I was recently flying on an A380 and from my window seat, I could see the vast expanse of the wing. It was HUGE – you could play badminton (or cricket for those who are familiar) on it.
And I just couldn’t fathom how it holds up with most of its length having no support. It’s carrying the weight of thousands of litres of fuel and two large engines, while being subjected to all the forces there would be while taking off, landing, and in-flight banking, turbulence, etc.
What is the engineering that causes them to not break?
In: Engineering
This story hasn’t aged well because of all the grief Boeing is going through right now, but…there was a special years ago about the design of the 767, and one of the tests it had to pass was a wing stress test.
What this means is you take a wing, secure it at the root, then force the wingtip up, and up some more, and up some more. To pass the wing had to tolerate something like a 30 degree bend, which sounds outrageous, and it looks outrageous when you see it. You’d never imagine that something so massive could flex. Picture the wingtip being like (I’m trying not to exaggerate) 20 feet up from its starting position.
The wing on the show aced the test, got to the required number without any trouble (though it was sweat-inducing to look at) and this was a destruction test, so after passing they kept loading the wing, harder and harder, so they could find what its breaking point was. That wing was like 40-something degrees up before something inside finally let go and it sagged, and the design team cheered and celebrated because they had designed a wing that was tough as hell.
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