The Dreamliner's Continuing Woes

[Guest fountainhall]

There have been a few threads about the Dreamliner, but in view of the FAA grounding last week a new one seems merited.

 

Not having heard anything about progress in identifying the problems that have caused the grounding (although some comments about the batteries are quite alarming), I checked over on flyertalk to see what frequent flyers and others are saying about it.

 

One flyertalk member had actually made a post prior to the grounding about his being “concerned and definitely not comfortable” about being a passenger on the upcoming flight booked on a Qatar Airways 787 and hoping the fleet would be grounded.

 

Amongst posters, there is a mix of those who are concerned and worried and those who believe these sorts of problems are bound to occur in new aircraft.

 

http://www.flyertalk.com/the-gate/blog/13772-boeing-787-grounding-flyertalk-member-reaction.html

 

Somehow, I got on to this website. “Fuzzy Wanderer” is a regular traveller who is presently a software engineer. He has no specific airline experience, other than being a very regular business and family traveller.

 

He starts this latest entry with a caption that must already be crossing the minds of some in the industry, whatever their public pronouncements. I don’t agree with all he says, but it’s quite interesting reading.

 

Is the Dreamliner the new DC-10?

 

My opinion? There are far too many untested concepts and new systems and materials, new to commercial aviation, in this aircraft. Boeing was trying too hard to make it unique, to do things differently. Plus it has a horrible history of delays, in part from its globally-outsourced construction which had only final assembly at Boeing in Everett, WA and now also in North Carolina. Boeing has pulled back some of the global subassembly work and in other cases changed subcontractors because of the years of delays and defects.

 

I’m a software engineer, not an aviation engineer. Take that into consideration with my comments. But as a multi-decade software professional, I have seen too many “over-engineered” systems, too many attempts to use the latest trendy technology that on paper sounds wonderful, but has unknown systematic interactions when integrated into an extremely complex whole. I fear that some of that same excessive and unknown systematic complexity plagues this design . . .

 

The author then goes on to compare the Dreamliner with the ill-fated McDonnell Douglas DC-10.

 

Many high profile problems. Bad design choices, a failed cargo door that could blow open, a hydraulic system where one engine severe failure could take out all the hydraulic control of the aircraft, and some resultant crashes and miraculous partial survivals. The ticket-buying public, who usually does not care nor know what kind of plane they are on, became very aware of the DC-10/MD-11 and lost faith in it . . .

 

I think that is already happening to the brand new 787 Dreamliner. In part because airlines have been hyping that “we have the Dreamliner” . . . People know about the Dreamliner. People have been told to change airlines to fly the Dreamliner. People have heard how great the Dreamliner is for better comfort, lighting, higher humidity and cabin pressure for better breathing, bigger electrically-darkened windows for a better view (which don’t work!)

 

Now that they know about the Dreamliner, they are hearing of all the fires and fuel leaks and other problems. Yes, other aircraft have had teething pains. But not this level of hype along with it. Thankfully the 787 has not yet caused any fatalities nor even serious injuries, though likely some ankles were twisted in evacuations. But the flying public, and at least in the USA, the public in general, has become even more fearful and risk-averse than only a decade or so ago . . . We Americans have as a whole a lower threshold for “ban the dangerous thing”. I suspect the public has already had it with the Dreamliner. I suspect a lot of cancelled orders.

 

http://fuzzywanderer.com/2013/01/17/is-the-dreamliner-the-new-dc-10/

 

Whatever the findings of the FAA and other official enquiries, one thing most correspondents seem to agree on: the longer it remains on the ground, the longer it will take to restore that public’s confidence in the aircraft.

[Guest fountainhall]

Seems my post was out of date before I made it.

 

Yesterday’s New York Times confirms that the grounding will not be lifted any time soon.

 

The National Transportation Safety Board’s chairwoman, Deborah A. P. Hersman, said that the lithium-ion battery that caught fire in a parked 787 at Logan International Airport showed signs of short-circuiting and of a “thermal runaway.” That refers to a chemical reaction that begins to overheat the battery and speeds up as the temperature increases. But investigators do not know if that was the root of the problem.

 

“The expectation in aviation is to never experience a fire on an aircraft,” Ms. Hersman said at a news briefing Thursday afternoon. “There are multiple systems to prevent against a battery event like this.” She added: “Those systems did not work as intended. We need to understand why.”

 

Boeing 787s were grounded last week when a second battery problem prompted a 787 in Japan to make an emergency landing. The pilot reported seeing smoke in the cockpit as battery alarms went off. While there were no injuries in either incident, Ms. Hersman said, “this is a very serious air safety concern.”

