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Frontiers September 2016 Issue

Composite wings of 777X will be baked in one of world’s biggest autoclaves BY DAN RALEY | PHOTOS BY BOB FERGUSON SEPTEMBER 2016 | 09 he new Composite Wing Center in Everett, Wash., is so vast it could accommodate multiple T jetliner production lines, similar to what takes place next door in Boeing’s main widebody factory. Yet this sprawling facility will put all of its energy into fabricating carbon-fiber wings for the coming 777X. At 1.3 million square feet (120,800 square meters), the enormity of it—with the longest unsupported ceiling beams found anywhere and one of the world’s largest autoclaves, per Boeing—left an indelible impression on employees at its spring grand opening. Among them was Mohssen Mohaghegh, who has spent much of his three-decade Boeing career assessing wing strength and durability. As he sat under the 27-acre (11-hectare) roof, surveying the 1.1-million-pound (500,000-kilogram) autoclave before him, the stress engineer from nearby Mukilteo came to the following conclusion. “I look at this building, and these surroundings,” Mohaghegh said, “and I see the factory of the future.” That will entail creating and curing eight separate wing parts for the 777X, which will have a wingspan of 235 feet (71 meters), the longest of any commercial or military airplane produced by Boeing. Fitting these pieces into the Composite Wing Center’s dark blue, cylindrical autoclave won’t be a problem—it can hold more than 200,000 midsized pizzas stacked atop one another, or 21 pickup trucks, according to Boeing calculations. “The recipe, for what you have to bake it at and for how long, is a family secret,” Tiffany Lundberg, Composite Wing Center building integration manager, said playfully. Actually it’s no secret that the operating temperature in the autoclave will be about 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 Celsius), topping out at 450 F (230 C), per Boeing. The autoclave is one of about two


Frontiers September 2016 Issue
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