[00:00:04] >> I'm chair of the Woodruff school of mechanical engineering and I want to welcome you to the twelve. I believe it is. Earl gig and I'm a lecture on innovation a lecture started I believe in one thousand nine hundred was a result of an Dolman. Given by Harold Guggenheim or was a member of our class of thirty three and some of his family and business colleagues are here today to daughters sitting down here. [00:00:36] Raise your hands if. John and Julie hire. Johnson John a son in law and Gerry need he who is C.E.O. and president of Baldwin technologies company which was the company that that Harold led for many many years. Kind of thing. Up until two years ago from the kind the lecture started. [00:01:08] Harold chilled up at the lectures. But because of health reasons. Last year he wasn't able to come and unfortunately you're not aware of and I have to tell you that Harold died early October this year just short of ninety six years old and so we would like to show you a brief. [00:01:29] Slide show of Carol's life particularly focused on his interaction Georgia Tech and let me tell you just to enter Harold before we see this that I particularly enjoyed what I just learned recently at a memorial service for Harold. Told by one of the folks the very excellent job of the company Baldwin technology was actually started my girl's father in the most men about. [00:02:00] I don't know nine hundred eighty. Nineteen something on their start in their garage and Harold claims to be one of the first employees. He was the payment asker he said it was seven years old his mother was the treasurer and each Friday she would write out a check for the payroll give the check to him in a brown paper sack and he would ride his bike to the bank cash the check get the cash come home. [00:02:26] Give it to his mother so they could pay the employees. So he was there from day one. They never entrusting story about Harold was there when I first met him I found out he grew up in Baldwin Long Island. That's rather origin of the name of the company came from and I said Harold why earth did you come to Georgia Tech in one nine hundred twenty nine. [00:02:47] Is it all worth it was obvious I did twenty nine Georgia Tech one the Rose Bowl. It was the only goes to go. So you came here and he was involved in lots of activities was a student leader and then had a very strong career with a number of companies meeting mainly with Malden technologies and was a real inventor right through his last days. [00:03:11] So if we could see this very slide show before we get on to the company and a family to thank for putting that together. Had a big impact on Georgia Tech that will go on forever because he can dial this lecture series as well as some other activities here at Georgia Tech. [00:05:34] Today's lecture is to begin to as Mark drinks comes and Mark is in charge of major portions of the seven hundred seven Dreamliner which is the commercial aircraft it's billed as an all composites one a very significant leap forward in innovation and commercial airlines. Marc grew up in Maryland graduated in aerospace engineering from R.P.I.. [00:06:05] And went to work for the Boeing company. He was also one of the first. Members to people to go through the leader's manufacturing program at M.I.T. It was sponsored by the Boeing company to go for two years in that program and get both a master's and. Material Science an M.B.A. from from MIT for a while he worked with Boeing and in Philadelphia at their. [00:06:34] Helicopter facility for five or six years he was in Huntsville Alabama in charge of a portion of the Boeing activity in connection with the space station and more recently has been at Boeing in Seattle first concerned with the. Cruiser aircraft and more recently in charge of a major portion of the seven eight seven Dreamliner aircraft. [00:07:01] I give you our checks. Thank you doctor. Good afternoon. But it's a great pleasure in a really great privilege to be here at Georgia Tech today to give this year's Gaghan Heimer lecture on innovation. That's happening because Dr Weiner told you those newest airplane the seven eight seven Dreamliner. [00:07:38] I want to talk about three major items here this afternoon. I want to talk a little bit about customers. And really that's about how we combine the marketing configuration development and technology development activities to determine what our customer really needs. What really brings value to the airline customer. [00:07:58] I'll spend a lot of time on a subject that I hope a lot of you are interested in. And that's composite structures. For commercial aerospace clearly we believe that it's the future of commercial air space. I think after the last couple of months. It's very clear that our competitor air bus has come to the same conclusion. [00:08:17] And then finally I'll talk a little bit about collaboration and to me this is really been the most interesting part of developing an all new airplane really even more so than the technology of the new business model that we're using to collaborate with our partners around the world. [00:08:35] So I get a few a few examples there. Runway. A couple things before we get started. I just like to talk a little bit about a few of the programs that I've worked on a Boeing. And it's not because I think you need to know about my career. [00:08:54] I think it's because it makes a really important point about just how big a deal this new airplane program is so this is a the first project I worked on fresh out of Dr Louise. Had proper design class A P I. I went to Philadelphia at Boeing helicopters and immediately went out to Seattle to do some airfoil test. [00:09:16] And there transonic one tunnel. For what was then called L.H. X. which became the sixty six Comanche. So this was one thousand nine hundred three. I think it was about two years ago after over twenty years of development that this program great technology of composite structure was finally canceled where the army finally decided this was not the airplane that they needed so where about twenty years of development. [00:09:47] This was the second program which at that time was called J.V. X.. Now the V. twenty two This again was one nine hundred eighty three. F. Well testing in that same transonic wind tunnel. And now with any luck early next year. The first V. twenty two actually be fielded by by the Marines. [00:10:09] So that's about twenty five years from the time we started this program to actually getting the product out into service. And so great technology a lot of work here has really helped in terms of developing composite structure technology but it's been about twenty five years. Then I did a stint on the space station. [00:10:30] Another very long development cycle program. Station started in one thousand nine hundred for a Space Station Freedom under Reagan. Then again with some luck with the shuttle in another couple of years. This will be completed this was actually the view from the shuttle after the last mission. So then again about twenty five years from the start of the program to actually getting it completed and in use. [00:10:55] So I meant to do is just contrast that with what I've seen now being at commercial airplanes for the last five years. So many of two thousand and one I came out to Seattle as the technology manager. For the plane we had just announced the Sonic Cruiser. I don't know how many of you are familiar with it but this was to be. [00:11:17] High subsonic airplane very near Mach one about fifteen percent faster than the commercial jets today. We studied this really intensely so that was that was middle of the one and the end of two beginning of zero three after just extensive work with the airline customer we actually hired. [00:11:39] Fleet planners from the airlines we did routes and lots of technology development work I'll talk a little bit about that in a moment but after about eighteen months of intense effort. Became really clear that that was not the airplane that the customers needed. That they really needed to apply the technology to greater efficiency. [00:11:58] And that's what started the seven at that point seventy seven which is now become the seven eight seven. So the seven eight seven that was say January of two thousand and three and we are a few months now away from rollout that will fly for the first time in August of next year and it will be in revenue service or Airways and the Chinese airlines taking people the Olympics by two thousand and eight. [00:12:26] So just about five