If the battery company say this is discoloured I would not want to see what a burnt one looks like.http://www.nycaviation.com/newspage/...60-602x401.jpg

Hope there's a bit of room for satire.

I can imagine fleet managers and engineers trawling iphone forums looking at solutions for short battery life and devices running a little 'hot'. Boeing carefully studying how steve jobs and Apple would deal with the issue. The bottom line being, deny everything, turn the alleged defect into a feature. Eventually make an announcement that everyone can return the product via 1st. class mail for a refund or new replacement, (please use the supplied jiffy bag).
Personally, I feel its all down to software, if they would use Android jelly bean instead of Ice Ceam Sandwich, the 787 would be a much better 'plane.

NH204 (FRA - HND) for the 16th has now been deleted from the flightaware log. Not sure what plante that would be that was ferried back from Paris. ANA have no Dreamliner service to Paris, and neither does JAL to the best of my knowledge and a quick search effort.

NH203 arrived and NH204 closes on time in Frankfurt today on the 17th. Flightaware is still listing them as 787 but Frankfurt airport has them as 772.

According to FRA airport, NH203 for the 18th is scheduled to be on time whereas they have already posted a delay of nearly 6 hours for the return flight tomorrow. Also, both are listed as 772 whereas the Friday flights are usually operated by 77W (whatever that is).

Are they planning to do scheduled maintenance at an outstation?

I guess Boeing has made stupid decision,trying to make aircraft more efficient,less fuel,less maintenance ,more outsourcing,all electrics,this is what QF preferred ,but it come at a cost.

Li-Ion batteries are vulnerable to catching fire either because of a fault in the battery itself, or in the charging electronics/circuitry, or the software running the charge program.

Fires have occured widely with Li-Ion batteries in other electronics applications and it known particularly where over-charging takes place, so it is a signifcant risk. I'm surprised that additional safety circuitry either was not installed or failed to prevent such a fire.

OFSO, are you saying that if engineers were paid more this wouldn't happen?

So, I'm a Boeing engineer or a battery engineer and I'm going to be less competent at my job because I don't get paid as much as the marketing director?

Really???

Or, is it that when an engineer gets it wrong, it's never their fault?

It might be better to find out exactly what's caused the battery fire first and how it can be prevented in future so that any further serious incidents can be avoided. It should become clear fairly soon whose 'fault' it was.

The main aircraft battery wiring has a diode module added to the circuit to prevent back charging of the battery through anything other than the battery charger.

The APU battery circuit has no such module. Considered unnecessary due to the APU battery requirements. IE To start the APU (and nothing else).

Other than that both batteries are identicle.

In that case why are PR people paid so well. Are they going to be less competent at their job if they are paid less?
There is an old saying.
"You pay peanuts, you get monkies".

In my experience the engineers always get the blame regardless of fault. :O

The A380's teething problems with its cracked wings and mid air uncontained engine failure were arguably far more spectacular events. Yet it demonstrates how short public memory is. This time next year I don't think public perception regarding the 787 will be any different.

I agree with this, people tend to quickly forget recent accidents, and that will also happen with the 787...

Turin, so now Boeing and battery engineers are monkeys who get paid peanuts?

Sorry, but we all get paid to do our jobs. If we don't do our jobs competently as a minimum, we stand to lose our jobs.

If an engineer doesn't like their salary, get another job - we keep hearing all the time that "there is a shortage of engineers", so it should be no problem finding work quickly, easily and with better pay.

If, on the other hand, engineers feel underpaid then it indicates that there are in fact plenty of them to spare and they can't command a wage premium. But to imply that this is a valid reason not to do your job properly is ridiculous.

Engineers pay is not the problem!
 

In reply to OFSO as an engineer

1. We are professionals doing a safety related job which we do professionally whatever the pay.

2. If you have worked as and hired engineers you will know pay is very loosely at best correlated with competence. Software developers from financial organisations as an example in my experience are paid very good salaries despite at best poor competence and skill levels. Most senior financial software developers I have interviewed struggle to meet our competence requirments for junior engineers.

3. The development process for safety related systems is multi-levelled so that we do not rely on the competence of one engineer but on a series of analyses and tests throughiut teh development lifecycle. At the end of the day anyone can make a mistake but teh process does not rely on perfection at each stage.

I do believe engineers are often undervalued and underpaid but that is nothing to do with it.

No idea. I know nothing of a Boeing engineers remuneration package.
Really? I think you are being naive.
This is not the place to get into this spat though. Lots of other threads and bulletin boards for that. :sad:

No takers ?
 

