Page 15 - AAA MARCH-APRIL 2012 Online Magazine

FEATURE ENGINES

(engine design) expertise of the Engine
Alliance team, including member
companies General Electric and Pratt &
Whitney, as well as partner companies
Techspace Aero and Snecma (both of
SAFRAN Group) and MTU Aero Engines,”
points out Descoteaux. Although the
Engine Alliance was originally aiming its
GP7200 engine at the 747, it has become a
sleeper success on the Airbus A380, with
over 50% market share today. Used by Air
France, Etihad, Emirates, and Korean Air,
the Engine Alliance’s GP7200 program
boasts an ongoing development initiative
that has reduced the overall weight of the
engine by approximately 91kg since entry
into service in 2008.

“This ensures we consistently beat the fuel
burn targets. Our engine, as confirmed
both in the Airbus A380 performance
Testing new engine Google have joined up to offer a US$1.65 handbook and in revenue service, beats
designs is is an million prize for the most fuel efficient its fuel specification by about 1.4percent,”
integral part of the flight to date. This is the largest-ever prize says Kimberley Sullivan, Executive Vice
ongoing improvement
process for civil aviation, and although currently at Presiden, Engine Alliance. This, he says,
an experimental level, will no doubt lead offers a fuel cost saving approaching
to similar results as the Space X-Prize: US$1million per aircraft each year.
witness Virgin Galactic. Even with its enviable reputation as
an innovator, Rolls-Royce also realises
Teaming Up that going it alone is not the most
Another big gain in the last few years, effective approach for research. “We
says Samuel S. Descoteaux, VP of Sales are always exploring new and advanced
& Marketing at the Engine Alliance, is manufacturing techniques. For example,
strategic alliance. With costs of developing the Advanced Manufacturing Research
any technology reaching into the hundreds Centre network comprises seven
of millions, and in the case of P&W’s AMRCs to help Rolls-Royce and other
PW1000G some 20 years of development industrial partners achieve ‘best-in-class’
too, pulling in other companies’ expertise capability,” explains Rolls-Royce’s Sheard.
and financing makes sound financial “This network links companies, industrial
sense as well as bringing efficiency gains. sectors and universities, providing a new
“Our GP7200 engine captures the model of collaborative research designed
to achieve transformational and step
change improvements,” he adds.

Vane Hope Keeping Running
One interesting approach to engine efficiency is to improve the bypass ratio (the Even if the engine uses the latest
amount of air that the front fan bypasses around the core). The bypass ratio technology to run cheap in flight, there
is about 6 to 1 on a typical modern engine. One way to increase the ratio is to is the cost of downtime to consider. P&W
adjust the pitch of the fan blades at various stages in the turbine. A US company,
Rotating Composite Technologies (RCT), has patented a design for a variable says that the new architecture of the
pitch fan which could offer much higher bypass ratio without requiring a gearbox. PW1000G helps on-wing fuel efficiency
Studies show that this approach – if it could be perfected for commercial use – -while at the same time reducing
could offer a fuel burn improvement of up to 16%. But don’t hold your breath for a operating cost by eliminating more than
commercial version just yet – it’s still at the prototype stage. 2000 fan blades and six rotating stages as

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