R-R Trent tested to destruction - video

For the first time ever Rolls Royce has released a video that shows a blade-off test in which an engine is tested to destruction to ensure that passengers like you or I are protected from bits of turbofan flying about if such a thing should happen.

The engine in question is one of the Rolls Royce Trent family as used on the Airbus A380, a huge engine!

Seeing the whole thing in slow motion is remarkable, especially impressive is the way the casing of the engine wobbles like jelly as millions of pieces of engine are hurled around inside it, yet it maintains its integrity, impressive stuff

anyhow, here's the link, I don't know how to do the embedding thing as the instructions on ATS make no sense to me, sorry.

www.youtube.com...

This video has recently popped up on a number of aviation sites, but I have no idea why its touted as 'new' (not directed at you waynos, just in general) - it dates back to the end of 2004 when the Discovery program 'Building the A380' was first aired.

I've seen some similar videos before, its amazing the energy exchanges going on.


One little reason why I try to make sure I'm not in line with the propellors on a turboprop

Oh well, it was new to me anyway as it only appeared on the Flight website this week.

Yes Kilcoo, I'll remember that little tip in future

Struth! That must have cost a few quid. Is such testing a safety/certification requirement?

Originally posted by Fang
Is such testing a safety/certification requirement?

Its an absolutely critical part of certification. If the fan escapes the casing, that engine/casing does not go onto a commerical aircraft until the problem is sorted.


If it failed, it would require a big investment from the engine maker to fix, and almost certainly impact on the engine thrust:weight ratios - its a big big deal.

Discovery channel had a show on the 777 and it showed the GE-90 undergoing the same tests. One of the best was the bird strike test. The fired a chicken into the blades at full power. The slow motion showed the chicken being sliced up like meat at the deli

Hey Waynos,

Embedding the vid is pretty easy (once you know how )

Simply hit the YouTube VIDEO button when posting, cut in the serial number of the vid (the bit after the "v=", and before "&url". In this instance, it would be j973645y5AA



[edit on 19-2-2007 by Willard856]

[edit on 19-2-2007 by Willard856]

Thanks willard, I'll give it go if I come up with any more. I failed with my rotodyne movie so I didn't try with this one

Fred, any chance of finding that GE90 movie? I'd love to see it. The mention of the chicken reminds me of the story about the RAF testing the windscreen of the Hawk trainer against birdstrikes and wondering why they never got the same results that BAE did, I'm sure its been posted here before.

Originally posted by waynos
Fred, any chance of finding that GE90 movie? I'd love to see it.

I don't know if this is the film Fred was referring to but here is a short video about the GE 90-115B certification process.

Lets see if I can figure out this video thingy...

Thanks for that westy. It looks like the one that fred was describing ok

tenuous link to a A380 drifting on landing




well the op said the RR trent is for an a380

Just going off at a little tangent. I've been told (from a man that should know), that Rolls-Royce is extremely well placed to take advantage of the bleedless engine.

Reason being, all of R-Rs large turbofans have 3 shalfs, whereas the competition (namely GE and P&W) only have 2. Using the intermediate turbine stage to run the alternator is much more efficient than having to run the whole high pressure turbine at a suitable speed to provide electric power.


Expect GE & Pratt to move to 3 shaft engines, but there is no doubt R-R has the leg up on them. The Trent 1000 is supposed to be over a ton lighter than the GENx - and operate more efficiently into the bargain.

Originally posted by kilcoo316
Expect GE & Pratt to move to 3 shaft engines, but there is no doubt R-R has the leg up on them. The Trent 1000 is supposed to be over a ton lighter than the GENx - and operate more efficiently into the bargain.

GE and P&W are both moving to geared turbofans rather than the triple spool approach.

Originally posted by RichardPrice
GE and P&W are both moving to geared turbofans rather than the triple spool approach.

I know P&W have been working on geared fans for some time, but that is the first I've heard of GE going that direction as well.


Anyway, I'm not sure if it is the right route to go down - a gearbox will make their engine even longer - which is a large contribution to the extra weight they currently have. [Yes, a 3 shaft Trent is shorter than a 2 shaft GENx!]

In this weeks Flight magazine there's an article on GE's dominance of the market. Apparently where there is a choice of engines for modern widebody twins R-R is in front, Boeing never expected the 777 LR models to be as successful as they have been or they would never have agreed to an exclusive supplier deal with GE. Rolls own experience with the slow selling A340-500/600 (on which they have exclusive supplier status) is more akin to what Boeing were expecting as 'no manufacturer will enter into an exclusive supplier deal for a model that is expected to sell well'. This has played a large part in GE's current success.

I don't know if this is obvious to everybody else but it is news to me so I thought it worth mentioning.