 

The safety board’s technical presentation provided the most graphic indication to date of the severity of the battery problems. Ms. Hersman highlighted the gravity of the problems more bluntly than other federal officials have done. She repeated three times that fires should never be allowed to occur on an airplane, and pointed at the failure of the safety systems that Boeing had put in place.

 

The battery damage was so significant, she said, that investigators were having difficulty retrieving information from the battery control system . . .

 

“It means that the 787 is going to be grounded for an indefinite period — whether that’s two months, four months or six months, the 787 is not going to get back in the air soon,” said Scott Hamilton, managing director of the Leeham Company, an aviation consulting firm in Issaquah, Wash. “They made it just real clear today that they haven’t a clue as to what happened, or why.”

 

. . . Ralph J. Brodd, a battery expert who runs his own consulting firm in Henderson, Nev., said investigators still cannot rule out a relatively simple problem like a manufacturing defect. But he said the new and more advanced control circuitry that was intended to keep the battery from overheating could also be the source of the problem.

 

“What they had in place didn’t work,” he said.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/business/the-ntsb-sees-lengthy-inquiry-into-787-dreamliner.html?hp&_r=0

 

And if that is not concern enough for Boeing, there is another report in the Seattle Times about a lab test of the new lithium-ion battery which had devastating consequences.

 

In 2006, a devastating lab fire in Arizona showed just how volatile Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner lithium-ion battery can be if its energy is not adequately contained. A single battery connected to prototype equipment exploded, and despite a massive fire-department response the whole building burned down.

 

On the finished Dreamliner, however, Boeing is confident its engineers can safely harness and contain that energy.

 

The 787’s battery-fire protection regime aims both to make a catastrophic blowout impossible through multiple independent controls and also to compartmentalize any less serious battery meltdown, venting smoke outside until the high-temperature reaction burns itself out.

 

That approach was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with special conditions attached. Yet the All Nippon Airways (ANA) 787 emergency last week suggests Boeing's containment plan — even if the engineering is technically solid — may not work for airlines in operational terms . . .

 

The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) raised concerns about Boeing’s battery-fire-protection plan in the course of the FAA certification process. During the public-comment period in 2007, the pilots union stressed that “a fire from these devices, in any situation, is unacceptable.”

 

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020199686_787batterysafetyxml.html?syndication=rss#.UQDUkzkk_GI.twitter

 

Who'd be a Boeing stockholder now?

[KhorTose]

Who'd be a Boeing stockholder now?

ME--check back in a year--ye supporter of airbus.

[Guest fountainhall]

Ha! I don't have stock in any airline manufacturer. And I'm no great fan of the Airbus product line (esp. the A330 and A340 - much prefer the 777), although I do love the A380!

 

But if – and I accept it is a big ‘if’ – the Dreamliner is indeed grounded for a few months, or worse still requires substantial modification to rely less on those batteries, then airlines will certainly be reevaluating their fleet programmes. The boss of Qatar has already said he buys planes to fly, not to be placed in museums.

 

The problem for those airlines is that some are already short of planes and are cancelling a great many flights – e.g. ANA – and there is no similar plane available. The Airbus competitor aircraft, the A350, won’t start to be delivered till late 2014 and its order book will be full for the first few years.

 

For Boeing, there are bound to be law suits for damages resulting from airlines not being able to use the existing planes, and very probably yet more damages resulting from the delay in delivery of future aircraft. That will represent a ton of cash!

[Bob]

I'm going to ask the obvious (and probably ignorant) question.  Why not, at this stage of the game, simply change out these auxiliary batteries for old-style batteries that have flown for decades without problems?  I'm guessing that we're involved with the same voltage output although I'm not so sure that the space afforded for these batteries on the Dreamliner is big enough for the larger old-style batteries. Whatever is the fastest fix, Boeing needs to do it yesterday.

[Guest fountainhall]

I am way out of my depth in understanding the present problems with the batteries. From what I have read, the main difference is they are considerably lighter, smaller, pack more punch and can be fitted into awkward areas of an aircraft too small for the batteries in use on all other jets to date.

 

This article below makes it relatively clear that switching battery types is out of the question without a major redesign – and presumably without considerable additional weight which would reduce performance and thus have Boeing paying penalties to all users.

 

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in consumer electronics, as well as in some electric vehicles. But they’re not common to commercial aviation. Even though many Americans have these batteries in their pockets, briefcases and homes, it was a gamble to build them into the Dreamliner.

