Communications

Rome, 9 July 2007
 
Alenia Aeronautica celebrates the roll-out of the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner prototype, which has taken place yesterday evening at Boeing plant in Everett, U.S..

Alenia Aeronautica, prime partner of the 787 programme, has a key role in the development of this aircraft - considered as a new best seller among the commercial transport aircraft - manufacturing 14% of its structure.
 
Thanks to ad-hoc designed and developed technologies and production processes, Alenia Aeronautica is in fact currently one of the leading manufacturers all over the world of big aerostructures made in composite materials, used for most of the new Boeing aircraft.
 
Alenia Aeronautica's engineering and research centre for the new aircraft is Pomigliano d'Arco near Naples, while at Grottaglie (Taranto), the aircraft fuselage sections are made for the first time through the use of one-piece-barrel technology, in particular, central section no. 44 (8.5 metres) and rear-central section no. 46 (about 10 metres).

The first shipment of the fuselage section to the Unites States has taken place last March 22nd and to date three series of components have been shipped to Boeing.
 
Alenia Aeronautica's factory in Foggia, traditional excellence centre for the production of carbon-fibre structures and another key element for the 787 programme, produces the 787 horizontal stabiliser - the biggest composite monolithic structure ever built for a commercial airplane - through one-shot autoclave polymerisation cycle starting from 27 wet uncured components.
 
The plant has a total surface of 329,869 sqm (of which 54,670 indoor) and has a workforce of 555 people (of which 150 for the 787 programme).
 
Grottaglie's facility, measuring 165 x 384m (64,000 sqm) and 24 m high (the same size as a hotel with 3/4000 rooms or 15 football pitches), comprises three aisles and currently has a workforce of 600 people.

The choice of Grottaglie's site follows technical analyses based on the need of fully meeting objective production constraints envisaged by the programme, for instance, the availability of one only area large enough to host a single building and the requirement for the factory to be next to an airport area - the runway has been extended from 1,700 m. to 3,500 m. - provided with all services and infrastructures, able to host the big-sized Dreamlifters, a special 747 cargo version, built purposefully for the carrying of the 787 components from the production sites to Everett.
 
The aeronautical industry has always been way ahead in the use of advanced materials, given its ongoing quest for more and more robust structures which are resistant to materials fatigue and corrosion, and which are ever more lightweight.
 
All these features are found in what are known as composite materials - carbon fibres impregnated with special resins and distributed so as to create a "woven" pattern. The fibres are then treated in an autoclave at high temperature and high pressure, to produce structures which are stronger and more resistant than the aluminium alloys currently used in aeronautics, and at the same time lighter by a good 20 per cent, with no limitations of shape or size.
 
This leads to considerable savings (lower consumption of raw materials, less maintenance, etc) and longer-lasting components. Composite materials have been used in aeronautics for more than 25 years, and have now reached the stage where it is possible to produce a single large piece, for example a whole fuselage section, as happens for the 787 at Grottaglie.