Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#241

Post by konstruktor » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

zb wrote: post #180

InclinedPlane wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respect? What respect is due to a design that puts people's lives in danger? Yes, respect the engineers, and make sure to criticize the design and not the engineer, but please criticize the ever loving fuck out of the design. This isn't about corporate pride here. This is about lives. My life. Your life. Your family's lives. Everyone who flies in a plane is potentially endangered by faulty aircraft designs. So please…

What respect is due to a design that puts people's lives in danger? No lives are in danger, because the planes are grounded. They will not fly again until the cause of the present issue is found and resolved. It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me that that puts Musk's comments in a slightly different light for some people. Note that if Musk were a (Chartered) Professional Engineer (which afaik he is not) he mig…

These guidelines are clearly ab out not getting each other in trouble, not the interests of those using whatever a chartered engineer might be involved in.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#242

Post by wololo » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 7:09 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #184

wololo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the FAA seems pretty conservative? "Finally, the FAA changes so slowly that if this were even all possible, the adoption and certification would all take at least 50 years." --Eric Schmidt, http://longbets.org/4/

I'm not sure that erring on the side of caution is a bad thing when it comes to commercial jets, especially when "erring on the side of caution" means requiring an airline carrying large numbers of paying passengers needing to pay two qualified pilots to sit in a cockpit just in case things go wrong. I suspect most people underestimate just how many different separate electronic systems, usually developed and manufac…

context: Eric Schmidt is not the CEO, but is a commercial pilot (source: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2...)

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#243

Post by KMag » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 9:26 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #213

yread wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that talking about the battery pack being inherently unsafe is completely off-topic here. GS Yuasa manufactures batteries for 60 satellites and they haven't had a single failure there http://www.gsyuasa-lp.com/content/gs-yuasa-lithium-ion-batte... In aviation people usually very thoroughly figure out what went wrong and why and only then suggest fixes. And the fixes are designed by the people who have access…

GS Yuasa manufactures batteries for 60 satellites and they haven't had a single failure there I wouldn't expect fire to be a common failure mode in outer space.

That's a hilarious observation, and I've upvoted it.

However, batteries (as opposed to capacitors) get their power from redox reactions. If we use a definition of "fire" that includes the rapid redox reaction between liquid phase propellant and solid phase propellant in a hybrid rocket motor in the vacuum of space, that definition would likely also extend to rapid redox reactions between liquid electrolyte and solid electrode in a battery during a particularly fast thermal runaway in the vacuum of space. In other words, under many reasonable definitions of "fire", any sufficiently rapid thermal runaway in a battery would be a fire, despite there not being any air present.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#244

Post by kragen » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 9:37 PM UTC

rosser wrote: post #132

kragen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can indeed, and it ignites the gasoline. Gasoline vapors in air have relatively wide explosive limits which can be attained in a wide variety of ways, not only by aerosolization.

Then the multiple times I've seen that done, by multiple different people, all happened with something other than gasoline. I'm not saying it can't happen, and I'm well aware that gasoline vapors are extremely dangerous. I'm just saying that the gas tank in your car isn't "10 times as easy to light up" as the newer, super-energy-dense lithium chemistry based batteries.

May I suggest, by the way, that you think twice and double-check your facts before posting potentially fatal fire-safety advice on the internet? You'll probably never know if you've killed somebody. If you want to try the gasoline-bucket experiment, I recommend doing it in a small coffee can on a large concrete pad that you don't mind discoloring.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#245

Post by KMag » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 9:38 PM UTC

yread wrote: post #155

robomartin wrote: post #68

While I can't dispute anything that is being said I think it is unfortunate that this is playing out the way it is. I can't dispute it because there's virtually no reliable publicly-available information on the design of this battery pack. I think it is unbecoming of an engineer or scientist, particularly of prominence, to voice such opinions without access to design data from the source. Before I could even begin to…

I think that talking about the battery pack being inherently unsafe is completely off-topic here. GS Yuasa manufactures batteries for 60 satellites and they haven't had a single failure there http://www.gsyuasa-lp.com/content/gs-yuasa-lithium-ion-batte... In aviation people usually very thoroughly figure out what went wrong and why and only then suggest fixes. And the fixes are designed by the people who have access…

Musk's allegation is that the 787 battery is a poor design, not that it was manufactured incorrectly.

Your point would be a good point if Musk's allegation were that GS Yusa had manufactured the batteries incorrectly or if the satellite battery were of the same design as the 787 battery AND used under similar conditions.

