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by ozmaverick72
2681 days ago
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One story I heard was that one of the production engineers added a rivet in the skin near the corners of the window. This was added because he thought it would strengthen the structure. Unfortunately it actually acted as an additional stress concentrator. I'm not entirely sure there wouldn't have been an issue without that extra rivet. The guy that made that change thought he was doing the right things but in fact made things much worse. |
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> The accident report's use of the word "window" when referring to the Automatic Direction Finding (ADF) aerial cutout panel[121] has led to a common belief that the Comet 1's accidents were the result of its having square passenger windows. In fact, Comet 1's cabin windows were very similar in shape, with similar corner radii, to those of the Boeing 377 and Douglas DC-7[122], both of which were pressurised aircraft. The windows in Northwest Airlines' B-377 were in fact larger and notably more rectangular[123] than those of the Comet 1. While stresses in the area of the passenger windows were significantly higher than de Havilland had calculated, nowhere in the accident report is it claimed that the fatigue failure of the Comet fuselage occurred was a result of the shape of the passenger windows, but instead from excessively high localised stress at bolt and rivet holes, for which insufficient reinforcing (and therefore structural load distribution) existed.