Inside Rolls Royce Factory - Building Future Jet Engines

- And we can move the accelerator to maximum power. (engine moans) (upbeat music) - Over 50,000 horsepower, that's huge. - Just be careful, Sam, the leading edges are pretty sharp. - Test cell, which is a

building

within a

building

. - Wow. - But we can do water ingestion tests. (engine moans) - Well, this is our DreamFix installation. - What went wrong with the Dreamliner? - A special Trent 1000 here. - Wow, this is a very different one. - Once completed, it will be the world's largest indoor testbed for experimental testing. - It's like a swimming pool. - Yes, yes, it's a bit, it's not really a pool. - I'm really impressed, but this is really prepared for the

future

generation of

engines

like the UltraFan.

Welcome to Derby in the United Kingdom. When you think of Rolls-Royce, you probably think of their cars, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Rolls-Royce Ghost. But for AvGeek like me and many of you, we love airplanes and know that Rolls-Royce is an excellent airplane engine. Today we are going to take a look inside the Rolls-Royce engine

factory

. (upbeat music) This building is huge. Analyzing what they did, to me, is like rocket science. But here it's just production. A new engine is produced every 20 days. - Welcome, Sam, to our production testing facility. This is where we start building the

engines

. So today we will look at the construction of the XWB engine, which is the exclusive engine for the A350. (Engines whir) (upbeat music) The beginning of the process really, here.

We have a group of fans behind us. This is where the fan blades go. If you look behind the fan disk, you can see where the blades enter. So they are manufactured and brought here. So you've got the fan blades, the fan disk, and here on the table the ring fillers, and they're the pieces that go between the blades to create a nice, smooth finish for the air flowing into the motor. So this is really the beginning of the process for our XWB engine. So what we have here now is that we put together the disc, the blades and the annular fillings and we form the fan that goes in the front of the engine, where the flow passes through the engine.

And it is the fan that produces most of the engine's thrust. And this is a fan assembled for an XWB engine. - Wow, look at this sword here. - Just be careful, Sam, the leading edges are pretty sharp. - Sharp enough? - And that's to get really efficient flow to the engine. We just looked at the fan on the front of the engine. What we are looking at now is a turbine and a shaft that goes at the back of the engine. Now this is what drives the fan with one end of the compressor, which is why you usually see turbine blades hidden in this casing up here, and then a long shaft that goes through the center of the engine and drives the compressor or the fan. on the front.

This is another module under construction that combines to create our XWB engine. (upbeat music) What we have here now is the low pressure turbine at the back of the engine. That's the beginning of the core build, so at the back of the motor we put it vertically and gradually build it up into what we call a stack, which is the core build. And then on the other side of the shop, here, we have the fan under construction. You saw the fan blades that are built next to it. This is the fan box and you can see many tubes and wires on the outside, a very complex construction process.

And you can see that we use electronic models to direct the guys who are building the engine. So they'll look at the screen, see where the pipes need to go, check it before putting them in, and put them in the engine. (upbeat music) So this is where we build the core of the engine. So what we do there is start with the compressor at the bottom, work our way up to the combustion chamber, and then the turbines at the top. And as you can see, the different levels, where the guys who are working on the engine have to be close to the part they are working on, so that the floor moves as the construction of the engine progresses. (upbeat music) Behind me, the core has already finished building.

Now she is ready to marry the fans. Remember how the fan and core are built separately? Here is the final core ready to go, we just need to attach it to the fan. If you look behind me here, you can see that the core has been flipped from vertical to horizontal, and the large fan case has been placed in front. - Phil, what has this machine been doing, spinning around? - Well. Well, before we attach the fan blades to the fan case, we need to make sure that they fit perfectly into the fan case. We don't want a big gap between the fan case and the blades, so this is just checking it and making sure they fit perfectly. - Behind the 22 giant fan blades is the turbine blade inside.