years. From the start of the program to being into service revenue service with the airline customer and within about a year from there it will achieve the highest production rates ever for plan. So remember Comanche about twenty years to figure out whether it was the right airplane the twenty two about twenty five years now to get out in the field. [00:12:54] And here commercial airplane five years from start of the program to being in service flying around the world at production rates. So just a just a huge difference and I think a really important point in terms of the impact that this program an Airbus is competitor which they just announced within the last week is going to. [00:13:17] For a composite structure. I think all of you who've been involved like I have with a lot of military programs with a composite structure this is really a new world. That the pace that we're moving at the infrastructure that's been put in place around the world is just really staggering So that's part of the message I hope you get as we go through the presentation because it really is really significant for the composites industry. [00:13:43] So just a little bit about customers. What drives value for our customers pretty straightforward. Capability payload range. Speed for a commercial airplane cabin comfort and features and then cost. And a big piece of the cost is the price of the airplane up front. And historically composites have been relatively expensive. [00:14:07] So a big part of this equation was can we get composites down to a cost competitive position with respect to aluminum. So this was an opportunity the way we in commercial Look at look at the payload ranges generally seats. Versus range and this shows a lot of Boeing airplanes and this is really the market. [00:14:29] Right right out here. The seven six seven is all around the world are getting ready to be retired. They're approaching in some cases exceeding twenty years old. They don't quite have the range or speed. So this is this is the area which represents just a huge market opportunity so this is when we were looking at the Sonic Cruiser and at that point we were actually carrying the seven eight seven as a reference airplane to understand what would it mean if we applied all this technology to get efficiency rather than speed. [00:15:04] So we spent a lot of work as I said over that eighteen month period to try to understand what's really the value of speed. What does it really bring to our customer it increases productivity the airplane can make more flights. Can get in just under curfews at airports around the world. [00:15:20] So it's a more productive ask that. Maybe passengers will pay a little bit more although the airlines really have a tough time squeezing more money out of all of us. But there was a potential to get a premium. Whereas for efficiency it's all about operating cost and fuel efficiency as well as the price of the airplane as well as environmental performance which is becoming more and more important. [00:15:43] Now locally for us both of these airplanes really require the same technologies the same technologies to make this huge very thin weighing. Just a massive weighing very large weighing very thin to get up to these high subsonic speeds without a major penalty the same technologies or the technologies we need for a very efficient airplane. [00:16:07] Being able to manufacture very large composite structures we've also got a very thin weighing on the seven eight seven. And being able to do it at a cost that the airlines could afford was the key. So we were able to do all the same technology development work whether it would be applied for speed or for efficiency. [00:16:27] Well of course nine eleven happened. Fuel prices have continued to go became very clear as we work with the airlines that are now officials say was going to win out. So they're clear right airplane was the seventy seven which is now become the seven eight seven. So when and as technology does this is fuel consumption per seat versus fuel consumption per trip which is the way we generally look at a fish and sea of airplanes. [00:16:54] Is take you from the best twin engine airplanes today that's the seven six seven and the A three thirty for air bus and give approximately a twenty percent improvement in a fish and see which is just huge for the airlines. I mean that's a huge number in terms of an efficiency improvement over one generation of aircraft. [00:17:17] See that the four engine planes the seven four seven The A three forty now the A three eighty. Are just inherently less efficient. And they're up here current points here and the seventy seven here this kind of shows you where that efficiency comes from the engines are continuing to get better so specific fuel consumption continues to improve our economic tools just to continue to get better and better. [00:17:43] So we've got a very significant improvement in performance. And then most of the rest of this is all about composite materials. And so that's what I'll talk mostly about at this point. So this point we had just decided to apply all our technology to efficiency rather than speed. [00:18:02] We were still looking at a whole range of concepts for the airplane. So we looked at our call it a fairly conventional skin and Stringer design and composites and we actually built some very large prototype articles as part of technology development. We looked at the best aluminum talk a little bit about that in a minute. [00:18:25] Really applying all of the lessons we've learned over forty or fifty years and building aluminum airplanes that absolutely get. The best performance and lowest cost for an aluminum structure. We went to the composite sandwich and we also looked at some of the fiber metal laminates things like the glare material. [00:18:44] Which is a hybrid of glass and aluminum which the A three eighty is using extensively. As well as some work that was actually done here at Georgia Tech for a titanium graphite hybrid called Tiger. So we looked at a whole range of technologies we also looked at a whole range of processing techniques. [00:19:05] So this was an example where we used resin and fusion process to build some cab sections. So after all of that work. The big. And this was early two thousand and three was when we take the big step and go to an all composite construction so this is kind of the history of composites. [00:19:28] In commercial aerospace you can see early on there were some composites used mostly in secondary structure. The A three hundred has a composite tail which unfortunately was in the news a couple of years ago because they had some problems with it. The triple seven has a composite. So the horizontal and vertical stabilizers on the triple seven graphite composite essentially the same material that we're now using for the seven eight seven. [00:19:59] And then the A three eighty is advertised somewhere around twenty percent by weight of composite some of that being that glass. Aluminum hybrid glare. So this point there was a real competition going on. In competitions a wonderful thing. This was actually a slide I showed at a materials conference just before we made the decision but what we did at this point was we had gone out to the aluminum companies and we had basically work backwards and determine what we believe they needed to be able to provide to be competitive with composites what kind of properties mechanical properties would they need to get because the A little ones are continuing to get better and better the alloys are getting better and better. [00:20:44] Typically it's a trade off between toughness and strength where we really needed were improvements on both. And so we gave the aluminum companies the target for their next generation allies and they actually came pretty close. And we are using some aluminum on this airplane I'll show you the numbers and some of the advanced developed as part of this competition are now making it into the airplane. [00:21:08] So this was this was really how we looked at the overall trade space. Cost versus Wade. Advanced composites typically have been higher cost. So they've been higher performance by higher cost and had lots of good military applications but have had trouble getting into the commercial world eleven is on the other hand lower cost a little bit less on the performance side. [00:21:33] So at this point it was pretty clear that we could improve the cost position and we have with composites with some of the advanced processing techniques. Some of the advanced