The Technology Context – B101
787 Dreamliner
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is the new environmentally friendly plane built by The Boeing Company which is due for release this November. The plane was designed in 2003 and production started in 2006 in Everett, Washington.
The Dreamliner was designed to more efficient than all previous planes; this is due to rising fuel prices and the need to control CO2 levels. Early concept of the 787 included larger cockpit windows, a dropped nose and a distinctive "shark-fin" vertical stabilizer. The final styling of the aircraft was more conservative, the fin appearing visually similar to those of aircraft currently in service and the nose and cockpit windows were also changed to a more conventional form.
In 2006 Boeing stated that the 787 Dreamliner will produce 20% less CO2 due to the brand new technology that it possesses, this includes:
• Lightweight plane- 50% of the plane is made out carbon composites(Carbon fibre reinforced plastics) which keep it strong but drastically reduces weight and therfore can use less fuel to keep the plane in the sky.
• The most notable contribution to efficiency is the electric architecture which replaces bleed air and hydraulic power with electrically powered compressors and pumps and by cutting black boxes and wiring, Boeing promises an avionics suite 2,000 pounds (907 kg) lighter than earlier-generation systems.
• Improved engines- this includes the General Electric GEnx and Rolls-Royce Trent 1000, These two engines have new technology including a High Pressure Turbine Blade and a ribed titanium fan case which will enable the 787 to achieve an 8% increase in fuel economy and therefore less CO2 .
The Boeing mission is to provide aircraft that are more eco-friendly but also maintain the same distance and speed of today aircraft. Even though the demand for global air travel will mature over time, Boeing mission is for the 787 to provide a positive solution to maintaining the current harmful emissions from aviation to remain at a steady rate. Over the last 12 years the level of CO2 emissions has got progressively worse due to air travel and things like the burning of fossil fuels and other various things. Dr Mike Raupach from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and the Global Carbon Project stated in 2005 “Nearly 8 billion tons of carbon were emitted globally into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide in 2005, compared with just 6 billion tons in 1995”. This means he average growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions increased from 1.1 percent a year in the 1990s to a 3-percent increase per year in the 2000s. This is still an alarming rate and through pressure from national Governments and environmental groups has forced the aviation industry to have a look at their effect on the environment. They have pushed them to do something about it by constructing eco-friendly planes that can help reduce carbon emissions and to slow down global warming. As you can see in the graph below, shows that CO2 is on the increase and therefore something needs to be done:
There are some rivals in the aviation industry for an environmentally friendly aircraft, one is built by easy jet and the other is Airbus. The Easyjet has designed an eco friendly jet that is due for service in 2015 and has stated that it will reduce CO2 emissions by 50%. They plan to do this by Open-Rotor engines which provide unrivalled environmentally friendly abilities, due to their high propulsive efficiency. Both aeroplanes have used equivalent airframe designs, making advantage of the capability of a lightweight composite frame to reduce CO2 emissions and increase fuel economy. The Easyjet model may produce less CO2 emissions compared to the Dreamliner but the earliest time that it will be available is in 2015 and isn’t as popular as the Dreamliner because very few airline companies have ordered them yet.
The other plane in competition is the Airbus A350 XWB which is due release in 2013. This plane has been built to directly compete with the Dreamliner by being similar size and having the same maximum ranges. Even though the A350 XWB is out in 2013 it still won’t be as fuel efficient as the Dreamliner because the Dreamliner uses state of the art technology on the plane while the A350 XWB uses derivative technology taken from old models. So with both of these models not due to be in service for at least 5 years that means that there will no competition for the Dreamliner and that is why it has become the fastest-selling wide body airliner in history and continues to sell. This is graph shows the 787 Dreamliner fuel efficiency Vs the current Airbus planes:
Boeing have built 3 different versions of the 787 Dreamliner which are specifically designed for different jobs. There models are the 787-3, 787-8 and 787-9. They all travel at 0.85 Mach, this is 561mph and slightly faster that previous Boeing 777:
• The 787-3 is the smallest around 57m in length and 52m in wingspan and has a capacity of 330 passengers(highest of all the models). This model is designed for short distances flights between 4,650km to 5,650km
• The 787-8 is the same length at 57m but has a larger wingspan at 60m. Its capacity is less at 230 passengers but this is due to the fact that its designed for long haul flights in the region of 14,200km to 15,200km.
• The final model 787-9 is the biggest of them all. With a length of 63m and a wingspan of 60m it can have a maximum capacity of 290 passengers. It is designed for long distance flights like the 787-8 but can travel a little bit further at a range of 14,800km to 15,750km. This means it can cover 40% of the world circumference without having to refill.
The prices for these planes are between $146 million and $200 million and even though the prices seem to be expensive, 817 have been ordered and 44 are pending investment. The most popular model is the 787-8 with 618 ordered and due to the high intrest in this model, the 787-8 may soon become the accepted model for planes in the future. Though most plane companies are looking at much larger planes with a higher passenger capacity but Boeing’s plan is to use smaller planes to travel long distances and therfore have a better fuel efficiency .
The recent proposals have been put forward for net tax on aviation fuel from goverments and other worldwide bodies have been thought to force the airline companies to poduce planes with lower carbon emmisions. Boeing have built a plane with such attributes and will help them save money on there fuel budget with the much improved fuel consumption rate by the help of the carbon composite materials used to build the plane which lighten the plane, resulting in less thrust from the engines to put the plane in the sky. A percentage of fuel will be saved from the state of the art engines due to the technology that the engines possess. These factors should save them millions of pounds per year.
Hopefully the 787 Dreamliner will be a success financial but more important environmentally. I’m shore it will be a success considering all the things going it way at the moment. It currently has no competition from other aviation companies and is unrivalled in fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions and we haven’t even spoke about the massive popularity of the Dreamliner yet. The question that I really wanted to answer while researching this case study was will the 787 Dreamliner be a long lasting sustainable technological project? It came clear to me early on that the answer would be yes, due to the many positive things I have read and researched. Even though CO2 emissions aren’t being cut to zero, the improvements are significant and can slow down the problems with global warming. This plane is a project of Sustainable technology and anything that can help with our goal for a cleaner environment is a bonus and with the most efficient passenger plane about to be released then life looks brighter The reason for writing about the Dreamliner is that I’m interested in the ever-growing world in technological advancements and I respect the time and effort that engineers have put in to design such a masterpiece off engineering. So many things have been combined to make this aeroplane and the fact that one of the main considerations of building this aeroplane is our environment, is very reassuring to me.
Secondary resources:
I gatherd most of my information, Statistics and pictures from the resources above.
I also went to the library but very few books had information due to the plane being extremely new but found one:
- Boeing 787: Integration’s Next Step(2007) -James W. Ramsey. Retrieved December 29,2007. Aviation Today
