It Took Boeing Two Days to Transport the Autoclave to 19 Kilometers
Boeing, the American aircraft construction group, assembled one of the largest autoclaves for fabrication of composite material parts and transported it to the production shop. The assembly took place at the company’s works in St. Louis, Missouri. The total route stretch was 19 kilometers. It took about 48 hours to the Company’s specialists to cover all the way, with assistance of police and electricians.
The autoclave length comes to 18.3 meters, diameter – 4.6 meters, and weight – 113.4 tons. The policemen were temporarily closing St. Louis roads along the truck route, while electricians were raising or even removing electrical cables for the time of haulage for unobstructed travel of the autoclave on the trailer.
An autoclave is a special furnace for curing glued carbon fiber parts under very low pressure. The new furnace will be used for fabrication of parts for the new passenger jet Boeing 777X. This is going to be the world’s largest passenger twin-engine airplane.
B777X will get wings made of composite materials, new more fuel-efficient engines GE9X in which ceramic matrix composites are widely used, and the on-board equipment set of airliner Boeing 787. New 777X will become a major upgrade to “777” family introduced in the early 1990s.