batteries safely.
(Read More: Japan Eased Safety Standards Ahead of 787 Rollout)
In five of the 10 replacements, All Nippon said that the main battery showed an unexpectedly low charge. An unexpected drop in a 787's main battery also occurred on the All Nippon flight that had to make an emergency landing in Japan on January 16.
The airline also revealed that in three instances, the main battery failed to start normally and had to be replaced along with the charger. In other cases, one battery showed an error reading and another, used to start the auxiliary power unit, failed. All the events occurred from May to December of last year. And all the batteries were returned to their maker, GS Yuasa.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators had only recently heard that there had been "numerous issues with the use of these batteries" on 787s. She said the board had asked Boeing, All Nippon and other airlines for information about the problems.
"That will absolutely be part of investigation," she said.
Boeing, based in Chicago, has said repeatedly that any problems with the batteries can be contained without threatening the planes and their passengers.
But in response to All Nippon's disclosures, Boeing officials said the airline's replacement of the batteries also suggested that safeguards to prevent dangerous overheating of the batteries might have kicked in.
Boeing officials also acknowledged that the new batteries were not lasting as long as they were meant to. But All Nippon said that the batteries it replaced had not expired.
(Read More: Boeing Battery Fires Cast Doubt on Feds' Oversight)
A GS Yuasa official, Tsutomu Nishijima, said battery exchanges are part of the normal operations of a plane but would not comment further.
The Federal Aviation Administration decided in 2007 to allow Boeing to use the lithium-ion batteries instead of older, more stable types as long as it took safety measures to prevent or contain a fire. But once Boeing put in those safeguards, it did not revisit its basic design even as more evidence surfaced of the risks involved, regulators said.
In a little-noticed test in 2010, the F.A.A. found that the kind of lithium-ion chemistry that Boeing planned to use — lithium cobalt — was the most flammable of several possible types. The test found that that type of battery provided the most power, but could also overheat more quickly.
And in 2011, a lithium-ion battery on a Cessna business jet started smoking while it was being charged, prompting Cessna to switch to traditional nickel cadmium batteries.
The safety board said Tuesday that it had still not determined what caused a fire on January 7 on a Japan Airlines 787 that was parked at Logan Airport in Boston. The fire occurred nine days before an All Nippon jet made its emergency landing when pilots smelled smoke in the cockpit.
Federal regulators said it was also still possible that flaws in the manufacturing process could have gone undetected and triggered the recent incidents.
The batteries' maker X-rays each battery before shipping them to look for possible defects.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100418083
Officials at All Nippon Airways, the jets' biggest operator, said in an interview on Tuesday that it had replaced 10 of the batteries in the months before fire and smoke in two cases caused regulators around the world to ground the jets.
The airline said it told Boeing of the replacements as they occurred but was not required to report them to safety regulators because no flights were canceled. National Transportation Safety Board officials said Tuesday that the battery replacements were now part of their inquiry.
The airline also, for the first time, explained the extent of the previous problems, which underscore the volatile nature of the batteries and add to concerns about whether Boeing and other plane manufacturers will be able to use the batteries safely.
(Read More: Japan Eased Safety Standards Ahead of 787 Rollout)
In five of the 10 replacements, All Nippon said that the main battery showed an unexpectedly low charge. An unexpected drop in a 787's main battery also occurred on the All Nippon flight that had to make an emergency landing in Japan on January 16.
The airline also revealed that in three instances, the main battery failed to start normally and had to be replaced along with the charger. In other cases, one battery showed an error reading and another, used to start the auxiliary power unit, failed. All the events occurred from May to December of last year. And all the batteries were returned to their maker, GS Yuasa.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators had only recently heard that there had been "numerous issues with the use of these batteries" on 787s. She said the board had asked Boeing, All Nippon and other airlines for information about the problems.
"That will absolutely be part of investigation," she said.
Boeing, based in Chicago, has said repeatedly that any problems with the batteries can be contained without threatening the planes and their passengers.
But in response to All Nippon's disclosures, Boeing officials said the airline's replacement of the batteries also suggested that safeguards to prevent dangerous overheating of the batteries might have kicked in.
Boeing officials also acknowledged that the new batteries were not lasting as long as they were meant to. But All Nippon said that the batteries it replaced had not expired.
(Read More: Boeing Battery Fires Cast Doubt on Feds' Oversight)
A GS Yuasa official, Tsutomu Nishijima, said battery exchanges are part of the normal operations of a plane but would not comment further.
