Originally Posted by HeliCraig
Wonder whether the 787 airframe will be able to take that sort of abuse, and stay intact. Any materials engineers care to comment?
HeliCraig, answering briefly your question :
there has been a debate last fall about the 787 structural resistance in case of a crash landing.
The question has been triggered by a letter addressed to the FAA by a Boeing engineer with a long structural design experience.
The FAA rejected the engineer's criticisms in october.
The letter of the engineer:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABP...2003889769.pdf
A paper on FAA's rejection (sorry couldn't find the FAA's formal response) :
http://www.asminternational.org/MSTe...ID=1247&News=1
If you are interested in that subject, I suggest you pursue it in the thread devoted to it:
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=292713
Luc