alloys were making the aluminum is better in terms of structural performance and we have targets that we have developed working with the airline customers. [00:21:52] In terms of weight and cost for the airplane that said we needed to be better than. So and that early work was really figuring out how we move from today's numbers down to the target. So during that eighteen months or so we did a lot of work on a lot of specific technologies and this is really kind of where we ended up. [00:22:15] That we made great progress with the aluminums we could get down to the cost. Target but just couldn't get all the way to the kind of performance that we needed. We had a little discussion of what it means to be first to market. And we're going to be first to market now in a bus is about five years behind us now in terms of the competitive product. [00:22:39] But when you have a five year lead you have to make sure your technology is going to stand up for at least five years. So we really needed to push the technology to make sure that we stay ahead of the competition and there just wasn't any way to get there with the aluminum. [00:22:55] The other really important point was that was all about the technology for this airplane in this model. But when we look at all the trends and so showing the cost over here in performance over here. It was clear there that going forward just fundamentally the aluminum technology is more mature. [00:23:15] So even with some of the nanotech not. Gee advances and some of the things going on with. The fact is it is a more mature technology and so the data is pretty clear that that these carbon fiber reinforced composites are going to continue to outperform in the future and in fact the margin between composites and aluminum is likely to grow. [00:23:38] So this time it was really clear to us that the right answer was to go with composites for the structure as well as the fuselage. Now having made the decision and continuing to work. It's really clear that there's a lot of other big benefits of composites. So this chart shows maintenance cost over time for a typical airplane. [00:23:59] And you can see there's there's a lot of reductions here up front for a lot of reasons not just the structure some of the systems improvements we've made. But there's a big improvement out here. Relative to aluminum airframe is all about corrosion and fatigue. So there's a really big benefit in using composites for airplanes because they don't corrode if used properly and again if designed properly. [00:24:26] They have affectively and infinite fatigue life. So just the big advantage in terms of maintenance cost long term for using composites on commercial airplanes. So many other advantages that you might not think about as well one of our marketing. Points are these larger windows. So if any of you flown recently. [00:24:48] That's a whole lot bigger window than you'll see. On planes today. Part of the reason we can do it is the fact that we're using composites. With the ability to design around these windows in detail we can pay almost no penalty at all for using the larger windows. [00:25:08] It's on the order of fifty to eighty pounds across the entire airplane to go to larger windows using the composite. Structure would be significantly more for an aluminum airplane. So minor things to your cabin altitude is a big deal. One of the reasons why you feel so bad after a long flight is because of the altitude in the cabin to keep the difference in pressure inside and outside to a minimum. [00:25:35] So you get less fatigue as you cycle through flights typically the interior of an airplane is about an equivalent eight thousand foot pressure altitude so it's like being on an eight thousand foot mountain for your trip we actually did studies human studies in. Metric chambers where we actually put people. [00:25:58] Put different humidity levels different pressure levels and it turns out your body really wants to be at about six thousand feet or less. So again having the composite fuselage without the fatigue issues you have with allowing us for almost no weight penalty at all to move that pressure down closer to. [00:26:17] To a nominal pressure. So it's a bigger data pressure. There's more stress on that fuselage but because fatigue is not an issue we really don't pay a penalty that would cost something like two thousand pounds to get the same capability in aluminum airplane. Also humidity is a big deal to get if you're on long flights one of the reasons other reasons you don't feel good it is because it's very dry or can get very dry with a little bit of airplanes you really don't want to humidify much again because of corrosion concerns. [00:26:49] So we're able to get higher humidity levels with much less concern in terms of corrosion. So lots and lots of other benefits of having the composite fuselage structure. Well has it gone really well for any of you who is going out in the marketplace with commercial aerospace this is just a phenomenal launch its Any new. [00:27:16] Plane launch in history. So we right now are affectively sold out through two thousand and thirteen. So the first airplane goes into service in May of two thousand and eight. And if you want a seven eight seven today the earliest you can get it is about the middle of two thousand and thirteen. [00:27:33] So just absolutely phenomenal response from the market in terms of the airplane that we're offering. So this is what it looks like had some discussions also it wasn't all composite airplane really it's not one hundred percent composite most of what you see looking at the airplane is in fact composite so all of the skin is stronger of the fuselage than virtually all of the outside is composite but we still have we still have a we still have a fair amount of titanium in fact we're using some very advanced titanium that were developed in Russia for many of the big components the landing gear components and some of the rare very heavy settings. [00:28:20] On the wing. So some significant titanium we still have some still and others but but fully fifty percent by weight of the entire airframe is composites and again all of the major primary structure you see in terms of the skin stringers. And the actual torque box for the wing. [00:28:41] So I'm just going to run through. Some slides and the process we've gone through in developing the seven eight seven early on we did a lot of testing about some of the other issues you worry about other than just straight structural issues. In a number of these were big concerns big concerns to the airlines of a concern for the regulators going in not really knowing that much about how composite materials will react. [00:29:10] Burn through this is a very strict requirement for airliners so that in the case of an X. then. Of a crash that you won't get a fire burning into the fuselage so people have enough time to get out. So there was a lot of concern here and what would happen when you subjected composites to these tests and what we found is actually this test at the end we had to stop the test because it exceeded the requirement and was continuing to perform. [00:29:42] The I think it's a two minute requirement before you actually get a flame burning through with a fire of a certain intensity. So what happens with the composites is it actually burns all the resin so the matrix burns away very quickly but the basic fibers remain. And actually provide enough of a barrier to continue to keep the flames out for a very long period of time so the end of the day there's big concern and actually a pretty significant advantage for the composite structure same sort of thing would damage tolerance. [00:30:14] I think the biggest concern the airline customers were had and a lot of people still have. Is this idea that composites are kind of brittle. You know that they fail suddenly. And it's just not true. The systems that we use are tough and systems. One of the I think the most significant demonstrations we did with our airline customers we want to AROUND THE WORLD and a group of us took an example of fuselage panel. [00:30:42] You know it's about eighty thousand sticker so typical gauge and we took a panel in the composite material we visited all of the chief engineers for structures of the major airlines and we took a hammer and a punch with us and we took these panels out and just had them go to town with a hammer. [00:31:02] First with the aluminum structure which immediately gets damaged that you'll have to repair. And then turn them on the composite panel