Airbus will bring back lithium-ion batteries to its A350-900 from 2016 after removing the more advanced power sources from early production jets following defects on models used in Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.
The European aircraft manufacturer will switch back from nickel-cadmium batteries picked for the earlier planes. Airbus initially designed the A350 to use advanced lithium batteries, which are lighter than nickel-cadmium.
After the 787 was temporarily grounded for technical glitches related to those batteries, Airbus went back to the old standard to maintain the schedule for certification.
“We flew lithium-ion for all the development aircraft, accumulating big experience on the flights,” Gordon McConnell, the chief designer of the aircraft told Bloomberg. “From the very beginning we were fully aware of the conditions of use, and how we could mitigate any risks to zero.”
Meanwhile, Japan’s transport authority said a lack of appropriate testing may have contributed to a lithium-ion battery overheating on board a Boeing 787 Dreamliner owned by ANA Holdings, which led to the grounding of the Dreamliner fleet globally for more than three months.
In its final report on the ANA incident, the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) said it was unable to find the root cause of the overheating. The JTSB, however, said that during the device’s development, engineers failed to identify the possibility that a short circuit in one cell could spread to other cells because they did not ground the device.
This may have caused the battery to overheat, it added.
“The test conducted during the development phase did not appropriately simulate the on-board configuration, and the effects of the internal short circuit were underestimated,” the JTSB said in its 115-page report.
