What strikes me is the number of recent dramatic
intake cowl failures. AF A380 over Greenland + the two 737 accidents. We understand that turbo/fanjets will occasionally self-destruct and if violent enough may not be contained. But I don't remember the entire cowl back to the fan face "vaporizing" so violently in past decades.
It sure makes such failures "look" worse from a
PR perspective (compared to a few jagged holes in the cowl walls), and may be contributing to the amount of shrapnel unleashed.
Is this just a result of structural or material-choice decisions to reduce weight, because the intake cowls are considered "expendable" - or even (intentional design choice) because a flat fan face will produce a bit less drag than a "cupped" inlet trapping ram air?
Or did the engineers just miss a "fan failure mode" which fails these cowls ahead of the fan more commonly or severely than expected?
Or is it an unintended consequence of the never-ceasing pursuit of less weight, that has now compromised the structural integrity of the intake cowls?
Should they be coming apart so often?
Seems to me the intake cowl should be able to withstand and/or contain a blade failure (or failures) or a resulting compressor stall without blowing off completely. Both in terms of internal structure, and strength of attachment to the fan containment ring and the rest of the cowling.
And now that one
may have killed someone (we don't yet know what material broke the window in the most recent SW accident) - perhaps the NTSB may start to wonder what's going on as well.
With luck this will flow into the discussion of Jwscud's original question, and not hijack the thread too far afield.