and the stuff is just really really tough it was a great graphic demonstration of these guys that really turned them around. I mean they would pound on this panel for for ten or fifteen minutes before they would finally get the kind of damage that you would need to make a repair on. [00:31:26] So and actually damage tolerance is a big advantage of the composite structure. The one area where still has just a basic inherent advantage is with me in lightning. The fact that aluminum is conduct of. Is a very convenient. Property in terms of lightning strike and in me. Particularly for the for the tank the fuel tank the wing on a commercial airplane is a big steel tank and aluminum naturally conducts for instance a lightning strikes conducts the current over the surface of the wing and is very effective at keeping it out of the tank. [00:32:08] Whereas with composite structure it's much less conductive. In fact for all your researchers out there a conductive resin would be a really good thing to have. Because that's one of the real battles we designing the system at the end of the day. Now we've got designs it works just fine but it's not simple. [00:32:31] So again it's the one area where just kind of fundamentally there are advantages to aluminum. OK The next step then after doing some of that preliminary work is we did a lot of work building manufacturing demonstration articles just to demonstrate that the basic manufacturing techniques would work so. [00:32:51] This was an example of one of the fuselage sections that was made at the spare Arrow systems used to be Boeing's Wichita plant until about two years ago when it was sold off. So they're making the what we call the forty one section which is the cockpit section. [00:33:08] Also made a series of other large fuselage barrels. It's a little tough to tell here but. These are actually manufactured as complete sections. So actually one of the differences if you go out on their buses website with some of the detail they just announced a couple days ago on their computing model is their ass are going to use and all composite fuselage. [00:33:34] But they're going to use a catalyze design so we'll have four panels with rapture. That are fastened together. We think this is a big big advantage the simplicity of having a complete barrel of the tooling that you eliminate all the assembly operations that is just a really big advantage in our opinion so these are made as complete barrels tooling is collapse from the inside extracted and you effectively have what would normally be thousands and thousands of parts and all the women on their plane as a single integrated component. [00:34:11] So just big big advantages in terms of cost as well as weight. Not having a fast and all those sections together is a lot more structurally efficient method. Lots of big scale up challenges. So this is an example here. The A.T.R. which is a project joint project between it's a small regional jet. [00:34:35] Where they've used some very innovative technology this is a one piece Coke box which is used for the horizontal tail of the A.T.R.. So this is an example of talk a little bit at the end about collaboration. This is an example where the collaboration between and its partners is really really big dividends to have the experience of building they've built about one hundred fifty of these and they're in service this basic technology. [00:35:07] Whereas we have Boeing had the experience much larger experience. Building the triple seven tail which is very close to this box. And so between the two of us with their basic knowledge. The technology in our basic understanding of the scale of this is able to very quickly take this box from and scale it up to this one for the seven eight seven. [00:35:30] So just get I think a great example of how this global partnership is paying benefits. We then moved on into the formal structural certification program and we use what we call a standard building block approach where you start with lots and lots of small coupons. So we've tested something on the order of thirty thousand coupons at this point and support of the sort of occasion to elements. [00:35:58] There's been two to three thousand of these element level test the next one is assembly so this is about a twelve to fifteen foot piece of skin. And we've got a two hundred or so scale panels for the wing and fuselage as part of certification and then very large components pieces of the fuselage pieces of the wing there are about a half dozen at this scale and then we've got a complete static airplane which goes through a static test ultimately to cellular and then a fatigue airplane that we continue to cycle through even after the airplanes entered service. [00:36:36] And then we've got a total of six flight test airplanes. Other big difference between a commercial program and a typical military program. Is other than the static and fatigue test airplanes which are just basic structure. And eventually get taken the cellular every one of the flight test airplanes gets sold to the customer. [00:36:57] So there is no prototype. You know from the start. The airplane that were assembling right now the first goes through flight test then it goes through several months of refurbish taking out strain gauges and accelerometers and refurbishing it. And then it gets delivered to the customer. So no product. [00:37:17] Mediately into serial production. So just some shots now about the test activity. And again that the scale of this activity to me is just really mind boggling when you look at the amount of structural testing that's been done around the world. So this is an example of some testing done by F.H. which is the partner that builds the center of the wing. [00:37:42] And it's a facility in Japan. It's a little hard to see but. This is a similar one this is. The joint between the outboard wing and the inboard wing at the side of this was done. Actually by JAXA which is the Japanese are prevalent of NASA in Japan. [00:38:00] So lots and lots of very large scale testing in Japan. This is another example. It's not much for scale here but this is the joint between the skin panel the composite skin panel and the landing gear fit one of the landing gear fittings. There's another one this is combined testing it is Nagasaki facility. [00:38:22] You have to stare at those a little while to see the size of the people here. I mean it's really really big big structure with just a massive loads. This is an upper panel you can see the access holes here and also just lots and lots of testing through a number of sites in Japan. [00:38:42] This is an example some of the fuel testing fuel seal testing so the weighing on a commercial airplane is a big fuel tank. And so we take a full scale section of the wing. And go through a whole round of tests are sure that it's that seal integrity is maintained. [00:38:58] This is an interesting one. This is the fix or the test for both combined pressure and mechanical loads and you can't really see it but there's kind of a pilot shaped piece of the fuselage in here so you get pressure loads as well as mechanical loads. In order to get all of the testing that had to be done in this very short period of time we actually had to build duplicate. [00:39:24] Fixtures in three different locations we actually use the Russian. Location Sagi one of the one of their research directorates and they built and we tested. In Russia at our developmental center in Seattle and then also who is a partner on the fuselage Center in Dallas. So we had three of these identical around the world to do the testing required on the fuselage. [00:39:52] This is the the big strain survey test article for the wing. Again not a good scale here this is full scale in about half span. So it goes from the centerline of the fuselage to about. And you get a little better feel for the scale here I mean these are the. [00:40:13] These are the titanium landing gear fittings that interface with the wing again from some of the discussion we had at launch these are some difficult design challenges where you get a big metal structure bolted into the composite material. And it's a little hard to see it's really hard to see here but they're just a mass of actuators here this test puts about a million pounds of load into the fittings in the landing gear area just just massive massive loads you can just kind of get a feel for the complexity of this test just find a way the most complex complex test at this scale of a composite structure ever done. [00:40:54] So this is going