RR Trent XWB

Rolls-Royce has completed a 150h endurance test on its Trent XWB engine for the Airbus A350 family, indicating that the powerplant has undergone a more rigorous regime than planned.
The test was carried out at the INTA technical aerospace institute in Madrid.
Rolls-Royce said that speeds and temperatures were increased from the manufacturer's original target during testing.
The engine has been sent back to Rolls-Royce in the UK to be stripped down and analysed.
Airbus is to fit the Trent XWB initially to the A350-900. The powerplant will have a baseline thrust of 84,000lb-thrust (374kN) for this variant.
Rolls-Royce chief engineer Chris Young said: "The turbine entry temperatures we were able to demonstrate during the testing deliver substantial margin at the full 84,000lb thrust rating."
Another engine has completed a bird strike test in Derby, UK. Rolls-Royce said it continued to run without incident after ingesting four 2.5lb (1.1kg) birds at maximum take-off power.
Young said the results of the tests have given the manufacturer "further confidence in the on-wing life of the engine".
Rolls-Royce has eight Trent XWB engines in its test programme, and is preparing to fly the powerplant on an A380 next year.

• module weight savings of 15 per cent and aerodynamic efficiency improvements via the use of compressor blisk technology
  
• an optimised internal air system which reduces core air demand and reduces fuel burn
  
• higher
  operating temperatures improve fuel burn. Latest generation material
  technologies so improvement achieved without degrading reliability
  
• a combustor with proven reliability and that is cleaner than all current and future emissions targets
  
• world-beating levels of performance and noise with reduced operational cost thanks to the latest fan system technologies
  
• the
  highest efficiency turbine system of any Trent engine, which includes a
  second stage of IP turbine for improved efficiency and greater
  capability
  
• new bearing system, using larger bearings with increased load capability bringing fuel burn benefits
  
• most advanced engine health monitoring system for minimised operational disruption
  

No, not a number I know off hand, and not something that interests me greatly. The tested TSFC is currently 9.5% lower than the GE90-115B, in comparison the GEnx is around 8% better than the CF6.

Vector a écrit:Bonjour à vous deux,
JP, est-ce que tu veux dire que les vibrations ont augmenté dans le XWB. Si oui, pourquoi ?
Il me semble que la première des choses est de vérifier l'équilibrage dynamique, mais il peut y avoir des phénomènes de combustion ou d'approche du pompage. Il semble qu'ils aient sacrifié une partie de la marge de pompage pour des gains en SFC. Inquiétant, malgré tous les cocoricos de Derby !

Airbus discloses details of first A350 engine flight

First flight of the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB aboard a dedicated
Airbus A380 flying testbed brought the engine to "the edge of the flight
envelope of the A350" and generated "very encouraging, satisfactory
results", is the verdict of Airbus flight test engineer Emanuele
Costanzo.
Such anomalies as arose during the 18 February sortie
can be addressed within "the standard development flight test activity
for this kind of exercise", added Costanzo. They included "very gentle
oscillations, visible on a plot" when the engine was at minimum idle.
Costanzo
was aboard the 5h flight from Toulouse. A Trent XWB development engine,
fitted with test sensors, was mounted on the A380's inner-left pylon,
replacing one of the aircraft's Trent 900s.
"Flying the actual
engine of the A350 on one of our airplanes one year before the first
flight of the A350 gives us a tremendous opportunity to identify the
engine behaviour, to identify the handling and operability of the
engine, and to bring the engine to extreme conditions," said Fernando
Alonso, Airbus's head of flight operations.
Alonso stressed that
the flight focused not just on the engine itself but also on the
engine's interfaces with the aircraft. The A350's generators, bleed
system and hydraulic pumps had been fitted. "This is a major contributor
to the maturity of the A350 XWB right from its very first flight," he
said. "The bulk of the first flight on the flying testbed was about
opening the flight envelope."
The A380 reached its maximum
operating speed of Mach 0.9 and normal operating ceiling of 43,000ft. It
was also operated at high angle of attack and at the minimum speed that
would be encountered in normal service. "The engine was fully
functional and gave us exactly the performance that we would have
expected at Flight Level 100 [10,000ft] and 108kt," said experimental
test pilot Terry Lutz.
"When we did the simulator preparation for
this particular flight, we noticed that engine acceleration and
deceleration characteristics were just slightly better than the Trent
900's, and we were very pleased to find that those characteristics were
almost identical on the actual flight," added Lutz.
The flight
kick-started a seven-month test campaign Airbus is pursuing jointly with
Rolls-Royce. This is set to accumulate 175h, "some three times more
airborne flying hours than on previous programmes", and will include hot
weather testing likely to take place in the United Arab Emirates in the
summer, plus tests intended to support Rolls-Royce's efforts to secure
European Aviation Safety Agency certification - for example,
identification of the re-light envelope and demonstration of compressor
surge margins. "We will make the compressor surge in flight to determine
the surge line of each compressor in new and deteriorated condition,"
said Costanzo.
Cold weather testing additional to that already
carried out by Rolls-Royce is unlikely to happen until the A350 airframe
is in flight testing.
A350 systems to be deployed within the
flying testbed campaign include the air data computer and a Goodrich
nacelle and thrust reverser.



http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/airbus-discloses-details-of-first-a350-engine-flight-368694/