Boeing

Boeing Technical Research Center (BTRC), part of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group (BCAG), celebrated its fifth anniversary today by announcing the opening of a new Engineering Design Center. The design center, part of BTRC, will further expand ongoing cooperative projects with Russian aerospace research institutions and companies.

Established in Moscow in 1993, BTRC has cooperated with Russian aerospace research institutes on a wide variety of projects. The center currently has 40 contracts with Russian aerospace research institutions and companies in several locations, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Voronezh and Ekaterinburg.

By contracting with research institutes, Boeing enables about 300 of Russia's top aerospace engineers and scientists to remain employed by these research facilities. This allows the institutes to maintain their skills base while providing these professionals access to Boeing equipment, processes, and people -- either in Moscow or in the United States.

Facilities at BTRC include a computational fluid-dynamics laboratory with 10 workstations. About 15 to 20 researchers work every day at the Boeing Moscow facility on issues such as turbulence research and boundary-layer transition model development. Also, 10 CATIA (Computer-Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application) workstations have been installed in the center to conduct commercial-airplane design projects for BCAG.

The Engineering Design Center's first project will be in partnership with Ilyushin Design Bureau. An agreement signed in August 1997 will allow Ilyushin engineers to redesign the 777 airplane's center-bin arches. The arches were originally created as a complex assembly formed from layers of thin sheet metal and machined parts. Ilyushin engineers, using recent advances in manufacturing technologies, are redesigning the assembly so that the majority of the beam can be made from a single piece of aluminum. This change will help to reduce the manufacturing cost for the assembly and simplify the overall design. After accomplishing preliminary work with Boeing engineers in Seattle, Ilyushin engineers working at the BTRC will complete the redesign.

"Five years ago, Ilyushin was among the first Russian enterprises to enter into joint projects with Boeing. After years of successfully working together, we have become partners and friends. Today's opening of the Boeing Engineering Design Center elevates our relationship to a new level of cooperation in which, among many projects, we will be designing airplane components together," said General Designer of Ilyushin Aviation complex, Genrikh Novozhilov.

"Boeing has tremendous respect for the achievements and talents of the Russian scientists. The creation of this Engineering Design Center gives both companies additional opportunities to work together and develop better products," said Tom Schick, executive vice president and deputy to the president - Boeing Commercial Airplane Group. "We meet at a place that symbolizes a very promising future."

With the Engineering Design Center, the BTRC will continue to successfully pursue projects of mutual interest and benefit to all participants.