on in Seattle right now we completed an entire set of strain surveys where we make sure that all the analytical tools we're using for design are accurately modeling the structure and it's going through life testing now. So it's cycling through eventually two lifetimes. At which point in about August of next year we'll take it up to ultimately. [00:41:17] And then eventually as hard as it goes to break it. OK So that was some of the testing not just like the show a few slides about getting ready for production. And again here the amount of infrastructure that's been put in place around the world for this project is really really pretty staggering. [00:41:41] This is this is all brand new facilities Bell specifically for this airplane. The and the child facility here. It's really hard to see the perspective that it is just a massive building I go in there two or three times a month. And I'm still absolutely amazed every time I walk into a factory. [00:42:02] I don't have any pictures of the inside because we're still still holding a lot of that pretty close. Given the competitive situation with their bust but it is just an absolutely massive facility you can imagine these are one piece can one hundred feet long and about twenty feet wide at the root. [00:42:22] So moving those around the factory really drives some massive massive infrastructure. Also lots and lots of equipment. So these are the other claves these are all pitchers every one of these is now up and running and building parts. But probably six of the biggest autoclaves in the world put in place specifically for this airplane so this is that I may try autoclave so you can see one hundred foot long by about twenty feet in this. [00:42:54] Also lots of lots of capital equipment lots of tape layers lots of fiber placement machines for those of you who know something about composites manufacturing. We've got this is just a shot. This happens to be the wing skin but it's also driven just a tremendous amount of development work from machine tool suppliers this. [00:43:16] Is the biggest round of orders these guys have gotten in a long long time. So just a tremendous amount of activity in improving the technology. And in providing production equipment around the world. Tooling just a huge tooling job I think we basically monopolize the world supply which is a high in nickel steel which is the material of choice for the tools for these composite parts has a very low cost fission a thermal expansion so it's very close to the C T E or the composite. [00:43:55] But it's expensive and we're using a lot of it. This is one of the manuals for the aft one of the sections of the fuselage. Here's one of the manuals Environmental for the wing See here it was actually machined shipyard which was the only place that had a machine actually machine this size and kind of see it here on the machine here being loaded on to the boat to make the trip to from his factory. [00:44:34] OK So those were those were some of the preliminaries getting ready for production getting factories in place getting equipment built getting tools built and now we're into actually making hardware. So we're at a point now where we're building the first airplane. This actually shows the the center of the Lange. [00:44:54] This is the wing box as it goes through the fuselage without the top panel on it. So this is all composite material here we do have some green stuff there's a little bit on some so some of those advanced alloys that were developed to try to win that competition for the airplane are finding some use. [00:45:11] There are some areas here where the composites don't give you a tremendous benefit. Using the advanced aluminums using a high speed machines can really get very cost effective. So we still have some aluminum. This is an example here this is the big titanium part that basically attaches to the fuselage very important joint obviously one you don't want. [00:45:37] So this is probably the most complicated titanium machine part ever built and it's a little hard to tell here it's about eight hundred feet. It's got two sets of flanges here is really really complicated. So there is still advanced titanium there is still advanced aluminum but most of it is composite This is a picture just from a few days ago. [00:46:00] This is lifting that's the entire center section of the wing. Being lifted out of one into its final assembly. It gets attached to this hardware which is the wheel well for the main landing gear basically. In about four weeks from today or so it will be completed and flown from the Japanese site to a pretty assembly site in South Carolina. [00:46:28] Here's a shot of the wing. See here this is the actually the first wing that will fly an airplane number one panel. This is showing the bagging the structure getting ready to go into the autoclave. And this was the pre-production article that we built so we built one pre-production article that gets cut up and destructively inspected. [00:46:52] To make sure all the processes are working. But again you can kind of see the scale here it is very very large integrated composite parts. And then the fuselage barrels all of our major fuselage partners are now building either the first airplanes barrel or the pre-production article. So all of that equipment qualified and is in use building hardware. [00:47:18] So that's kind of a very quick view of what it takes. From a technology standpoint to get the hardware built and I could just end up with a couple of the new business model that we're using So this is a list of all of the suppliers we call them partners now. [00:47:38] Who have contracts directly with and this might look like a big but you couldn't have used small enough on previous airplanes to get the list of all our direct contracts on one page. So this is actually a very reduced risk of tier one contractors that we're working with as partners. [00:47:58] This is a map it just kind of shows you where all those partners are around the world and the ones here that are highlighted are the ones that provide the major pieces of structure. Fully integrated with all of the systems so most of the other suppliers here supply system components actuators radios antennas to the seven major volume partners to integrate all of that structure at their site and then ship those very Don't ship they fly those very large. [00:48:32] Fully integrated pieces of wing and to our Everett site in Washington where they get assembled. Our goal is within three days. Not quite at that but the overall is those fully integrated large composite structures. They have flown to Everett and are put together in three days rolled out to paint the production flight test and deliver to the customer. [00:49:02] So this shows who the partners are but the point here is the other big difference is we've really fundamentally moved to a different business model affectively on all of our previous programs the major build partners. Actually we're build to print. So we own the design we did the detailed design sometimes with some of their their help. [00:49:26] But we did most of the design and then handed that to the partners who built the hardware. So this is an entirely different business model here. Each of those individual partners those seven partners are responsible for the sections of the airplane do the detail design work themselves. So I'll show you a little bit more about how we work with them to do that better a really fundamental difference and the way that we're operating. [00:49:53] The other thing that this drives is a really unique logistics plan. So again if any of you followed the industry you saw what their bus needed to do to move the pieces of their huge A three eighty around Europe. It was a huge huge undertaking to move the stuff on surface over water on trucks. [00:50:17] And so we've taken a different route in order to reduce the transportation cost but more than that to reduce the inventory holding cost. We've developed a version of our seven four seven to move these parts around a huge cost having all this hardware on the ocean and it's really staggering when you think of what ocean transport does on some of our existing programs and would do here you've got as many many airplanes at any point in time. [00:50:46] Floating on the ocean. Whereas here within hours literally from the time that the hardware is built it can get to our facility immediately get assembled and put through flight test and deliver to the customer. So there's a couple shots about how you turn a normal seven four seven