 

Lithium-ion batteries have had more problems than the bulkier, metal-based batteries used in older commercial jets. The same qualities that enable them to pack a lot of energy in a little space, recharge quickly and hold a charge also make them somewhat fragile. The larger they get, the less stable they become when damaged, overcharged or exposed to heat.

 

Tens of thousands of laptop batteries have been subject to product recalls due to the risk of fire. The Chevrolet Volt electric car got a black eye when its battery ignited after a crash test in 2011. A cargo of lithium-ion batteries brought down a 747 jumbo jet operated by shipping company UPS in 2010. The two pilots aboard were killed.

 

The Federal Aviation Administration recently put rules into effect that limit the transport of lithium-ion batteries in aircraft. The agency gave Boeing permission to use the batteries in its 787 only after spelling out conditions intended to ensure safety.

 

Boeing’s design for the Dreamliner took full advantage of the batteries. Most of the plane’s juice comes from generators operated by its jet engines. The batteries back up some systems and jump-start others, including the auxiliary power unit that provides lights and air conditioning in the cabin when the main engines are off.

 

The Dreamliner uses electric motors and electronic controls instead of heavy pneumatics to operate systems such as wing de-icers. That enabled Boeing engineers to cut out weight and bulk, which makes the new plane more fuel-efficient.

 

It would be no simple matter to redesign the Dreamliner without lithium-ion batteries.

 

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/Other-Opinion-Lithium-ion-batteries-a-work-in-progress--188247111.html

 

It’s interesting – I think – that some airlines now have strict rules for the carrying of spare lithium ion batteries in for example, cameras. On Cathay Pacific, I have to take out the spare battery from my camera case and ensure it is totally separate from the camera itself. Yesterday, CX posted a new notice on its travel advisory page which now states that spare batteries -

 

1. must be carried in the cabin

 

2. must have the terminals taped over

 

3. must each be placed in a separate plastic bag.

 

These conditions must surely indicate there is major concern in the airline industry about even the smallest lithium ion batteries.

 

Lithium Batteries

Last Updated: 24 January 2013

 

Lithium batteries may be dangerous and can cause fire if not carried properly. Whether a lithium battery can be carried by air or not depends on its configuration and its Watt-hour (Wh) rating (for rechargeable lithium-ion/polymer batteries) or Lithium Content (LC) (for non-rechargeable lithium metal batteries).

 

Please use the following table to determine if the battery you intend to bring is acceptable:

 

http://www.cathaypacific.com/cpa/en_TH/helpingyoutravel/traveladvisories?refID=fd7f216711249310VgnVCM1000000ad21c39____

 

[Guest]

If a heavier battery is fitted, it's not just an issue of whole vehicle mass - the structure around where the battery is located may need stress analysis and potential testing.

Then there's the simple issue of what may package in the available space.

 

Then, who knows what electrical changes might be required. If (for example), the Lithium ion batteries run at a higher voltage than the preceding technology, they would be looking at changes to batteries, charging circuits, harnesses and actuators.

[Guest timmberty]

ive got a 4 pack of AA batteries for my computer spare. who do i need to speak to about donating them ? dale1 maybe ?

[Rogie]

What a mess!

[Guest fountainhall]

ive got a 4 pack of AA batteries for my computer spare. who do i need to speak to about donating them ? dale1 maybe ?

 

Try Boeing at this contact from its website - 

 

100 North Riverside 

Chicago, Illinois 60606

Main switchboard: 312-544-2000 

[Guest fountainhall]

Last night I heard the former boss of Continental Airlines suggest that the problem could just be a couple of rogue batteries! Let's hope that's not the reason. If two batteries blow up in such a short space of time and only 50 of the aircraft are in use, how many more rogue batteries will there be once 1,000 or more are in the skies?

 

But it does lead to another question. How is it that after years of testing under all sorts of climatic conditions, after airlines like ANA have been flying several of the aircraft for quite some time, this problem surfaces only now? If it had in fact been two bad batteries in one batch, the authorities would surely have worked that out long before now.

 

I'm not sure this can really be compared to the wing strut hair cracks found on the A380. These were found on about a third of the delivered aircraft and so it was much more obviously some design or manufacture issue which was quite quickly resolved. Battery failures in just two out of 50 deliveries is clearly a different kettle of fish.

 

Some airlines must be working out worst case scenarios if this problem is not solved quickly. Many have planned the bulk of their fleet expansion around the 787, airlines like - 

 

ANA - 66

United - 50

JAL - 45

Etihad - 41

Air Canada - 37

Qatar - 30

LAN - 26

Air India - 27

Air France-KLM - 26

BA - 24

[Guest timmberty]

Try Boeing at this contact from its website - 

 

100 North Riverside 

Chicago, Illinois 60606

Main switchboard: 312-544-2000 

well i shan't be speaking to them again ... what that woman told me to do with my batteries was nobodies business .

very unlady like im sure !!!!

