Toray to supply carbon fiber to Boeing in $8.6 bil deal

"...Dreamliner, which has been hit by a series of troubles..."

There goes AFP again. This is supposed to an article about Toray's deal with Boeing but they just can't resist rehashing Dreamliner problems, small or large.

just can't resist rehashing Dreamliner problems, small or large. same can be said for Toyota and its problems which happen way before the Dreamliner, but we still keep hearing about it.

There goes AFP again. This is supposed to an article about Toray's deal with Boeing but they just can't resist rehashing Dreamliner problems, small or large.

There's hasn't been much of a problem lately anyways.

Remember studying about Toray as a student when I first came to Japan as an example of a Japanese portmanteau - it derives from 東京レーオン, apparently.

Can't wait for Toray to innovate carbon suitable for a space elevator, and I hope this stimulus helps!

Quote: "carbon fiber materials, which are lighter and stronger than steel and aluminium."

Those are the positive side.

Good job Toray. Great company. But note the actual work and jobs are being done in the US......

Here we go again with the media and general Jp population claiming 'Dreamliners are Japanese made planes". Today I heard from a colleague; Japanese engineers built the Channel tunnel.

What we should be more concerned about is the possible negative aspects of the carbon fiber being used to greater and greater extent in the new generations of Airbus and Boeing planes. The article does not mention what happens to CF in a fire, and what happens when we breathe the smoke, what happens when a panel gets hit and how it might or might not be fixable, what needle-sharp shards of fiber do to the human body in a crash, how fatigues manifests in CF, and how long CF lasts under various environmental conditions.

Great news for Toray.

Typical of Boeing.

In the Central Washington town of Moses Lake, BMW just doubled the size of its carbon fiber factory. This same city has lobbied Boeing more than once to be considered an alternate site for 787 and 777 parts manufacturing. The only explanations for Toray getting the contract is that they will manufacture in China or they bribed Boeing because the transport costs - less than 3 hours via freeway versus 12 hours flying or a week's ocean freight - are easily in the local producers favor.

nandakandamanda

Here read this it's about flamability of CF for Aero grade by Toray.

http://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/pdf/07-57.pdf

Basically the CF itself doesn't burn but the adheisive resin that melts out through high temperature that is burning. As for material fatigue it is well know that CF snaps beyond tolerance load and does not accumilate fatigue at low load like metal.

Many thanks for the link, SamuraiBlue. (I have heard that the adhesives used for connecting carbon fiber parts are a large part of the poisonous fumes/smoke problem.)

Great news for Toray.

It's a bad news. Boeing could blame them for the next trouble that they'll have, even though the final quality control should be made by Boeing, and they should be the main responsable, but apparently American companies are protecting themselves from their failures blaming mainly their foreigner suppliers, specially Japanese ones, since Japan is a pretty weak ally for the US, that can be used in many ways.

In the Central Washington town of Moses Lake, BMW just doubled the size of its carbon fiber factory. This same city has lobbied Boeing more than once to be considered an alternate site for 787 and 777 parts manufacturing. The only explanations for Toray getting the contract is that they will manufacture in China or they bribed Boeing because the transport costs - less than 3 hours via freeway versus 12 hours flying or a week's ocean freight - are easily in the local producers favor.

It states on the SGL Moses Lake site that they are increasing the capacity for automotive needs.

Toray also has a plant in Tacoma, WA.

According to Nikkei, Toray is the clear market leader with Teijin at second. Third and fourth are Mitsubishi Rayon and SGL, respectively.

nigelboy,

While the BMW plant is indeed oriented towards their needs, the point being is that Boeing long ago became, in some ways, the Wal-Mart of aviation - they are always looking to shave a few bucks, but it ends up being in a penny wise, pound foolish fashion. The planning for expanded carbon fiber acquisitions has been in the works for years. There is a substantial carbon fiber plant in existence that was just enlarged. Had Boeing wanted, they easily could have contracted with BMW to produce for them. It's all part of a strategy to pretty much gut Boeing in the Puget Sound region

Perfect example being the second assembly plant for the 787 in S. Carolina. They've had nothing but problems. They are slow and Boeing's had to send engineers and assembly people from Everett to set things straight. But even before that, the perceived need to subcontract sections of the plane have resulted in fit problems. And now they have just announced that a couple thousand senior engineering positions in the commercial air group will be moved to LA. Why? they don't build in the planes there.

As far as the Toray plant in Tacoma, they are already using it. However, their new plant for Boeing is in, wait for it, S. Carolina. Boeing is also expanding production of "composites" in China.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2011-04/18/c_13834051.htm

Though it hasn't been announced yet, Toray will increase production in China because it's current plants in the U.S. cannot supply Boeing.

Sorry. Just a regional bitch. Everyone in Western Washington knows someone or has a family member that works for Boeing or Microsoft. The shine off their corporate crowns was gone long ago.

Jeff HuffmanNov. 21, 2014 - 08:18AM JST Perfect example being the second assembly plant for the 787 in S. Carolina. They've had nothing but problems. They are slow and Boeing's had to send engineers and assembly people from Everett to set things straight. But even before that, the perceived need to subcontract sections of the plane have resulted in fit problems.

But Boeing is no stranger to subcontracting. And while outsourcing can certainly lead to problems, I’m not convinced it’s the cause of these problems. The issues the plane has been facing have much more to do with Boeing’s decision to treat the design and production of such a radically new and different aircraft as a modular system so early in its development. In the creating any new product, it is almost a big advantage to start out as integrated as possible. Why? Well, put simply, the more elements of the design that are under your control, the more effectively you’re able to radically change the design of a product, and you give your engineers more degrees of freedom. And, as a result, you don’t need to ask suppliers to contract over parts that haven’t been created yet. Instead, you can put employees together and tell them to solve the problems together. Many of the problems that they are encountering would not have been possible to anticipate Boeing should've design all the relevant pieces of the puzzle itself first. But with the 787, it appears that Boeing tried a very different approach, rather than having the puzzle solved and asking the suppliers to provide a defined puzzle piece, they asked suppliers to create their own blueprints for parts. The puzzle hadn’t been properly solved when Boeing asked suppliers for the pieces. It should come as little surprise then, that as the components came back from far-flung suppliers, for the first plane ever made of composite materials, that those parts didn’t all fit together. It’s easy to blame the outsourcing. But, in this instance, it wasn’t so much the outsourcing, as it was the decision to modularize a complicated problem too soon.