Page 23 - AAA NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2013 Online Magazine

FEATURE ENGINE DESIGN

a typical turbofan gives
a passenger/kilometre fuel
economy about the same as a
car with four passengers

Rolls-Royce Trent 1000
(courtesy of Rolls-Royce)

on keeping the wheels (or fans) turning is Royce engines in flight each day. Staff in 2030 will be 15-20% more fuel-efficient
undeniable. constantly analyse each engine’s than similar engines are today. As Rolls-
Rolls-Royce says it has improved performance and use accumulated fleet Royce’s Doherty puts it, the savings will
reliability by a factor of three since the year data to plan maintenance activities in translate into real savings. “Engines of
2000, as a result of sophisticated monitoring advance, maximising aircraft availability the future will contain more lightweight
systems built in to the units. “Engines and preventing service disruption. This composite material, such as fan blades.
are supported by ever more sophisticated means that if a part is approaching its These blades, combined with a composite
Engine Health Monitoring (EHM) systems service limit, a spare can be flown to the containment system, will reduce the
and a 24/7 team of engineers analysing on- nearest appropriate MRO centre to keep weight of each fan module by 350kg – the
wing performance,” notes Doherty. He says downtime to an absolute minimum. But equivalent of eight average passengers on
the company uses EHM as a feedback loop just as importantly, EHM helps predict a twin-engine aircraft,” he says.
to track the performance of thousands of possible events, averting potentially costly
engines operating around the world, using or significant technical issues, as well as Material advantage
onboard sensors and live satellite feeds. giving guidelines for possible upgrades or Composite materials also feature heavily
“Engineers monitor some 5.5million redesigns that would improve operational in the research projections of US-based
flights every year from our operations efficiency. manufacturer CFM. They are working
centres in the United Kingdom, United As this ongoing refinement process on sophisticated composites that enable
States and Germany,” he explains. The continues, the designs of modern engines higher temperatures together with
operations centre in Derby (United are improving overall operating efficiency higher reliability and lower weight – all
Kingdom) monitors and analyses more by approximately 1% every year. So key design parameters in the search for
than 50,000 hours of data from Rolls- theoretically, engines being fitted to aircraft greater fuel efficiency. But a search that is
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