Nobody out there to say something about what happens to a 787 when both accumulators go out of business ? I ask this because these things seem to be so important for that aircraft and because I assume that a failing of one accumulator should raise the load on the other one which could then also fail if these things are being used near the edge of their envelope. So ... what remains working on a 787 with both main bats down ? And for how long ? Anybody ?

Maybe Boeing should contact Hydro Quebec They are working on Ion Battery since 30 years and they invented one which do NOT catch fire and have no overheat problem The only thing it is more heavy

Same/ v similar technology is marketed by a company called Valence- they have just settled a patent dispute between them- if you google them you will find a very interesting and spectacular video illustrating the point.

It's the little things that ....
 

From the "light" peanut gallery comes this observation...

- The battery type in question has been known to ignite and once burning is difficult to stop the thing(s). This is more common with the small, dense ones we see in laptops and cellphones, etc. The larger ones seem more safe, but not always. They are still susceptible to overcharging and the ensuing ignition. Which leads me to my observation:

- When the Viper was built, the design team focused upon the flight control computers, as their loss was also loss of the jet and maybe pilot. The elecgtrical system seemed straightforward, so the basic, line engineers came up with a good system with plenty of back ups. The emphasis was upon the whiz kids and the flight control computers. Unfortunately, the computer internal power supplies used solid state voltage regulators of 1970's vintage. They could not handle inputs above 37 volts or so. So uncommanded emergency power that used a simple DC generator with permament magnets could exceed the critical voltage at high power settings ( bleed air powered the thing). The computers would shut down if there was too much input voltage. Sheesh! We fixed the problem, but in the mean time we hot wired the computers and if the input voltagegot too high, then too bad. The computers would fail eventually, but gracefully, one by one. This was much better than having them all ( we had four) just shut down. We proved the point a few weeks later and the pilot flew the thing for 10 or so minutes until all was lost.

- Moral of the story is we seem to overlook some system failures that involve fairly straighforward systems like the battery circuits. The biggies are the aero-mechanical considerations, and they get the most emphasis.

My guess is we'll see a different battery type and better monitoring of the charging circuits.

Simple and easy are two separate words. We want them to be the same, but frequently they are exclusive....

If this was easy, we would not be writing this thread. Boeing has struggled with monumental problems on this project, and succeeded mightily in almost all of them.

This one is stubborn.... There are enormous forces at work, and to distill this down to R/R power source is simplistic, too easy.

There is a systemic problem, and one or two of several disciplines are struggling.

Nothing fatal, to person or program, imo. We'll see....

I believe that OFSO's point was not the salaries of individual engineers, but rather the number of engineers as a whole. That perhaps having another 10% more design engineering budget or staff would have allowed additional testing.

Somewhat OT, but why havent capacitors kept up?
I seem to remember televisions and most electronics had huge capacitors that the power supply fed, and the system drew from. These would stay charged for quite some time.

Is this a viable option to batteries, or could that technology be advanced?

?
 

Power supplies are of course buffered by capacitors and usually in many places - at module level and dispersed over printed circuit boards ect. You wouldn't want to replace accumulators with capacitors because of their size per capacity unit. As the accumulators evolve so do the capacitors, but until now there's no technology which unites the good features of both (small size, low weight, low inner resistance, high capacity).

On the other hand I fail to see any reason to assume that the capacitors in the 787s failed to do their job. What failed was the accumulator ...

You are referring to supercaps. They work well for short term energy storage as they have a non trivial self discharge rate. Supercaps also have a lower energy density than even SLA batteries. So there would be a significant weight penalty.

Depending on the application, one of the best alternatives to battery energy storage would be a flywheel. I haven't worked the numbers for some time, but they might be better than LiON. Definitely better than NiCad.

A flywheel would be useless for an APU start source, where one would expect to be able to 'back start' an airplane that had been parked for a few weeks. But for standby power (to replace the forward EE bay battery), they would work well. The flywheel could be spun up during ground operations prior to flight and kept topped off by main generator power until a complete electrical system loss required their power.

The APU start issue could be addressed by figuring how often an aircraft is parted long term where ground power (maybe just a couple of forklift batteries wired for 24V) can't be brought up to cherge the APU start flywheel. It may be a non issue for many operators.

Yep. Same disciplines as when I was working on the 747-400.

The question will be: Does the FAA put on blinders and look only at the battery? Or do they chase this problem all the way down (up?) to the root cause?

To be fair, fixing the battery issue should be sufficient to earn the 787 conditional airworthiness. But I wouldn't be surprised to see a battery fix and then the regulators politely shown back to the Boeing gate.

They can bird dog the problem all they want, they are still dependent on Boeing. Ultimately, as you say, they will see the door. The problem with a battery only solution is that there is such sloppiness in the trail, confidence won't come back. The FAA? Last in, First out.....