into that thing on that cartoon and. [00:51:08] It's a Believe it or not this is what you do. It's not rocket science. And so you take off and this is our. Evergreen which is a company out of Taiwan. So we contracted with to purchase the museum forty seven. Cut the top. So this is a picture from about two months ago when we entered in a flight test. [00:51:36] So it's been converted we remove the other ones are can't see it it's on the other side there's a huge hinge. Series of hinges in there and the entire tail swings open and these very large fully integrated composite sections. And you get the sights in Japan and Italy in Texas and get flown to Seattle assembly site. [00:52:04] So a couple of slides on how we organize these teams this is the overall schedule so this is that five years from the time we decided we were doing a seven eight seven. We didn't actually formally launch the program in fact until here when we had a certain number of customer commitments lined up. [00:52:24] But here's the entire flow that gets us to certification and delivery in May of two thousand and eight. So a couple of things that we did along this process and some of these some of these might sound obvious some of them might sound a little unusual but at the end of the day. [00:52:43] These kind of activities ended up being really important. In terms of assembling the global team and being able to work effectively with all these partners around the world. So the first thing that we did this was when I first joined the program is the entire leadership team of the program the program manager and each of us responsible for pieces spent about six months essentially traveling the world. [00:53:06] So we traveled to every major Aerostructures supplier in the world that had any shot real shot getting on the airplane for a gram. So we. Their factories made a real point of needing to be there in their factories with their people as we got to understand what their capabilities were and whether or not they were going to fit in the program. [00:53:30] So a large chunk of time a serious commitment to really understand by going there being on the ground at their site to figure out who we wanted this journey with us did some of the things that were a little unusual for us and. Things that we normally wouldn't take a group of engineers through. [00:53:50] I made a comment earlier today at lunch about the importance of language training and being able to operate globally as an engineer so we actually offered classes to many of our engineers in my teams it was Japanese an Italian. And a lot of people thought that was kind of a waste of money. [00:54:07] Not that important kind of joked early on and as it's turned out. It's been really really valuable. Just having that level of knowledge for a few of our key engineers as we're now working together with these partners across seven eight nine thousand miles. Having these people with some language skills understanding the culture of being able to work globally is just been a huge deal. [00:54:32] We had some team building activities. My favorite was here it was are we kind of our beer and soccer challenge. So this was this was a point early in the program. This was a section of one of the developmental spars a very early and we were working with our Japanese partners and I think there's a picture here. [00:54:59] This is a picture of our first production spar huge piece of composite structure. So you can see very big I mean this is the spar that carries a lot of loads very thick so difficult part to make. As with a lot of these parts. It's not that tough to make these buy here. [00:55:17] I mean there's a one hundred fifty plies here. If you want to take the time to do it by hand you can do it but to be able to automate the process very quickly lay the material down form it in a way that doesn't give you distortion and wrinkles is a big deal. [00:55:32] So we spent a lot of effort up front with our Japanese partners and we got to a point early on where it was absolutely critical that we get some nondestructive inspection equipment and specialized ultrasonic testing equipment to be able to inspect the hardware and our partners told us there was no way to do it in less than six months couldn't possibly get the specialized head developed and get the. [00:55:57] Get all the gantry system set up to carry and deliver in less than six months or so so we initiated our beer and soccer challenge we said that we had a bowling side would focus on developing the ultrasonic head. And they would focus on the gantry system the robotic system would carry it up and running and we do it in six weeks. [00:56:19] And if someone got there in six weeks if the American team got there in six weeks and the Japanese didn't bears and the Japanese got there and we did and it was a socket. So what happened at the end I mean it sounds funny it sounds kind of trivial but the fact is it was really really valuable in terms of building the team. [00:56:38] And in fact here. We had beer and because we both made it. We in fact delivered the system both the head and the carrier in the six week time frame. And we're able to continue on with development and inspect the parts so. So some good team building activity. [00:56:58] There isn't anyone up here that again a lot of people kind of snickered at we also had some people from their mighty help us the MIT Japan program in terms of giving some seminars on just business processes and doing business in Japan some of that thing but the other thing. [00:57:16] We did was we actually hired a cultural anthropologist Again not something we have really really used to doing this actually doctor is a French cultural anthropologist. He's actually consulted with a number of the car companies and others but he has some theories and this is kind of a layperson summary of his theories and what he calls cultural archetypes. [00:57:43] So these are kind of differences are seen amongst cultures just based on tradition and other cultural elements. So you can argue a lot about this and we did You can claim they're all just stereotypes they're not really anything more than that but but from an engineering perspective as engineers and a lot of you are engineers. [00:58:07] What really has become clear is that the way engineers typically approach problem solving is different depending on where they went to school culture they grew up in. And how their businesses and companies are oriented so. For instance when you look at how he is defined around the world. [00:58:29] Dr says there are some differences in Japan. The idea of quality is all about perfection. So quality is perfect. Germans have a very similar archetype to them. It's about that. Here is to standard. The Italians are a little bit different. Italians sort of the archetype is design. You know more focused design. [00:58:55] And you get down and you can see some of the some of the other ones get down to the USA. How do we define quality Many of our engineers tended to find quality as it works. That works good enough as quality. So NASA has sort of of the. [00:59:17] He uses the characterize the archetype in a philosopher so you can see you know to show philosophy being you know hey go there is no freedom without order you get down here in the USA are philosophers Nike the quote just do it. So you know it's kind of humorous and a lot of us didn't put much stock in it but when it came down to it. [00:59:47] There was really something here and I'll give you one last example and then I'll be finished. This is an example where also working on the spar early on with our partners. So it became very clear that we were having big problems we were making lots of little little coupons lots of little elements. [01:00:09] But a data point we didn't have a design we didn't have tooling. And it wasn't working that well. So the engineers got together I said hey there's no way we're going to do this without making some parts. We've got to start making some parts in our M.H. I kind of par say well yes that's true but we have to build tools you have to design the parts build tools and then build parts that will probably take six to eight months before we can get these large tools built. [01:00:38] And of course our engineer is using kind of the just do it. Philosophy. Came for us and now we don't need to do that we can make some guesses on the design we can get some tools rapidly made we know some shops. We can get authority to buy the tools because we know we have to do it. [01:00:56] In a Japanese paradigm that was