[Guest]

Such is the nature of technical investigations. 

In different product sectors, companies can have a million products in the market and the engineers could be trying to find the root cause of a 0.1% failure rate, for non critical failure modes.  That's the challenge.

They probably have many people already working on fault tree analysis, process audits & testing trying to reproduce the concern.

 

In the case of critical failure modes, an awful lot of work goes into preventing these in the first place,. That's why so many advanced systems are in the market on transport systems and they still have "safe" failure modes.  

 

For a plane that has so much new technology, the risk of something slipping through the net is always going to increase slightly.

[kokopelli]

Give me a 747 or give me death.

 

The 747 has been flying for 20 + years; has four engines and is not made of plastic.

[Guest]

The 747 has been flying for 20 + years

 

First 747 commercial flight in 1970, so 42 years?  

 

As for the number of engines, well obviously 2 engines are not going to fail simultaneously.... well it's  obvious until you look at that plane which ditched in the Hudson river, or the total loss of power of a plane approaching Heathrow.

 

However, long haul flights typically have 777-300ERs nowadays, which are outselling the 747 by a large margin.  I only manage to count one engine on each side, so that's clearly what the airlines prefer.

[Guest anonone]

2 engine planes are thought to be cheaper when it comes to maintenance costs.  Only half the amount of engines to look after, so I can understand the airlines looking to that with preference.

 

I do love the 747.  Something very graceful about the design.  Even though I have done it dozens of times, I still get a thrill walking up the stairs to the upper deck for my flights.  I am happy that the legacy is continuing with the new 747-800, though I wish more airlines were adding it to their fleet.

 

The 787 is certainly seeing some troubles.  In the long run, it could just turn out to be an early adoption issue...and the technology will become commonplace.  Hard to say for now. 

[Guest fountainhall]

I have also loved the 747 since my first flight in it in 1979.

 

The reason it's falling out of favour, though, is not just its age and the need for airlines to have an aircraft with slightly less seating capacity; it's precisely those four engines! When it was designed, twin engine jets were severely limited as to where they could fly. Depending on which part of the world they were being operated, they had to be within wither 60 or 90 minutes of an airfield - in case of one engine failing.

 

With the advent of much more powerful engines and a much reduced failure rate, the FAA and others increased the diversion airfield time to 3 hours, thus permitting transatlantic travel on the Boeing 767. In some cases, that can be increased to 4 hours. Four-engine jets effectively became obsolete due to relatively higher operating costs - except with the A380 behemoth which requires the additional power. The regulation also killed the older tri-jets and is the reason the A340 will not continue for much longer. 

 

As anonone points out, Boeing has tried to extend the life of the 747 with the new -800 stretched series which it says delivers better savings than the A380. Apart from cargo carriers, though, it has found few customers. Lufthansa has ordered 20, but so far only 16 more have been ordered by other airlines. As LH has discovered, the plane is over its weight specifications, and Boeing says it will take till some time next year to cut out that additional weight.

 

Hopefully, they will not be changing over to lithium ion batteries 

[Guest]

Hopefully, they will not be changing over to lithium ion batteries 

There must be over a billion li ion batteries out there in phones and I don't often read of fires from them.

Then for high current applications, the recent electric cars have Li Ion batteries. The latter look larger than aircraft batteries and I would imagine they draw more current.

What we have seen is a few isolated laptop battery issues, but I suspect some brands will have had no problems at all -showing what can be done. Now some aircraft incidents.

 

I'm not an expert on batteries, but imagine Li Ion could be made reliable enough for aircraft.

 

Also, with oil getting more expensive, we really need aircraft manufacturers to improve fuel economy, so the price of flying can be kept at a reasonable level. This needs advances in aerodynamics, weight saving and engines.

 

Right now, I'll just let Boeing fix their problems and carry on proving the aircraft for a few more years with other lucky customers before becoming a passenger myself.

[Guest fountainhall]

There must be over a billion li ion batteries out there in phones and I don't often read of fires from them.

 

Isn’t that the crux of the problem, though? At 30,000 meters up in the air, it hardly matters that there has been the odd battery fire in a laptop, mobile phone or electric car. It just needs one battery fire to down one 787 for the public’s confidence in the aircraft to plummet with it. No-one – not Boeing, the airlines, the FAA, the NTSC and other regulatory bodies – can now afford for that to happen. Hopefully a solution will be found that will make flying safer and cheaper (?) for all.