The Federal Aviation Administration decided in 2007 to allow Boeing to use the lithium-ion batteries instead of older, more stable types as long as it took safety measures to prevent or contain a fire. But once Boeing put in those safeguards, it did not revisit its basic design even as more evidence surfaced of the risks involved, regulators said.
In a little-noticed test in 2010, the F.A.A. found that the kind of lithium-ion chemistry that Boeing planned to use — lithium cobalt — was the most flammable of several possible types. The test found that that type of battery provided the most power, but could also overheat more quickly.
And in 2011, a lithium-ion battery on a Cessna business jet started smoking while it was being charged, prompting Cessna to switch to traditional nickel cadmium batteries.
The safety board said Tuesday that it had still not determined what caused a fire on January 7 on a Japan Airlines 787 that was parked at Logan Airport in Boston. The fire occurred nine days before an All Nippon jet made its emergency landing when pilots smelled smoke in the cockpit.
Federal regulators said it was also still possible that flaws in the manufacturing process could have gone undetected and triggered the recent incidents.
The batteries' maker X-rays each battery before shipping them to look for possible defects.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100418083
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Canceled
Boeing's 787 Battery Undergoes Tough Tests
By Alwyn Scott and Peter Henderson
Published March 18, 2013
Reuters
To get its 787 Dreamliner flying again, Boeing Co is testing the plane's volatile battery system to a rigorous standard that the company itself helped develop -- but that it never used on the jet. Boeing's decision has thrust an arcane standard known as RTCA to the center of the debate over whether Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were rigorous enough when they originally set standards for the 787 battery system in October 2007. The debate could have broad implications for the future use of lithium-ion batteries on aircraft.
A committee co-chaired by Boeing published safety guidelines in March 2008 for using lithium-ion batteries on aircraft to minimize the risk of fire. But because they arrived five months after the FAA had approved a set of special conditions for the fire safety of the Dreamliner battery system, Boeing did not have to meet the more stringent guidelines. The FAA never required it, and Boeing did not choose to use them.
Last week, Boeing decided to shift to the tougher RTCA standard for a revamped 787 battery system. The move came after regulators grounded Dreamliners worldwide in January following a battery fire on a Japan Airlines Co 787 at Boston's Logan airport and a battery meltdown on an All Nippon Airways Co flight in Japan.
Some battery industry experts voiced surprise that Boeing did not apply the RTCA standard when it was published in 2008. Even though the tests were not required, they would have served as a check on Boeing's design assumptions and possibly prevented the battery from overheating in January, they said.
John Goglia, a former board member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said he sees the use of the RTCA standard "as an admission that they didn't do a good job in the beginning."
"It is going to be part of the final NTSB report," he added. "It will be at least mentioned in there."
The NTSB last month questioned the assumptions Boeing and the FAA made when certifying the battery system in 2007. The safety agency plans to hold a hearing on the issue next month and is expected to recommend changes to FAA procedures after completing its investigation into the battery failures. Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said Boeing didn't use the RTCA standard earlier because it came "after we had completed our certification plans and begun our testing efforts."
Under the special conditions, the Dreamliner passed "a rigorous test program and an extensive certification program conducted by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration," he said.
The RTCA test will be used on an extensive new battery system Boeing unveiled on Friday. It adds safeguards to prevent fire, keep fumes from entering the cabin and ensure the jet's ability to fly and land are never compromised.
Boeing said it already is about one-third through testing with the tougher RTCA regimen, known as "DO-311" and is likely to finish "within a week or two.
Asked why Boeing had not used the RTCA standard, a senior Boeing engineer on Friday suggested the standard was too broad.
The RTCA standard "covered a wide range of lithium-ion batteries and it contained roughly 104 requirements," said Ron Hinderberger, vice president of 787-8 engineering. "Some of those requirements went beyond the requirements that were established in the special condition."
The FAA did not respond to questions on why it did not apply the standard earlier or Boeing's decision to use it now. The FAA adopted the standard in April 2011.
Richard Lukso, the former head of Securaplane Technologies, the Arizona company that supplied the charging unit for the 787 battery, said Boeing should have asked its battery subcontractor, GS Yuasa Corp of Japan, to use the RTCA standard. GS Yuasa declined to comment. "It was (Boeing's) responsibility to request that test," Lukso said.
The RTCA, formed in 1935 as the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, is a private, not-for-profit industry group whose policy recommendations are often used by the FAA. Its battery committee -- whose members included employees from Boeing's battery maker GS Yuasa, the battery system maker Thales SA of France and the FAA -- drafted a 68-page document to set "minimum operational performance standards" for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used as power sources on planes.