very different. It would take lots of consensus decisions by various levels in the organization to commit those kind of fun. So anyway the short of it was our guys got together and said we'll go build some parts and so a little over a month we had builds and huge in. [01:01:18] And we built our first bar. Didn't look very good lots of problems. And so we modified the process and we build another one. And we literally had half a dozen of these huge sparse segments built within about the first six weeks after after turning it on and one day the the senior engineer from N.H. I came into my office and he was shaking his head he said he just couldn't understand what we were doing. [01:01:47] He said you know. You're making all this hardware no one's looking at it. You can't do this is crazy. We've got to carefully review the process we've got to do inspections we've got to cut up take cross sections take measurements understand the process. Our guys were very much and just do it. [01:02:07] The issues we were facing were already at a level that typically in our process we would say we'll figure it out later we had lots of other problems you see those huge wing skins. We had lots of problems other problems to address. So our typical mode would have been to put it aside and move on to the next problem. [01:02:26] And then right now as we're in production. We'd be struggling through the last piece of that problem. Because they caused us to slow down to stop to actually look at what we were doing they sent about fifteen quality engineers in section in the things themselves actually developed a fairly robust model of the mechanics of defamation that we were saying why it was happening and within one more part it was perfect. [01:02:50] Perfect One more now we had to stand down for about four weeks to actually look at what we had built. Incorporate that do it again. So I would contend that neither one of us could possibly have gotten to where we got to alone you know we would have done what we normally do we would have moved on to the next problem and we'd be suffering as we're ramping up to rate here to work through the last of the bugs. [01:03:17] They wouldn't possibly have been able to pull together the process of building the parts in the first place but with the cooperation between the two where able to do things that again we just would have been able to do separately so to me that's just kind of the example of how this new model working globally together is a really big deal. [01:03:37] You know at the end of the day and I've got this is going to build a composite airplane. It'll be a good airplane. They'll figure out most of the things we figured out but really doing it cost effectively doing it as quickly as well as you can I think is all really about how we're collaborating with these partners. [01:03:57] So where that. That's all the material I had I hope there are some questions. Thank you thank you. Michael. That we would like you to use. So that we can get a record of the Q. and then his son in the film here. Who would have been at the residence for the composites and how long did that take who's developed the resonance. [01:04:53] Well the particular system that we're using is from Tor in Japan. There's really three big players in aerospace composites the site tech Xcel and tore away. And so we've affectively gone with the sole supplier for our material from Tor. So those those guys typically develop their own resin system. [01:05:17] This one of those are very similar to the system used on the Triple seven. So we've made some incremental improvements to the basic resin system that was used on the triple seven but it's very similar and I'm going to read here and how much of the bending of the wing is as opposed to the loading basically all the loading. [01:05:58] So there is pretty much straight so that is one feature of this airplane that really look that's an actual When you look out the window. That's what you will see it's actually not that much but it is more that's about one hundred twenty inches at the tip. And a triple seven which is a little bit longer spin about ninety five and cruise or so and it turns out that actually through here it's not that much different but it is them significantly more outboard so. [01:06:44] So that's all that's actual loading of the wing and that is what it will look like it is more than a typical airplane wing design operating life of the Dreamliner in terms of number of years. I wish of flying. Take offs and landings. And how does it compare with the ship of sound. [01:07:23] It's generally similar to triple seven. And it actually varies a little bit depending on the missions and the rest but it's basically it's easier to talk in cycles than yours because again it depends on the missions. I think the the top number because I'm sure I'll be right there is very very comparable actually to the triple seven. [01:07:53] Although the bottom line is with all those composite material it will last significantly longer because of the properties of the composite their performance and fatigue the lack of corrosion the likelihood is that in fact the overall structure will be better. There are metal parts still embedded in there and they are sized sort of as we would typically size aluminum and parts which would limit the life at some point but it's pretty comparable here. [01:08:29] So how do you design something that one does or design you know because just because one of the problems is facing is because it isn't everything but people are going to go inside to some of the matching to get some good good question. Couple couple pieces of the answer. [01:09:17] A very important part of this process I didn't talk about was this one right here which we call the joint development phase. So it was really critical that we had all the team members in one place early on in the development process so we had we had all of our partners with us in Everett Washington for that period of time during the last of the configuration of development work and starting in the detailed design so that as one piece. [01:09:45] The second piece which is what Airbus is really been struggling with. Is that we dictated everything done in a common system with a single database. So all of the partners use the same design to look at the five from the so all the data is kept in a single database a common server in Everett. [01:10:09] So all the design remains integrated part of the problem Airbus has had with their wiring is there different sites within your tween U.K. Germany and France design the wire with different design systems and different versions of design systems and in many cases kept that designed and separate databases until very late in the process so that the wire design wasn't necessarily consistent across the partnership and none of that was necessarily consistent with a structural design that was done. [01:10:40] Partially a separate database so those are kind of the big differences in how we've operated and how we're trying to manage it. Here again. One other thing which I also knew to do to visitation was that you said that it was doesn't have a kind of the village does have a problem that it was not deep it to be a little big that it would it was going right. [01:11:07] So there was a problem with it and landing on to which I know clients who did not have you kind of. Everyone interested in. And it was the people playing them so that again thinking interesting because these Didn't this is one of the most important thing to catch the last for the question Have you talked about a hijack hijacked How do you how to make the airplanes hijacked. [01:11:41] Well I think some of the measures are taken already obviously with the cockpit reinforced cockpit doors and the rest of it you're getting pretty close. I mean there are things that we are working and there are some obvious things you can do if you want to do it would effectively preclude hijacking at some point it starts to be. [01:12:07] It starts to introduce more risk into the total operation than it's worth which I personally think is kind of where we've got to at this point. So we have we actually are working with security and others on elements of the design to make it more robust but it's pretty robust as you address the manufacturing cost difference between the two composites versus the old aluminum frame where you have a similar mine. [01:12:38] Now you just want to. Yeah well I can't I can't quote numbers. For competitive reasons but the chart that I showed where the cost of manufacture