Doesn't the 787 have two Flywheels OEM?

How many cells?
 

Thanks to angels and Ye_Olde_Pilotfor the Boston APU batterypic.

Last week on one of these threads, I speculated that the APU battery, and presumably the main elec-sys one(s), would each need to consist of between 6 and 8 cells. I wrote:

“The [GSYuasa] datasheet shows that each cell is rated at 65Ah, with a nominal voltage of 3.7V.Can someone confirm that the low-power DC electrics are the standard 28V DC,implying a 24V battery? If so, would they need a battery pack consisting of 6, 7 or 8 of these cells, connected in series? Each cell is 2” thick, and weighs just over 6lb.”

Looking at the picture, can any sparks expert now say how many cells?

Discussions about what was displayed on the passenger displays aside...... why in the hell was the IFE system even powered during an evac due to fire???????

Surely the aircraft should be electrically dead ASAP after landing??

Were they unable to shut it down?

@admin
 

You got a problem with your forum's software logic ... My messages are being delayed because I'm new, but after having them reviewed by admin they appear at the location where they would have appeared if they had been shown right away. Only that in the meantime other people have already writted a lot of other messages and nobody is going to look back up ... So I'm essentially writing in vain. Makes no sense that way really :-(.

It was not a full 'emergency' evacuation as I see it - just wanted the pax off quickly and could not wait for steps.

They seemed to evacuate the airplane leaving the APU running. Kinda strange. If they could not shut it down that in itself is a problem.

Lithium Batteries?
 

I have not really followed the development of the 787 but I am surprised to learn that the FAA allowed Boeing to install these batteries on this aircraft. I know they are not the same ones that power our electronic gadgets but Lithium batteries are nasty once they start to burn. Why do passenger flights require all spare lithium ion batteries be carried with your carry on on not in checked bags?

UN 3090 batteries must be labeled as CARGO AIRCRAFT ONLY when carried into, out of or through US airspace. My company has specific procedures that must be followed when ever these batteries are carried on our cargo fleet. So if Boeing can design an aircraft with these batteries then why bother with all the other regulations on safe transport of same?

:confused:

Having an aircraft battery bolted into place with monitoring circuits attached is a little different than some SLF throwing a couple spare laptop batteries in his checked bags along with god-knows-what else. Or a couple thousand of them in a box, that some forklift-driving yahoo has poked a hole into, then buried in a pallet of who-knows-what else and left in the sun to cook for a couple hours. Still, I take your point.

It has been said on one of the other threads that this aircraft has significantly higher electrical requirements than other aircraft of similar size. Could it be that when all the design work had been done for all this fancy extra kit, the only realistic battery power to handle the task was from Li-Ion or other similar high energy system. ie a fait accompli.

Were other bigger, heavier, lower energy systems looked at with the associated weight/space penalties or was it a question of 'if you want all this kit you need these batteries'?

Is that how we ended up with Boeing going to the FAA and saying 'to make this work we need these batteries but if you aren't incredibly careful how you look after them, they will burn at 800-1000 degrees C. So the FAA turned round and said "OK we'll let that slide if you can demonstrate that such a fire can be contained long enough to get the aircraft on the ground!

It is Boeing designing the aircraft, not the FAA...


In the US, the FAA can only review and validate what has been submitted. It is illegal in the US to design by review.

As noted, the FAA cannot tell Boeing they cannot use LI batteries, if Boeing has submitted all of the required data to show that the issues have been met.

Now, as we can see, the FAA is looking at the Boeing process, from manufacturing down/up, to review if the process and procedures Boeing uses need improvement.

This is not simply about showing Li batteries are safe, this is about Boeing proving their process is safe...

"AD Requirements
This AD requires modification of the battery system, or other actions, in accordance with a method approved by the Manager, Seattle Aircraft Certification Office (ACO), FAA."


This is a rule. The manager of the FSDO (Flight Standards Division Office, Seattle) will be the interface for Boeing's work. Boeing must submit a method, (design) for approval. No more cocktail parties, golf games, or monogrammed towels.


This can flexibly be defined as Design/Build, an accepted method for manufacturing. This is a good system, and the possibility for great success is at hand.....

Plugging the bleeds and taking off generation mechanically is a good idea. Composite is mature, and Boeing is the best in the business. And the 787 is a beautiful bird.....

FlightPathOBN

And that which isn't validated goes back to the drawing board for redesigning, re-testing or whatever and ultimately needs to be validated before it either sees the light of day or is discarded.

And yes, it is all about the process. Li-Ion batteries are neither intrinsically safe nor not safe. It all depends on what you intend to do with them and how you look after them. At this stage there is little that can be done about what is done with them so the solution lies in how you look after them.

