Business Week reports that “Boeing’s Plastic Dream Machine” could revolutionize the use of plastic around the world.
Inside Boeing Co.’s (BA ) cavernous development center in Seattle, the future of its commercial jet business is taking shape. That future is plastic — and lots of it. At center stage in the tightly guarded building are three huge fuselage sections, dubbed barrels, made entirely of composites known as carbon fiber-reinforced plastic…
… Nothing on this scale has ever been attempted with composites, which are used in everything from golf-club shafts and tennis rackets to giant underground storage tanks. But even the latter can’t measure up to what Boeing is creating — namely, the entire airframe of its upcoming 787 Dreamliner jet.