of composites is now basically crossing over. I think is pretty pretty accurate though in fact as we're getting smarter and smarter about this and getting into production. [01:13:07] I think it's going to come down more quickly even than we had projected I mean as an example that one piece fuselage eliminates. Just thousands and thousands of fasteners and assembly operations so. So although the basic material is a little more expensive. Although we have over doubled the world's supply of these materials just due to this airplane and the price is coming down and has come down significantly because of that the material cost is still a little bit more but the assembly savings more than offsets it. [01:13:45] So we clearly believe that the takeaway looking out over the next few years of production that we will come down to cost levels much lower in fact at the end of the day than a comparable aluminum airplane and we have to by the way for the airlines to be able to afford these airplanes and finally to start making some money. [01:14:06] Our manufacturing costs have to come way down. I'm interested in the end of life for this airplane. Given that you are using many new materials. What do you what is Boeing's plan or any even suppliers plans for recovery reuse of these materials for proper disposal. Yeah there's a lot of work going on right now for end of life in what you do. [01:14:32] I mean there's lots of there's lots of good ideas. There's lots of things you can do in terms of you know everything from grinding up the composite material and making playgrounds out of it to all sorts of things the fortunate thing is we have a little bit of time because there's going to be a while now. [01:14:55] The fact is I just saw for some reason one of the air lies is actually retiring a triple seven one of the initial triple seven S. And so we are because the triple seven has a composite you know we'll start to get into that but it's going to be a while and so we're very actively working it I mean there really isn't any magic there's a lot of things you can do. [01:15:17] With the materials and we have a little bit of time to to work through the details. I was really interested in your story about taking the samples says a potential customers and bashing of hammers and impressed that you said that the composite was much more difficult to damage but if it does get damaged. [01:15:45] What about the comparative difficulty of making a repair on site. That actually we've worked very hard with the airlines to make sure that they don't see any increase in the cost of repair. So for instance we've designed all the structure so you can do a bolted repair it actually has cost us a little bit of weight because there are places in the airplane that allowing you to bowl a repair does actually drive the design. [01:16:13] So you actually have to add material to make sure you're able to make a board repair but we thought it was important particularly in transitioning airline customers into use of the material to allow that option so in almost all cases they can use effectively the same repair techniques they've used their better repair techniques. [01:16:34] Because in some cases you just don't want to slap on a little bit of this great composite structure and have it start to corrode and fatigue and all the rest of it. So there are other repairs they can do and we've also initiated some maintenance programs where we take more responsibility for the maintenance too so that also plays into it but the simple answer is they can use the same repairs they're familiar with. [01:17:08] We are going one on one on the wing and you know I just want to know if you could comment on. On the applicability of seventy seven technology to a future airplanes and Boeing is considering of the else to plane like the white one in the white three which is smaller. [01:17:25] For the narrow body and the larger wide body and suchlike complex How much does the technology carry over that sort of thing. How do you know about why one that was supposedly secret there's there's a lot of work going on right now looking at a future replacement for the seven three seven a smaller airplane and the Airbus A three twenty. [01:17:53] And there are some interesting scaling issues with composites as well as with the systems architecture a lot of these don't necessarily scale easily particularly down so they do scale we are working on them but there are some unique issues as the application gets a little bit different size just friends as the structure that size by minimum gauge you know you get down to some thickness that you need for things like hail damage and other things where even if structurally You don't need it for static loads or for Teague loads for things like hail damage you do or incidental damage the more that you have can can limit the benefit of using composites in some cases so. [01:18:45] So there are lots of scaling issues we believe right now from everything we've seen that they do scale of the point where this is the material that will be using but we continue to to work the trade studies and in general in terms of scaling up that there are there are many issues. [01:19:08] I think it's pretty it's pretty straightforward. So you mentioned under strict evaluate. And testing the views on some of the people duction models. How much has that changed when you go into production pieces in fish airplanes. There are right now actively do one hundred percent inspection of everything in production. [01:19:34] Now there are some things which you can't inspect because of access issues and so those are ones where we do extensive destructive inspections upfront and process verification to make absolutely sure there are issues but in general we do still one hundred percent inspection of everything. Now I think that that will change. [01:19:58] You know right now some of the sensitivities history is probably not the time to push it too hard but ultimately as everybody gets more comfortable with the processes and the kind of consistency that we're getting and we are getting just extremely consistent and the reasons we want as a supplier is because their real strength is absolute consistency we get very very consistent material from Torah. [01:20:24] So I think as we go through we will move more toward toward audits and away from one hundred percent inspection but right now there's lots and lots of Quitman lots of big water squirters and tanks around the world that are used for inspection the way you mentioned lightning strikes gave me the impression that this was an ongoing problem for you. [01:20:50] I wonder if you could tell us how you dealt with that or how you're planning on dealing with that and also I was wondering if buildup of static electric charge and various parts of the airplane was the central problem. Statics static electric charge is a potential problem clearly. [01:21:08] And I wouldn't call it an ongoing problem because we have the design solution has been validated to work. It's it again there is a little rocket science here but it's it's mostly fairly well understood the real trick is in how you apply design and elements cost effectively you know there have been composite airplanes flying around not big commercial jetliners but for a long time and so it's fairly well understood what you need to do or can do to address the issue. [01:21:45] It's getting that done cost effectively which has been the biggest challenge. So we have the design solution which works very well and in fact we're very confident with the design solution that we have continue to work to make it cheaper. You know there's always opportunities to eliminate ceiling and you know other elements that will make it cheaper without sacrificing safety but it's just it's inherently an area where the materials don't function as well. [01:22:23] And so that's the reason that's the reason why I mention it very much Mark. As the thank you for graduate we can't let you get away with some memorabilia here. Soma golfing or tennis or what I really do out to you you were just. Mechanical engineering school teacher. [01:22:52] Something to sit on your desk so the people who come into the scene will recognize you and the chief engineers at Georgia Tech. You can you can open it. If you want to. It's not going to jump up and all jump up. The. Little video. And if you would all join us for a reception out in the lobby. [01:23:48] And at least some of you will have an opportunity to continue to discuss. Mark thank you very much for talking incredible.