Another Speculation Violation
I am going to engage in another bout of silly speculation about an aviation issue. As I mentioned in this blogitem a month ago, I am no expert, and the real experts are working harder on this and know a lot more than I do. Which, as before, doesn't prevent me from engaging in guesswork. Last time, I thought I had at least a bit of logic on my side, and some inconsistency in the FAA reports to work with. This time, my speculation is logic-free, and there is no FAA report and may not be one for a while. For which reasons, view the babble below with almost as much skepticism as you would one of my excursions bounded by the <FICTION></FICTION> HTML tags.
In this speculation, I am talking about the Case of the Burning Batteries. I.e., the still unresolved issue of the lithium batteries that have grounded the Boeing 787 "Dreamliner." Although Boeing continues to manufacture these aircraft, they are piling up, so to speak, because the FAA is understandably reluctant to allow them to fly while their batteries are bursting into flame*. It's been a few weeks since the grounding order, and from what I have (and haven't) read, the cause still seems to be a mystery. In other words, it's a chasm into which idiotic speculation is ready to be poured. Here's mine, quoted from my post a few days ago on the Prius Chat internet group where this was being discussed.
If one cell
goes into thermal runaway, the whole assembly will be destroyed.
The real question, though, is why even one cell would
self-destruct. I'm sure that Boeing tested the batteries at
simulated altitude and temperature. What they may not have been
able to do is test with a simulated radiation environment
equivalent to the real one at 40,000 feet. I wonder what would
happen if an energetic particle hit a cell and left an
ionization trail through the separators. Would that be enough to
allow an unintended current to flow, which would in turn create
heat, which in turn might increase the width of the channel, and
so forth? No idea, really, if this is plausible. But if it is,
it means that there really is no "flaw" in the design of the
electronics or the batteries, and it will take quite a while to
prove this is the cause since it happens only randomly and only
at altitude.
This problem reminds me of the weird issue they had with memory
chips in the '70s, when bits would flip for no apparent reason.
Turned out to be alpha particles from radioactive materials in
the chip packaging.
So there you have it. Ionizing radiation, hard to test for
on the ground. Am I right? Time may or may not tell.
The batteries that did burst into flame were so badly damaged
that the cause may never be determined. Or it may be
something that they discover soon, e.g., manufacturing process
error, bad circuitry, or the ever-popular "software."
I'll even leave a space for my usual follow-up since I'm sure
there will be one.
Meanwhile, Back In Web Land
A strange thing has happened to my blog. Until a few days ago, I had a box to do a Google search of my blog in the left-hand column. It has disappeared! If you have any idea what happened to it, please email me! (If you took it, I'll plead poverty to any ransom demands.)
