Aircraft

World's largest and most efficient aircraft engine aces first tests

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Rolls-Royce workers assembling the giant UltraFan technology demonstrator
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce workers assembling the giant UltraFan technology demonstrator
Rolls-Royce
The largest version will push some 110,000 pounds of thrust
Rolls-Royce
Arguably not a great place to stand when this thing gets switched on
Rolls-Royce
The mammoth UltraFan in place at Testbed 80 in Derby
Rolls-Royce
3D-printed carbon-composite blades with titanium leading edges are extremely light – the UltraFan couldn't be as big without them
Rolls-Royce
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Rolls-Royce has completed the first ground tests on its massive UltraFan engine, claiming it's at least 10% more efficient than any other large aero engine in service today. This carbon/titanium beauty will roll out on airliners in the 2030s.

Despite the UltraFan's intimidating size, it's impressively lightweight thanks to Rolls-Royce's high-precision 3D-manufacturing robots, which make most of those mammoth 140-inch-diameter (3.56 m) blades in carbon composite, but use titanium to add strength and resilience to the leading edges.

The turbines behind the main fan are kept fairly small, creating a high bypass ratio by allowing a good volume of air to pass straight through around the compressors and out the back. This cuts down noise by a remarkable 35%. It also boosts efficiency – as does a planetary power gearbox that allows the main fan to spin slower and the compressors to spin faster, putting each in their optimal zones.

3D-printed carbon-composite blades with titanium leading edges are extremely light – the UltraFan couldn't be as big without them
Rolls-Royce

At 10% more efficient than the most frugal engine on the market – Rolls-Royce's own Trent XWB, according to the company – it stands to save airlines billions of dollars in fuel bills, so it's sure to be popular when it's fully certified and rolling out on narrow and widebody aircraft in the 2030s, at a number of different sizes ranging from 25,000-110,000 pounds of thrust.

As well as saving money, it'll also drop a corresponding amount off the airline's carbon footprint – a small step toward clean flight, but a significant one at scale – while also virtually eliminating particulate emissions and cutting NOx emissions by about 40%.

Rolls-Royce has built a brand new test facility in Derby, in the UK, specifically to meet the requirements of the UltraFan – the first brand new engine design the company has had to test in some 54 years. Initial ground tests of the tech demonstrator assembled in December are now complete, using Testbed 80, the world's largest indoor aero-engine facility.

The mammoth UltraFan in place at Testbed 80 in Derby
Rolls-Royce

"Rolls-Royce’s UltraFan programme has achieved a huge step forward in terms of the fuel efficiency of aircraft engines," said Gary Elliott, CEO of the UK's Aerospace Technology Institute, in a press release. "The technology developed within the programme has greatly improved our understanding of how to increase engine performance while reducing environmental impact. It is a programme that puts the UK at the forefront of the global market, and is absolutely critical for the future of the UK aircraft engine industry. Our congratulations to the Rolls-Royce team for the successful tests of this exciting technology demonstrator."

"The UltraFan demonstrator is a game changer," added Rolls-Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgic. "The technologies we are testing as part of this programme have the capability to improve the engines of today as well as the engines of tomorrow. That is why this announcement is so important – we are witnessing history in the making; a step-change in engine efficiency improvement. When combined with Sustainable Aviation Fuels, more efficient gas turbine engines will be key to hitting the industry’s target of Net Zero flight by 2050. Today we are closer to achieving this ambition."

Check out a short video below.

Source: Rolls-Royce

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15 comments
ljaques
Beautiful engine. With a fan that size, I'll bet the ground crew stay at the top of their game. Given all the 10% gains these new turbines have been getting for the past couple of decades, they should be =producing= fuel any time now. Kudos to RollsRoyce.
guzmanchinky
2030's? Why so long? By then we might have electric or hydrogen aircraft that blow this out of the water. Probably not, but still, it seems like 7 years (at least) is a long time to put something like this into production...
P51d007
Just don't stand in front of it...once she spins up to speed. ;)
Eggbones
Development of a new engine for fossil fuel and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) seems like a very risky venture. Fossil fuel will be gone due to IATA's commitment to net zero by 2050, and SAF is widely regarded as an interim solution to delay fleet replacement. RR may no sooner get production ramped up before demand disappears.
John Jacob
The "UltraFan".......... that is until somebody comes up with the who would have thought, unpredictable, never saw it coming in a million years 150 inch fan.
Laszlo KRUPPA
"10% more efficient" and "game changing" - these are all the performance data available now for the new engine. It is impossible to find anything more exact on the Internet. Quite curious why the old fashioned charts of efficiency as function of speed (or that of the advance ratio!) are totally missing. Can't help suspecting that by presenting real figures to the public (with regulators and lawmakers among them) RR might burst much of the marketing bubble: in absolute terms it is only (40% +/- delta, at best) of efficiency what we must speak about in average. As the engine is meant mostly for subsonic transport (where propellers produce over 80-90% efficiency peaks), 40% may seem less than attractive.
MarylandUSA
"at a number of different sizes ranging from 25,000-110,000 pounds of thrust."
Something doesn't add up. No airline will use a 140-inch (3.56-meter) fan to deliver just 25,000 pounds of thrust. And when I worked at GE Aircraft Engines, no single engine design could be configured in a 4.4X range of thrusts, like 25 to 110K; maybe 1.5x (55,000 to 78,000).
vince
We dont beed more and larger jets. We need more and larger electric motirs and planes.
Towerman
Right on Vince.
Investing in a beaten horse is not going to be profitable. Electric is the NEW... This turbine is beautiful indeed though. My advice to them, make that monster to be electric motor compatible, which should not be hard to do, for when the 2030s strike, battery tech would be mature ready for full take over. Gas guzzlers right now is a relic being pushed beyond its meant lifespan. The 30s onward will be saturated with electrics.
Daishi
@comments The reports of the death of combustion engines have been greatly exaggerated.