 

Back in late August 1998, I took a Swissair MD-11 flight from Zurich to New York. It was a great flight made even more enjoyable by the newly installed video-on-demand system. Just 10 days later, the return flight crashed about an hour out of New York with the loss of all lives . There had been a fire due to severe overheating of the wiring caused by the extra power required for the VOD system. No-one had foreseen this. It highlighted the problems of fitting new systems into older aircraft. The 787 just doesn’t have this excuse.

[Guest]

There had been a fire due to severe overheating of the wiring caused by the extra power required for the VOD system. No-one had foreseen this. It highlighted the problems of fitting new systems into older aircraft. The 787 just doesn’t have this excuse.

These aircraft manufacturers have massive offices full of people analysing this type of thing.

There is no excuse for a basic design error that would leave the wiring system undersized for the in flight entertainment demand, if that's what it really was (rather than a quality related issue). Even the most minor iteration would normally be designed, then subject to performance calculations & very carefully review before sign off.

[Guest fountainhall]

There is no excuse for a basic design error that would leave the wiring system undersized for the in flight entertainment demand, if that's what it really was 

 

Everyone would agree with that. But the Canadian investigators' report laid the blame for starting the fire on an electrical fault on the plane's entertainment system.

 

 

In the flight's final moments, the pilots reported smoke in the cockpit and dumped fuel in the ocean before trying to reach Halifax for an emergency landing.

 

"At a point along the flight route... a failure event occurred that provided an ignition source to flammable materials in the aircraft," the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said, noting that damage had been found to wiring on the plane.

 

"This set off an in-flight fire that spread and increased in intensity until it led to the loss of the aircraft and human life."

 

The type of inflight entertainment system used on board the MD-11 was installed only in Swissair planes and in a limited number of aircraft belonging to the Italian national carrier, Alitalia.

 

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Electrical_fire_downed_Swissair_flight_111.html?cid=3238752

 

That said, though, the Report also found that flammable materials and the lack of any fire-fighting equipment where the fire broke out (around the cockpit) had ensured the fire spread quickly. It also highlighted the "inadequate" aircraft certification standards for material flammability at that time. These have since been substantially changed. I assume the regulations re the use of lithium ion batteries will also change once they have worked out what went wrong on the JAL and ANA planes.

[Guest fountainhall]

According to an article in the latest edition of The Economist, it now appears that no fault has been found in the batteries which flared up on the JAL and ANA Dreamliners. Plus the rogue battery theory has been chucked out of the window as both came from different lots. If the fault was in the battery wiring, then any hope of quickly locating that fault literally went up in smoke, so intense were the fires. So -
 

 

. . . more extreme measures may be needed. Ultimately, that might mean abandoning lithium-ion batteries altogether and replacing them with nickel-cadmium (ni-cad) ones. That is what Cessna was forced to do in 2011 after the lithium battery in one of its Citation CJ4 business jets caught fire. Such a move by Boeing would keep the Dreamliner grounded for possibly as long as a year, as the plane’s electrical system was redesigned and resubmitted for certification.



Boeing could have avoided its current woes had it adopted ni-cads in the first place—or, at least, heeded recommendations for more stringent testing of lithium batteries made in 2008 by RTCA, an independent standards body that advises the FAA. Both Boeing and the FAA chose to ignore the tougher recommendations for fear of delaying the 787 Dreamliner still further. Instead, to save weight, Boeing gambled on the powerful lithium battery, knowing full well its risks. The irony is that, in doing so, all it saved was 18kg (40lb) per plane—about the same, one expert noted, as a single piece of baggage.

That’s the first time I have read that the batteries save all of 18kg of weight per plane! If that is in fact the case, I cannot understand why Boeing ever considered taking that risk!

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/01/lithium-batteries

[Guest]

According to an article in the latest edition of The Economist, it now appears that no fault has been found in the batteries

Suppliers often claim their parts are not at fault. That's a combination of culture and a financial incentive to avoid taking a share of the downtime costs.

[kokopelli]

When you consider the weight of just one of those lie flat seats in Business/First Class you wonder why Boening was trying to save weight on such a critical item as these batteries. Well, as long as they don't put the wine in plastic bottles/boxes that would be carrying weight saving much too far.

[Guest thaiworthy]

When you consider the weight of just one of those lie flat seats in Business/First Class you wonder why Boening was trying to save weight on such a critical item as these batteries. Well, as long as they don't put the wine in plastic bottles/boxes that would be carrying weight saving much too far.

 

Well said, KokoBattery. Not much diff. And I guess arriving drunk is much better than arriving dead.