Problem-solving knows no gender
Print Edition
XU Zhixiang is among the very few female engineers working in the stress department of the Shanghai Aircraft Design and Research Institute.
Now deputy director of the department, Xu said her biggest regret with such a high-power job is her relationship with her five-year-old daughter. The little girl prefers to stay with her grandmother after so many years when Xu didn’t have the time to take care of her personally.
“I seldom treat myself as a woman or a mother,” she confessed.
Xu’s male-dominated department has the responsibility of ensuring that the ARJ21 regional jet can withstand stress and pressure in any flying conditions.
The fuselage, for instance, must be able to withstand air pressure that is 2.5 times greater than normal, and the wing must pass an extreme pressure test to show that it won’t break off from stress.
The department is also charged with ensuring that the aircraft will react with minimum vibration in the sky. It is subjected to wind tunnel testing to ensure that it will continue to fly safely and with comfort to passengers during turbulence.
The plane’s fuselage broke off near the tail during the first stress test in 2009. Xu said the results of the test, observed by officials and chief engineers, “broke her heart.”
To attack the problem, she organized a team of experts. At the time, her daughter was only two years old and it pained her to have to spend so many long hours and days at work.
Seven months later, in another test — this time witnessed by officials from the Civil Aviation Administration of China and the United States Federal Aviation Administration — the plane body performed successfully.
“I felt extremely stressed as each additional kilogram was gradually added onto the aircraft body,” Xu said of the test.
The ARJ21 now meets international standards on intensity.
Xu and her team have now turned their attention to the impact of bird strikes on the aircraft nose. That is a common aviation headache, especially in summer when bird flocks are on the move. The navigation and communications systems are lodged behind the jet nose.
Xu said it is not simply a matter of thickening the “skin” covering of the plane’s nose. Rather, her team has to devise a perfect balance between the thickness and the number of screws needed to secure it. That has required long experimentation.
Though ruing the fact that she has missed many of the milestones in her daughter’s life, like her first steps and first words, Xu said she hopes that one day her daughter will be proud to say that her mother was a principal player in the launch of China’s first passenger aircraft.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
