[allendale]

An airliner sitting and baking at 110 degrees on a tarmac, then suddenly climbing to 30,000 feet with the outside temperature of -35 degrees puts an inordinate strain on any metal surface. One would assume and hope that the aeronautical engineers who design these aircraft did well in their material science courses and that these cracks are indeed superficial and no danger to the structural integrity of the aircraft. Yet given the computer engineering flubs at Boeing, confidence has been a bit eroded lately.

[FtrPilot]

Temperature change is not the issue. The outer wings are under a lot of aerodynamic stress and are designed to bend up and down during flight. They are also tested to their break point during flight certification test. Check out the links below:

Flex Demo

Flex Test

[mad_as_he$$]

The wing design was a big engineering problem when the 380’s were built. My concern would be that Airbus provides some short cut fix to “resolve the problem”. Can’t see them changing out the main structural member.

[Henchster]

"An airliner sitting and baking at 110 degrees on a tarmac, then suddenly climbing to 30,000 feet with the outside temperature of -35 degrees puts an inordinate strain on any metal surface."

In the middle east, that tarmac may be closer to 150 degrees.

From my experiences with race cars, any part that is made of aluminum (which the wing spars almost certainly are) that flexes under load, will eventually crack. Once it starts to crack, it deteriorates very quickly until it suddenly fails catastrophically.

I sure hope they have a well-thought-out maintenance/repair schedule and adhere to it religiously.