The Good Doctor S2E17

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The Ultrafan engine, has a giant carbon-composite blades with tips made of titanium

"It's on a different level, from what I've seen so far," says Lorna Carter, the recently, the work on a new Rolls-Royce research and development centre in the vicinity of Bristol began.

she works with giant robots, the thousands of strips of carbon fiber tape to form a cylinder of about 3. 7m (nearly 12 ft) in diameter.

The cylinder forms the outer shell of the Rolls-Royce is the new engine, the Ultrafan.

Still in development, Rolls-Royce, says the Ultrafan is quieter and more economical than anything he has made before.

It will certainly be greater.

"the a component, we try to be solid and we are at the capacity limit, it is really stretching the limits of what we can do," says Mrs Carter.

the £25m investment Rolls-Royce has perfect robots, which make rotor blades made of carbon fiber developed, a process that is already More Than 10 years.

Lorna Carter is working with robots to build, motor housings

The Fan -casing and blades made of carbon fiber the result is a 20% weight saving compared to existing materials.

And this is important, as the aerospace industry is Under Pressure to preserve the environment. Aircraft are becoming more efficient, but airline traffic is still growing faster.

Rolls-Royce estimates that over 37,000 new aircraft required over the next 20 years.

"We have come a long way, but The Challenge is to decouple emissions growth from traffic growth," says Alan Newby, future-programs director at Rolls-Royce.

The new engine is also a transmission may include allowing a much larger fan, thereby providing a more efficient engine.

It is an innovation that is already in use is, to a smaller engine from the American Pratt & Whitney Engine, the PW1000G.

While Rolls-Royce and others in the aerospace industry working on electrical and hybrid drive lines systems for aircraft, for the long-haul aircraft, the engines are at the moment, jet is the only option.

The new huge Rolls-Royce engine needs a cooling fan case 3. 7m width

- assuming that it is a Technology that squeezed since the second World War , how much more efficiency is the Jet Engine ?

a whole lot, according to Professor Pericles Pilidis, who is the head of power and propulsion department at Cranfield University's centre for drive Technology .

His Department is working with on research projects with aerospace companies such as Airbus and Rolls-Royce.

"I expect improvements to continue," he says. Better materials, more efficient, and improved coatings can all help make engines lighter and stronger.

He also points out that lighter engines mean the structure of the aircraft can be lighter than to wear it less weight.

This kind of incremental changes that may not sound like much, but in the airline business, you can make a Big Difference .

"Evolutionary changes, they sound unimpressive - 10% here, 12%. But in the airline business with very thin margins, the difference between life and death," says Richard Aboulafia, Vice President of analysis at the Teal Group.

A UK company is looking to a step change in propulsion. Reaction Engines is developing a Rocket Engine , called Sabre, to high-speed aircraft and space vehicles.

On the type of speeds, the aims of Reaction , Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound), the air in the engine to reach temperatures of 1,000 C.

Reaction engines hopes, its engines allow you to travel on More Than five times the speed of sound

this temperature would destroy the engine, so the Reaction is developed, a cooling system, the chill of a second, the incoming air in a fraction of a.

The so-called pre-cooler consists of miniature tubes, less than 1mm thick, you can pipe the coolant under high pressure through The System and wipe off the heat.

"The saber is totally unique, there is nobody else in The World , that we are aware of the fact that the developing air-breathing Rocket Engine ," says Mark Thomas , chief executive Officer, Reaction Engines.

"Our pre-cooler Technology . to is in a different class. It is ultra-high-performance, ultra-light and extremely miniaturized. it is simply in a different League completely. "

Reaction -engines to create plans, the Sabre engine this year and test it in the year 2021.

the Reaction of the pre-cooler may also be used on conventional engines to make them more efficient, an idea tested with Rolls-Royce.

According to Prof Pericles, it will be another 30 years until we see a Radical Change in passenger aircraft.

then he thinks it is a transition from the current design, which is basically a tube, with engines hanging under the wings, a "blended wing" design.

In 30 years, the aircraft look like in this design from the Cranfield University

Below, the design, the plane is just a set of wings, the engines sit on top.

These engines may also be hydrogen, which has the potential to be a very low-emission fuel.

"hydrogen as a fuel is inevitable," says Prof Pilidis. "It is a long-term solution to decarbonise air travel completely.

But environmentalists said the need for action sooner.

"It will always be a role for Technology in reducing emissions, but the solution to the climate crisis is something that we need to come up with right now," says Jenny Bates, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

"The priority instead should be to reduce emissions by less airplanes in the sky. This is an important part of the prevention of further climate collapse. "

our planet matters, rolls-royce holdings, airbus group, air travel, aerospace, climate change, boeing

Source of news: bbc.com