Each of them can generate 800 horsepower, so together, 68 turbine blades generate over 50,000 horsepower, that's huge. The engine appears to be ready to run. - Only 20 days from start to finish and the engine is ready to be tested before reaching our customer. So let's go now and look at our testing facilities. - Test facility, so the engine is going to the test facility now? - That's how it is. - So, let's go. - That's where we're going now, let's go. (upbeat music) - Welcome to the 58 Bed control room. This is where the guys take control of the engine, whether to collect data or ensure construction compliance.

We take the engine, we take it to the testing facility and meet the customer's requirements, whether it's to test its maturity, for different voltages, pressures, temperatures, we can do a lot of things here in Derby on the dyno. Basically, the pilot takes control of the engine with the throttle and we can move that throttle to maximum power. (engine moans) And that will then put the engine in a certain mode throughout the power range. We collect data, write down everything we do electronically, and record everything we do. And we also analyze the data in real time in the control room to make sure we meet customer requirements.

So we have a security system here at the testing facility that allows us to make sure that we have all people and personnel out of the testing facility before we start work and crank the engine. So every system has a lock. Until all those locks are in place we can't start the engine. It is a safety interlock system. So here we are, entering the test cell, which is a building within a building, making the building extremely quiet when we run the engine. (upbeat music) This is the test cell now. So when we go through this door, we will enter the testing cell and we can see the testing facility. - Wow. (upbeat music) - This is where we do different types of tests.

We can carry out approval tests just before the engines reach the customer, we can carry out research tests or development tests. Some of them are really exciting and interesting tests that we don't do very often, that we do in development, ready for certification, like fan blade removal tests, where we turn off a fan and check that it's contained within the system. We could make a... - Oh, do you have to destroy it? - Destroy a sword to show... - How they can hold that. - Just showing that if that were to happen in service, it's very unlikely to happen, but we have to show that that event is safe, so we do it.

We can do water ingestion tests. (engine moans) We poured a lot of water into the front of the engine to simulate a storm and fly through a storm, and we showed that the engine works correctly in that. We can do bird impact tests, where we shoot birds at the engine to simulate what might happen if you hit a bird and show that the engine is strong enough to withstand it. And we can also do what we call cold start tests, where we basically bring in a huge refrigerator and put the engine in it. - Make it very cold. - Overnight, make it very, very cold, and then remove the refrigerator and demonstrate that we can start it cold, because engines have a harder time starting in very cold conditions.

So we can do all sorts of really important testing in this cell in Derby. - Alright. - So, should we go now and look at the preparation workshop where we prepare the engines before going to the test bench? Okay, so we're entering our prep shop, our prep shop, where the engines come before they go to the dyno. Now, every engine we build here in Derby will pass through here before being delivered to our customer. Relatively simple configuration checks we do on the dyno, just to make sure everything is working correctly. Very similar to what you could get with a car.

So every time we build a car, before we deliver it to the showroom, they just drive it quickly, just to make sure everything is working properly. We put the target on the front, which simulates, it's different than what would happen in service, but it simulates the front of the engine. We connect it to this kind of cart at the top that simulates the pylon, the piece that fixes the engine to the plane. It's not exactly the same, but it represents it. And then you can make many, many connections. So the data then comes from the engine to the pylon, the pylon plugs into the test cell, and all that data flows back to the computers that we saw in the control rooms, so that the engineers and the test engineers can understand how the engine works. executing. (upbeat music) - Sam, this is our DreamFix installation, which is a physical representation, if you will, of the effort we're making to fix this issue we're having with the Trent 1000 and reduce disruption for our customers. which we really regret.

We currently have about four engines here and are quickly arranging turn times to get them back into the fleet. And you see around you, the activity here to really start to address this problem and solve it, incorporate all the solutions that we know we have designed for now. (upbeat music) - The Trent 1000 engine is developed especially for the 787 Dreamliners, but somehow they suffer from a problem. What went wrong with the Trent 1000 powered Dreamliner, Richard? - Well, we had three problems, but I think the easiest way to try to understand it is to use a car analogy.

