jordan_webb•18d agoProlific Poster

The shift from rivets to bonding strips on regional jets is wild

3 comments

3 Comments

bennett.mason18d ago

Wait, they're just gluing planes together now instead of riveting them? That can't be as strong can it?

garcia.tyler18d ago

Agreed with you completely until I actually looked into it. The adhesives they use now are INSANE compared to what you'd think of as regular glue. It's not like they just slapped some Elmer's on there and called it a day. The bonding is actually stronger than the metal itself in a lot of tests, so the panels would tear before the glue joint fails. Definitely changed my mind once I saw the engineering behind it.

hayden14417d ago

Man, it's wild how much we underestimate modern materials... it seems like everything we think we know is based on tech from 20 years ago or more. Same thing happened to me with carbon fiber in cars - I thought it was all just lightweight plastic crap until I saw a video of it stopping a bullet. It's like the real engineering is happening at a level we can't even see anymore...