However, my understanding is that the 787 battery is a new design and used under conditions rather different from a satellite.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#246

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 10:40 PM UTC

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #207

dredmorbius wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies (and their regulators) have frequently been shamed into doing what they should have in the first place by independent critics. Nader and automobiles as previously detailed, Rachel Carson and Silent Spring (ultimately resulting in the Clean Air and Clean Water acts and the EPA, created by Republican president Richard Nixon). Upton Sinclair and food processing. Wikipedia's Whistleblower article notes a few ot…

Context is important here. 1. Elon Musk is not a whistleblower. He didn't bring this issue to light at the risk of persecution by Boeing or the airlines. 2. He's also not an "independent critic" - he's a entrepreneur who runs an aerospace company that competes with Boeing's space activities, another company that makes cars powered using batteries, and has no history as a critic of aircraft design. 3. I'm not from the…

Musk definitely has a horse in the race. Still, he's independent to the extent that he's beholden to neither Boeing nor the NTSB/FAA. He's also critiquing Boeing on a specific technology on which he has substantial expertise and experience: lithium-ion battery storage. Including experience with aerospace implementations of that technology.

My point was that your assertion that working within the system is sufficient to effect change is demonstrably false.

As for businesses competing not only on dollars but mindshare and technological direction -- isn't that what the free market system is all about? Directed self-interest?

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#247

Post by rosser » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 10:54 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #244

rosser wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the multiple times I've seen that done, by multiple different people, all happened with something other than gasoline. I'm not saying it can't happen, and I'm well aware that gasoline vapors are extremely dangerous. I'm just saying that the gas tank in your car isn't "10 times as easy to light up" as the newer, super-energy-dense lithium chemistry based batteries.

May I suggest, by the way, that you think twice and double-check your facts before posting potentially fatal fire-safety advice on the internet? You'll probably never know if you've killed somebody. If you want to try the gasoline-bucket experiment, I recommend doing it in a small coffee can on a large concrete pad that you don't mind discoloring.

I think the critical difference is how long the bucket full of gasoline has been sitting there. If you just filled it up, there will be a lot of vapors hovering above the surface. If it's been sitting, undisturbed and uncovered, for a good long while, there won't.

In the former case, you're going to lose your eyebrows, at best. In the latter, the match will go out.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#248

Post by daemin » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 4:44 AM UTC

AnthonBerg wrote: post #188

daemin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't do that since Boeing are in a joint venture as direct competition to SpaceX, as stated in the article.

There may be the perception that they "can't" - and it is realistic to state this - but they actually can.

Bad use of language on my part, it would probably be more accurate to say that they won't, because of the politics involved.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#249

Post by kragen » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 6:00 AM UTC

rosser wrote: post #247

kragen wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I suggest, by the way, that you think twice and double-check your facts before posting potentially fatal fire-safety advice on the internet? You'll probably never know if you've killed somebody. If you want to try the gasoline-bucket experiment, I recommend doing it in a small coffee can on a large concrete pad that you don't mind discoloring.

I think the critical difference is how long the bucket full of gasoline has been sitting there. If you just filled it up, there will be a lot of vapors hovering above the surface. If it's been sitting, undisturbed and uncovered, for a good long while, there won't. In the former case, you're going to lose your eyebrows, at best. In the latter, the match will go out.

Gasoline vapors are several times heavier than air, so they tend to stay in buckets, crawl across basement floors, and so on. Maybe if you let the bucket sit there long enough, they'll displace enough oxygen that you won't get a fire at the surface.

Another crucial variable is the temperature. If you do the experiment with the bucket sitting in a snowdrift, you probably can get it to snuff out a match, regardless of how long it's been sitting there.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#250

Post by teyc » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 10:42 AM UTC

codex wrote: post #237

Elon might know a thing or two here, as just last year Tesla's battery testing facility caught on fire [1]. In the absence of more information, allow me to publicly speculate that perhaps that facility is fundamentally unsafe. [1] http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/peninsul...

Being a bit snarky there?

Fukushima reminded me that there are some designs that required active safety systems, while others like thorium reactors can be designed with passive safety system.

Musk was not offering to help out with designing a new plane. He was offering help with battery systems. This, he has more expertise than Boeing or its direct subcontractor did.

Musk did not strike me as a person who have actively sought out publicity for publicity's sake in the past. Personally, I'd rather more eyes went through the design of a plane that I might ride in one day. Teslas are too pricey for me.