These guidelines "are generic in nature," the committee said, "and serve only as a baseline for the design and test of specific battery systems and equipment pairings."
The document included clearer and more specific tests than the FAA set, along with tougher standards. For example, the 787 special conditions say Boeing's battery system must prevent "explosive or toxic gases" from accumulating in "hazardous quantities" in the airplane in any situation which is not "extremely remote." In FAA parlance, "extremely remote" means once in 10 million flight hours.
But the DO-311 standards say the tests must show the chances are "extremely improbable" -- FAA code for one in a billion flight hours. Boeing's tests, which included puncturing the battery with a nail and subjecting it to heat, predicted the chance of a fire was less than one in 10 million flight hours. But when the plane was in use, two batteries overheated and emitted smoke and fumes after less than 100,000 hours, according to the NTSB.
Lukso, who left SecuraPlane to start his own lithium-ion battery business, acknowledged that the RTCA standards are tough. At his new company, he spent $6 million and several years without successfully building a battery that could pass the test now in front of Boeing.
Another battery maker, EaglePicher Technologies, of Joplin, Missouri, passed tests modeled on DO-311, but used a less volatile chemistry than Boeing, known as lithium-iron phosphate. "To successfully pass the containment (test), we needed iron phosphate," Ron Nowlin, general manager of aerospace systems for EaglePicher, said in an interview earlier this year.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/201...-battery-through-tough-tests-it-once-avoided/
By Alwyn Scott and Peter Henderson
Published March 18, 2013
Reuters
To get its 787 Dreamliner flying again, Boeing Co is testing the plane's volatile battery system to a rigorous standard that the company itself helped develop -- but that it never used on the jet. Boeing's decision has thrust an arcane standard known as RTCA to the center of the debate over whether Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were rigorous enough when they originally set standards for the 787 battery system in October 2007. The debate could have broad implications for the future use of lithium-ion batteries on aircraft.
A committee co-chaired by Boeing published safety guidelines in March 2008 for using lithium-ion batteries on aircraft to minimize the risk of fire. But because they arrived five months after the FAA had approved a set of special conditions for the fire safety of the Dreamliner battery system, Boeing did not have to meet the more stringent guidelines. The FAA never required it, and Boeing did not choose to use them.
Last week, Boeing decided to shift to the tougher RTCA standard for a revamped 787 battery system. The move came after regulators grounded Dreamliners worldwide in January following a battery fire on a Japan Airlines Co 787 at Boston's Logan airport and a battery meltdown on an All Nippon Airways Co flight in Japan.
Some battery industry experts voiced surprise that Boeing did not apply the RTCA standard when it was published in 2008. Even though the tests were not required, they would have served as a check on Boeing's design assumptions and possibly prevented the battery from overheating in January, they said.
John Goglia, a former board member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said he sees the use of the RTCA standard "as an admission that they didn't do a good job in the beginning."
"It is going to be part of the final NTSB report," he added. "It will be at least mentioned in there."
The NTSB last month questioned the assumptions Boeing and the FAA made when certifying the battery system in 2007. The safety agency plans to hold a hearing on the issue next month and is expected to recommend changes to FAA procedures after completing its investigation into the battery failures. Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said Boeing didn't use the RTCA standard earlier because it came "after we had completed our certification plans and begun our testing efforts."
Under the special conditions, the Dreamliner passed "a rigorous test program and an extensive certification program conducted by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration," he said.
The RTCA test will be used on an extensive new battery system Boeing unveiled on Friday. It adds safeguards to prevent fire, keep fumes from entering the cabin and ensure the jet's ability to fly and land are never compromised.
Boeing said it already is about one-third through testing with the tougher RTCA regimen, known as "DO-311" and is likely to finish "within a week or two.
Asked why Boeing had not used the RTCA standard, a senior Boeing engineer on Friday suggested the standard was too broad.
The RTCA standard "covered a wide range of lithium-ion batteries and it contained roughly 104 requirements," said Ron Hinderberger, vice president of 787-8 engineering. "Some of those requirements went beyond the requirements that were established in the special condition."
The FAA did not respond to questions on why it did not apply the standard earlier or Boeing's decision to use it now. The FAA adopted the standard in April 2011.
Richard Lukso, the former head of Securaplane Technologies, the Arizona company that supplied the charging unit for the 787 battery, said Boeing should have asked its battery subcontractor, GS Yuasa Corp of Japan, to use the RTCA standard. GS Yuasa declined to comment. "It was (Boeing's) responsibility to request that test," Lukso said.
