3 ms·

The Bloomberg article doesn't seem to touch on what specifically is going on with the Trent 1000 (but my understanding was that protective coatings weren't hold

The Bloomberg article doesn't seem to touch on what specifically is going on with the Trent 1000 (but my understanding was that protective coatings weren't holding up to air pollution). In any case, General Electric is having problems specifically with the air-cooled blades that Bloomberg's pinning Rolls' troubles on. Keeping the blades solid at those temperatures is almost wizardry. Fascinating stuff. A Thai Airways lost an engine (GE90) on one of their 777s recently due to problems with the air cooling. As a result eight GE90 engines are now subject to an additional inspection. Here's a video touching on the GE problem by a tech who works on GE turbines for a living: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxvEQZil2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxvEQZil2U

osullivj 7y ago
Son of a friend works for Rolls and gave me the same story on protective coatings. They tried to trim costs too far on the final stage of the blade hardening process. The BBG article has an Emirates exec demanding fit for purpose aircraft. But, IMHO, relentless downward pressure on costs from us (the passengers) and the airlines is pushing all the manufacturers to cut to the bone. And then beyond the bone. Someone once asked John Glenn what he was thinking when he sat on top of a rocket ready to launch. His reply: "every component built by the lowest bidder!". As ever, you get what you pay for...
kylehotchkiss 7y ago
Pollution causing jet engine issues is scary. The countries and engineers building the engines don't encounter extreme pollution and the places experiencing the worst pollution aren't major hubs for aircraft development. It's an "out of sight/out of mind" type of issue during a record period of air travel growth all around the world I hope ICAO can begin studying the affects of pollution on aircraft more heavily because compressing air with an AQI over 1,000 (like India has experienced recently) could have very unknown consequences elsewhere in the engine after the blades, (unless it just pushes all the pollution particulates back into the cabin, which is another issue that needs to be solved)
- xadhominemx 7y ago
  Airborne particulates are absolutely not “out of sight/out of mind” for engineers designing commercial jet engines. That’s an absurd statement. It’s one of the top considerations for those engineers.
darksaints 7y ago
There's a lot of hope out there for ceramic matrix composites. Not only can some materials handle much higher temperatures (which translates to higher pressure ratios and higher efficiencies), but they do it at lower weights and higher strengths, with high resistance to oxidative degradation in the presence of contaminants.

osullivj 7y ago

Son of a friend works for Rolls and gave me the same story on protective coatings. They tried to trim costs too far on the final stage of the blade hardening process. The BBG article has an Emirates exec demanding fit for purpose aircraft. But, IMHO, relentless downward pressure on costs from us (the passengers) and the airlines is pushing all the manufacturers to cut to the bone. And then beyond the bone. Someone once asked John Glenn what he was thinking when he sat on top of a rocket ready to launch. His reply: "every component built by the lowest bidder!". As ever, you get what you pay for...

kylehotchkiss 7y ago

Pollution causing jet engine issues is scary. The countries and engineers building the engines don't encounter extreme pollution and the places experiencing the worst pollution aren't major hubs for aircraft development. It's an "out of sight/out of mind" type of issue during a record period of air travel growth all around the world I hope ICAO can begin studying the affects of pollution on aircraft more heavily because compressing air with an AQI over 1,000 (like India has experienced recently) could have very unknown consequences elsewhere in the engine after the blades, (unless it just pushes all the pollution particulates back into the cabin, which is another issue that needs to be solved)

xadhominemx 7y ago
Airborne particulates are absolutely not “out of sight/out of mind” for engineers designing commercial jet engines. That’s an absurd statement. It’s one of the top considerations for those engineers.

darksaints 7y ago

There's a lot of hope out there for ceramic matrix composites. Not only can some materials handle much higher temperatures (which translates to higher pressure ratios and higher efficiencies), but they do it at lower weights and higher strengths, with high resistance to oxidative degradation in the presence of contaminants.