This is of course assuming that the problem is systemic to the electrical systems on-board and not just down to a couple of duff batteries that slipped through QC.

How many cells?
 

Chris Scott:

Probably 7 cell´s in series. Why?

A LiIon cell typical max charged voltage (4,2 v ea.) for 7 cells means 29,4 V. I´ve heard of a Diode in the circuit (in series, dropping the voltage to ~ 28 V).

Nominal voltage of 25,9 V (7 x 3,7V). Less the Diode drop means ~ 24 V.

Subject to confirm it. Anyway, 6 cells is not enough and 8 is excessive.

(May be multiples of 7 if series parallel config. was used, with higher risks) Will comment on that in a subsequent post.

(8 cell arrangement could be used if the circuitry is designed for). I would design with 7 cell. Quite compatible with aircraft traditional batt. Voltage.

Capacitors (condenser) role in circuitry
 

FlightPathOBN:

In special cases the mentioned supercaps act as storage. They are costly and NOT SUITABLE to replace chemical batteries. An example: The payphone used in our country has a one Farad supercap "to help" power the microprocessor circuitry under "long line condition". When the telephone line is near the nominal limit between the Exchange and the payphone.

The capacitors used in electronic circuit indeed stores energy but low figures compared to batteries. And the purpose is other.

In electricity they are used for other purposes but again, no replacement for batteries. Could comment further if asked to.

In an aircraft, capacitors NEVER could be used as a replacement for batteries. The same is valid for most designs.

Much less safe than lead acid batteries
 

Speed of Sound:

Quote:

---

Li-Ion batteries are neither intrinsically safe nor not safe.

---

AFAIK nothing similar to UPS flight #6 (a 744 at DXB) happened (very probably) associated with lead acid or even NiCd batteries.

The experience so far is that these batteries are FANTASTIC. (small, light, efficient, etc.) BUT INFORTUNATELY EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.

A critical device. Will comment later on that.

Number of cells
 

Looks like the battery had 8 cells, according to this graphic accompanying a story in the Seattle Times. In another forum someone who seemed to know says that both the APU start battery and the main battery are the same unit.

http://seattletimes.com/ABPub/2013/01/17/2020149445.gif


Lithium-ion batteries pack a lot of energy — and challenges | Business & Technology | The Seattle Times

@Diamond Bob

Looking at the High-Res Photos from the National Transportation Safety Board you could better count them. It seems really to be 8 batteries in a row.

Looking at the the batteries product page you could find the information that Thales will integrate GS Yuasa batteries into the DreamLiner.

Digging deeper into their LVP 10 65 Data Sheet sheet, you also will find that thai are using Lithium Cobalt Oxide as cathode material. Okay, understandable if you look at Battery University's Types of Lithium Ion sheet. Its the
It's got the highest energy density (and maybe the edge on the market - so not so easy to replace).
But looking deeper into their Snapshot of an "average" Li-cobalt Battery you will find safety of a Lithium Cobalt battery is not their highest inner value.

It seems like they were really trying hard to safe weight. I hope not on the cost of security. (I wouldn't like to breath neither Lithium (which might make me a bit more happy:rolleyes:) nor Cobalt (you will find out on getting it into your lungs, yourself). Maybe the organic solvent smells & feels better. I hope it went well for the Boston and US passengers...

And, I hope it won't be Waterloo II for Thales and it won't get Boeings TraumaLiner.

Every time we get airborne in a powered aircraft, we are dealing with combustion processesses that are under careful control, i.e. the aircraft is dealing with fire under carefully controlled conditions. No big deal as long as the engineering is valid.

From the pictures of the battery case of the burned battery in the Boston fire, the case was not burned through although the battery was fully involved. This is indication that Boeing's design concept included an expectation that a fire might occur in the battery and that a concept was developed to mitigate and control the damage.

The design concepts must now be reviewed in light of current experience to make sure that all the design concepts were valid. It appears that among other things, the frequency of battery fires is well in excess of engineering expectations.

The engineering expectations that the design would be sufficient for a battery fire inflight also need to be looked at from the standpoint of adequacy for a fire on ground with the aircraft stationary. This is a more difficult case than the inflight case since the venturi system for exhaust from the E&E compartment would likely not be operational.

My limited experience of intentionally burning a small discharged Lithium cell phone battery left me impressed. The organic chemicals inside the battery are extremely flammable and the flare from the battery fire left me questioning whether or not I was too close to the thing at 5' distance. This was just a very small cell phone battery!

As a betting man, I'll bet that the issue with the battery is actually with the charging system and insufficient feedback from the battery to the charging system regarding cell temperature. The charging system should not continue to charge a battery that is moving in the direction of thermal runaway.