The RTCA, formed in 1935 as the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, is a private, not-for-profit industry group whose policy recommendations are often used by the FAA. Its battery committee -- whose members included employees from Boeing's battery maker GS Yuasa, the battery system maker Thales SA of France and the FAA -- drafted a 68-page document to set "minimum operational performance standards" for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used as power sources on planes.
These guidelines "are generic in nature," the committee said, "and serve only as a baseline for the design and test of specific battery systems and equipment pairings."
The document included clearer and more specific tests than the FAA set, along with tougher standards. For example, the 787 special conditions say Boeing's battery system must prevent "explosive or toxic gases" from accumulating in "hazardous quantities" in the airplane in any situation which is not "extremely remote." In FAA parlance, "extremely remote" means once in 10 million flight hours.
But the DO-311 standards say the tests must show the chances are "extremely improbable" -- FAA code for one in a billion flight hours. Boeing's tests, which included puncturing the battery with a nail and subjecting it to heat, predicted the chance of a fire was less than one in 10 million flight hours. But when the plane was in use, two batteries overheated and emitted smoke and fumes after less than 100,000 hours, according to the NTSB.
Lukso, who left SecuraPlane to start his own lithium-ion battery business, acknowledged that the RTCA standards are tough. At his new company, he spent $6 million and several years without successfully building a battery that could pass the test now in front of Boeing.
Another battery maker, EaglePicher Technologies, of Joplin, Missouri, passed tests modeled on DO-311, but used a less volatile chemistry than Boeing, known as lithium-iron phosphate. "To successfully pass the containment (test), we needed iron phosphate," Ron Nowlin, general manager of aerospace systems for EaglePicher, said in an interview earlier this year.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/201...-battery-through-tough-tests-it-once-avoided/
cancel2 2022
Canceled
I hope nobody on here has Boeing shares.
Heathrow airport has been closed after an Ethiopian Airlines Dreamliner jet burst into flames. In a tweet, the airport said the plane was stationary when it caught fire, and no passengers were on board.
Pictures published on Twitter show a plane surrounded by fire engines with crews attempting to douse the blaze. The cause is not known. A Heathrow spokesperson said: "We can confirm there has been an onboard internal fire involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft and the airport's emergency services are in attendance."T he aircraft was parked on a remote parking stand. There were no passengers on board and there are no reported injuries at this time.
rocedure if fire crews are occupied with an incident." The BBC reported that the plane was a Boeing Dreamliner, which has been the subject of several mechanical problems in recent months. A total of 50 Dreamliner planes were grounded around the world in January, after a string of problems centring on battery failure.
"Arrivals and departures are temporarily suspended while airport fire crews attend. This is a standard panes were grounded around the world in January, after a string of problems centring on battery failure. According to the BBC, the plane which caught fire was used to fly between Ethiopia and Kenya in April, in the first commercial flight since the Dreamliners were grounded.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/4...-closed-ethiopian-airlines-dreamliner-jet.htm
Heathrow airport has been closed after an Ethiopian Airlines Dreamliner jet burst into flames. In a tweet, the airport said the plane was stationary when it caught fire, and no passengers were on board.
Pictures published on Twitter show a plane surrounded by fire engines with crews attempting to douse the blaze. The cause is not known. A Heathrow spokesperson said: "We can confirm there has been an onboard internal fire involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft and the airport's emergency services are in attendance."T he aircraft was parked on a remote parking stand. There were no passengers on board and there are no reported injuries at this time.
rocedure if fire crews are occupied with an incident." The BBC reported that the plane was a Boeing Dreamliner, which has been the subject of several mechanical problems in recent months. A total of 50 Dreamliner planes were grounded around the world in January, after a string of problems centring on battery failure.
"Arrivals and departures are temporarily suspended while airport fire crews attend. This is a standard panes were grounded around the world in January, after a string of problems centring on battery failure. According to the BBC, the plane which caught fire was used to fly between Ethiopia and Kenya in April, in the first commercial flight since the Dreamliners were grounded.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/4...-closed-ethiopian-airlines-dreamliner-jet.htm
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cancel2 2022
Canceled
It look like it's not the batteries this time, I wonder how long they will be grounded for this time?
Steelplate
New member
It's tough to outdo their greatest liner....the 747 was the flagship of Boeing for a long time.
Airstrip One
Completely Effed
Yes, they make sure they handle the 747 and 767 projects as best as they can. 777 and 787 are just extra business ventures by comparison.