FAA Grounds 787s

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by ANW

probably six or more in the factory and five coming out every month. Hmm.

Is the production operation still installing lithium batteries in these aircraft still coming down the line ???

[Onceapilot]

Love this quote from that Seattle Times article,

“Good engineers will know how to get the heat out of these cells,” Battaglia said. “If anyone knows how to do that, it’s Boeing."

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by cockney steve

I'd call it dereliction of duty, professional malpractice and negligence if MY design-team had integrated a novel charger and battery-system without making sure that proven substitutes could be readily slotted in place.

Any other insights into design you'd like to share with us?

Which other systems should have "proven substitutes"?

All of them?

Hindsight allows a wonderful degree of accuracy, foresight is a bit trickier...

[FlexibleResponse]

787 Battery Containment Plan Firms Up

As Boeing’s 787 enters the second month of its fleet-wide grounding, the U.S. airframer is poring over data collected on a series of flight and ground tests and says it is making “good progress” toward a solution.

The fix, at least in the short term, continues to be focused on improving containment of the aircraft’s two existing lithium-ion batteries and adding more temperature monitors to provide earlier warning of abnormal battery performance via the engine indicating and crew alerting system.

This is a very scary scenario when an aircraft manufacturer decides that the best fix (at least in the short term) is to improve the ability to contain Lithium ion battery fires and explosions that are probable (a certainty?) with statistically significant number of flight cycles over the next year or so.

The concept of trying to cope with flying a passenger aircraft with a ticking time bombs in both battery bays by adding additional layers of fire protection as opposed to the obvious solution of removing said time bomb is ludicrous to the extreme.

This route smacks very much of commercial interference and corruption of due process over what should be a very straight forward engineering solution.

At least Airbus has now demonstrated the strength of their conviction by announcing the decision that they will take the Lithium ion battery out of their A350 and replace it with Ni Cads until Lithium ion technology catches up with the required public transport mandated reliability requirements.

Wake up Boeing! Listen to your engineers. Without you, Airbus will inherit a monopoly and monopolies are bad for aviation.

[rmac]

The first jet airliner, the Comet, was victim of a major design flaw and as a result handed the field to the Boeing 707.

Is the lead in civil aviation now headed back to Europe

[Heathrow Harry]

never, ever gloat in flight safety

Something horrible will be waiting round the next corner for sure if you do

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by FlexibleResponse

This is a very scary scenario when an aircraft manufacturer decides that the best fix (at least in the short term) is to improve the ability to contain Lithium ion battery fires and explosions that are probable (a certainty?) with statistically significant number of flight cycles over the next year or so.

I haven't seen any quotes yet about what the operating airlines think. It will be their reputation, and their liability insurance, that will be on the line. I would expect them to tell Boeing where they can stick such a proposal.

[Erwin Schroedinger]

The FAA should do the telling. Sooner rather than later.

Have Boeing lost the plot?

[cockney steve]

@ Romulus [quoteWhich other systems should have "proven substitutes"?

All of them?][/quote]

ALL other "innovative" technologies that we are aware of in this particular aircraft construction, are well proven in plenty of other applications.

A "decision" was made to fit an unproven, known to be unstable battery and this was compounded by linking it to a "revolutionary, patented" controller/charger.

Are you REALLY suggesting that this was a well-thought out, well-engineered, safe system that met the SPECIAL CONDITIONS applied to it?

read the Forum ROE....don't know what your gripe with me is, but play the ball, not the player, thank you.

[742]

Wake up Boeing! Listen to your engineers. Without you, Airbus will inherit a monopoly and monopolies are bad for aviation.

Boeing has not been listening to its engineers since 1997, and I see no indication that the current management and board are going to change.

[slf4life]

Dragonliner

So, if I'm understanding Boeing's interim fix - a titanium box with a high pressure venting system should the batteries ignite?

Given the seeming inevitability of these fires, I can see it now, 787s farting fire as a matter of due course

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by cockney steve

don't know what your gripe with me is, but play the ball, not the player, thank you.

