PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Russia Grounds Sukhoi Superjet 100 Over Safety Concerns
Old 26th Dec 2016, 02:58
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andrasz
 
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A little known detail on the differences in design philosophies of Soviet era Russian aircraft and contemporary western aircraft was in the degree of prescribed overload limits for individual components and assemblies. In western aircraft design each individual component must be able to demonstrate withstanding of loads at least 50% higher than the maximum design load limit before failure, and assembled load bearing structures must also demonstrate the same. The old soviet aviation manufacturing standards prescribed 100% over design load limit before failure. This was because Soviet industry was not able to supply metals meeting required specificatios with a consistency that western industry was able to do. This resulted in generally much stronger, but correspondingly heavier airframes.


The SSJ was the first russian civilian airliner that was designed according to western specifications. My suspicion is that while the aircraft design may have been sound, the component manufacturers have not quite grown up to the challenge.
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