Overheating Dreamliner battery hit 660 Celsius

[bar1]

Poor Dreamliner, just can't catch a break...

http://news.yahoo.com/overheating-dreamliner-battery-hit-660-celsius-japan-govt-114034948.html

Quote:
The battery in a Dreamliner jet that spewed white smoke last month could have reached temperatures as high as 660 Celsius (1,220 Fahrenheit).

The figure came in an report released by the transport ministry after Japan Airlines grounded one of its Dreamliner planes when the smoke was seen outside the cockpit window during maintenance at Tokyo's Narita airport.

 

[JerryBob]

"The US aviation giant admitted last April that despite months of testing it did not know the root cause of the battery problems, but rolled out modifications it said would ensure the issue did not recur."


Seems to be a bit contradictory. You don't know the RC, but you have fixed it by encasing it?

 

[JHZR2]

We often see melted current collectors in failed Li-ion batteries. Often Aluminum, which is where the 660C comes from.

Electrolyte is organic liquids, so it is a VOC fire, probably 8-900C in reality.

 

[andrewg]

Boeing doesn't make the battery...a Japanese company does. The encasement was made to ensure that any overheating would be contained within the unit and not cause safety issues. Millions of dollars and a variety of Boeing engineers as well as the battery engineers from the manufacturer could not pinpoint the exact cause, but have narrowed it down to what most likely occurred. Plenty of info is out there to read about the whole thing.
The aircraft is watched more closely than any other by the media as well. Even a missed flight (normal thing with all aircraft) is brought up in the news like the aircraft is a disaster. No doubt it's had reliability issues. Hopefully it all get's ironed out. In the mean time the next two aircraft Boeing is really banking on is the 737MAX, and the 777X.

 

[fdcg27]

Boeing didn't make the battery nor a lot of the other parts of this aircraft, they bought them.
The thing is that Boeing is the type certificate holder and is therefore the party responsible for any failures.
The airline didn't buy the battery from the Japanese maker, they bought it from Boeing as a part of the completed aircraft they purchased (actually, they leased it).
The 787 has been produced in sufficient numbers and has been in service long enough that I'd expect its teething problems to be largely resolved, especially after last years's prolonged grounding.
I hope that this proves to be the case, both as a Boeing shareholder and one who wants to see this advanced design fulfill its promise.
I'm confident that the Max and 777X rollouts will be a lot less dramatic.
Otherwise, I'll be banging my head against the wall while asking myself why I didn't dump my Boeing shares at a handsome profit when I had the chance.
I have confidence in Boeing, so I'm sitting on my holdings.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Boeing didn't make the battery nor a lot of the other parts of this aircraft, they bought them.
The thing is that Boeing is the type certificate holder and is therefore the party responsible for any failures.
The airline didn't buy the battery from the Japanese maker, they bought it from Boeing as a part of the completed aircraft they purchased (actually, they leased it).
The 787 has been produced in sufficient numbers and has been in service long enough that I'd expect its teething problems to be largely resolved, especially after last years's prolonged grounding.
I hope that this proves to be the case, both as a Boeing shareholder and one who wants to see this advanced design fulfill its promise.
I'm confident that the Max and 777X rollouts will be a lot less dramatic.
Otherwise, I'll be banging my head against the wall while asking myself why I didn't dump my Boeing shares at a handsome profit when I had the chance.
I have confidence in Boeing, so I'm sitting on my holdings.

Just to clarify....I realize that Boeing is 100% responsible for any failures or design flaws incorporated into the 787. I wasn't meaning my post to sound like an excuse....it was more of a simple illumination of the issue. Some folks think that an aircraft is made in a factory and assembled there and that all the parts are pretty much fabricated on the spot or at least by the plane maker itself. I was just trying to point out that while Boeing is responsible for the battery issue (as they have owned up to it as well), the company was supplied the battery and given assurances as well as documentation that it would function as promised. It seems it did not....but they've done as best they can to remedy the situation I would say (and so did the FAA).

 

[fdcg27]

It seems such a pity that there have been so many problems surrounding a mere battery pack, even if it is a large one with a lot of capacity.
OTOH, the A380 had a flawless EIS after Airbus figured out how to rewire the early production builds and then went on to suffer an uncontained engine failure on a passenger flight (yeah, I know that Airbus didn't build the engines) and was later found to have widespread wing rib cracking as a resut of the manufacuring proceedure used, which I gather involved forcing the skin to fit over the ribs.
It is early days for the 787 program and Boeing will have learned a great deal about assembling a fuselage of fully built barrell sections as well as integrating supplier subassemblies on a larger scale than they've ever tried before.
This will be a seminal program for Boeing, and maybe a more important one for the future than anything since the 707.
The Max and the new 777 models are mere developments of well proven aircraft that Boeing understands completely and Boeing was always very good at developing existing models.
This will not be the first development version of either frame.
This will be the third major development of the 737, not counting the stretches of both the NG and prior models.

 

[Cujet]

The good news is that the lithium battery technology is maturing rapidly due to automotive market needs. There are some very interesting alternatives (still lithium) that significantly improve performance and reduce or eliminate the overheat/fire risk. Both MIT and Oak Ridge are working on the problem.