No beef with you, the ball being played is the use of hindsight. It's easy to be critical of this decision now, I would suggest Boeing had done their work beforehand but something just hasn't worked as tested.

[RatherBeFlying]

Ejector chute for batteries

Something similar to the design I saw on a DC-3 where the batteries sit on a tray that slides up into the fuselage.

If things get a bit hot, the retaining latches can be made of low melting point metal and the battery is ejected

Sorry, could not hold back until April 1.

[lomapaseo]

It has taken 45 pages to get around to the safety issues rather than how to design an infallible battery.

In the end both Airbus and Boeing have sufficient expertise to design a workable system for this type of battery. The issues have always been acceptable levels of safety under the regulations.

I suspect (without the data) that the regulators were not satisfied with the level of consequential damage to parts of the system as well as the level of concern to the pilots resulting in an emergency landing.

I still await a report from the investigators specifying how and why safety of flight was impacted.

[poorjohn]

Does failure of either battery during ETOPS mandate immediate diversion?

[Cool Guys]

Improving containment of the aircraft’s batteries in case of fire is the most important fix to be done. I have not seen any regulatory reason why the plane could not fly once this is done. I am sure other improvements can and will be done but the lack of containment was the show stopper.

If I was in the plane at FL350 I would be a lot happier with a solid titanium box etc around the battery than some committee’s decision that the cause of the fire was due to Dendrites/Whiskers or whatever and the manufacturing process has improved now.

Good decision Boeing

[Momoe]

If I'm reading the reports correctly, I'm amazed that Boeing are sticking with Lithium.

In fact, the more I read the more amazed I am; the problem appears to stem from an internal battery issue (Dendrites/Whiskers) or whatever, it's irrelevant - the fault lies within the battery.
This appears to be exacerbated by the physical design of the battery, if one cells fails catastrophically, the proximity of the cells causes adjacent cells to overheat and combust.
IMHO, this isn't fail-safe engineering and shouldn't be certified as such by Boeing, the FAA or anyone else.

Good luck to them if they think that encapsulating the battery in a (better) fireproof box as a short term measure will be regarded as a suitable workaround, Heath-Robinson springs to mind (For our friends across the pond, substitute Rube Goldberg for H-R).

C'mon Boeing, you can do better than this,

[Jando]

Originally Posted by Cool Guys

Improving containment of the aircraft’s batteries in case of fire is the most important fix to be done. I have not seen any regulatory reason why the plane could not fly once this is done. I am sure other improvements can and will be done but the lack of containment was the show stopper. ...

I won't be so sure about that. The ship's main battery is there (and you can't dispatch without it) not for operational reasons but for safety reasons. The battery is your line of defense in case of fuel starvation, fuel contamination, problems with the fuel system in general, remember iced up fuel pipes? The RAT won't cut it at low airspeed.

And now we have a battery with a basically unknown failure rate. Doesn't matter much whether a burning or smoldering battery is contained in that case - you just want it not burning so that the darn thing provides the power for your brakes ...

[Chu Chu]

Anything can fail. Surely a higher failure rate is permissible where there's redundancy. A battery is a redundant source of in-flight electrical power. It's not redundant as a non-cause of fire.

And it's probably a lot easier and faster to prove that a titanium box can contain a battery fire than it is to prove a battery won't burn. So the box may be the fastest way to get flying.

[amicus]

And a flammable fuselage too

As nobody has mentioned this point yet, I will now, as if B.plans to vent burning electrolyte via a high pressure vent folly scheme, they have a flammable fuselage to contend with also. The only feasible and sensible is reverting to Ni-Cad as Joe Sutter and competent retired B engineers would have done and dump the lethal Li-ion nonsense until an improved and stable versions are developed. Otherwise they will have burning epoxy primary structure with a self ignition temperature around 580 degrees F to add to the present lethal mix. This is folly and nonsense of the highest order and unworthy of any rational aeronautical engineering company.