Imagine you have a car, it's been proven safe to use, but you know the tires are going to wear out at some point, you know the windshield wipers are going to wear out at some point. Those things happen and you bring them in to fix them when necessary. Two of our problems were like that. So we had an HP turbine and an IP turbine that were wearing out a little earlier than expected, so you bring them in to replace them earlier than expected. On top of that, the third issue that made it a little more complicated was that we had a problem with the IP compressor, which was not something that could be monitored under conditions.

So it's not like wearing out tires or looking at the windshield wipers. Imagine you have a problem with an oil pump and you have to bring it in. If you bring that car in because the tires you know have worn out, you don't necessarily replace the wiper blades and oil pump at the same time. That's why it takes us a while to implement all of these fixes, simply because they don't necessarily fix everything at once. The engine is perfectly safe and reliable, we just don't make it last as long as we and our customers would like.

Those are the three problems we are addressing. So imagine you bring your tires in, we put new tires on, and we don't necessarily change the wipers at the same time because they might still be in good shape. Then you come next time, change the wipers and your tires are still fine. So it takes a long time, but we will get there and we will solve this problem. Everything is ready, the design corrections are already implemented. So, Sam, we're at the DreamFix facility looking at the Trent 1000s, and we actually have a special Trent 1000 here that has some of our newest technology for

future

engines, which I'd like to show you if you'd like. walk here. - We'll see. (upbeat music) Wow, this one is very different.

This one has a turquoise blue engine blade. It looks like a carbon rim here, yes. So what is the latest technological advance from Rolls-Royce? - This is actually a test engine for our latest carbon/titanium fan and containment system, which is the application of carbon technology to reduce the weight of the front of the engine, fan and fan housing. It's running on a Trent 1000 donor engine, because it happens to be the right size, but we're putting this engine and the new system through its paces. With this technology, it has taken us a while to overcome our ownClass-leading titanium blades.

And that's primarily because the first and second generation carbon blades, while good for weight, weren't as good for air dynamics, whereas our titanium blades that we saw on the Trent 1000 are excellent for both. Now we have a technology that, thanks to the 3D weaving of carbon fiber, we can manufacture a racket that is light and aerodynamically efficient. So a system like this of this size would save about 750 pounds per engine, which equates, obviously, in a twin-engine airplane, to 1,500 pounds of weight that can actually burn less fuel or carry more passengers. Because what we'll also do during certification testing is put an explosive bolt in the root here and blow it up when the engine is at full power, and then the engine has to prove that it can contain the kinetic energy of that blade.

If one of them were to come loose under those circumstances, the amount of energy we're talking about would be similar to if you took a BMW 3 Series and drove it off a 100-foot cliff. That's how much energy this has to contain. And what we have to prove as engine manufacturers is that the engine doesn't necessarily have to continue to run and produce thrust, but you have to make sure that it runs safely and that no high-energy debris gets into the casing and damages the fuselage. So if any of this happened while you're flying, then you might spill your gin and tonic, but you'd be perfectly safe. (upbeat music) - So today we're going to switch over to construction equipment, because today we're going to look at something underneath the construction. - Today we are here in Bed 80.

Once it is completed, it will be the world's largest indoor testbed for experimental testing. This is where we really push our engines to the limit so we can understand how they really work. So what we're doing now is really putting intelligence into the building. We are equipping the systems that will allow us to control the engine, but more importantly, understand what the engine is doing. And we can actually read up to 10,000 parameters on this bed, and we can take that data in real time and transmit it back to the cloud so it can be linked in real time to all of our various models.

It's really exciting for us, it's not just a construction project, you know? It's about testing the future of Rolls-Royce. We are now inside what we call the prep tent. This is where we bring what is essentially an experimental engine built, but now we bring it here to prepare it for testing. So this is where we put the engine on our tower, so we've effectively made the engine think it's installed on an airplane. So the reason for the size of this building is to allow us to maneuver the motors and prime them, and with the UltraFan, clearly one of the largest motors we've ever made, particularly in terms of the size of its fan. - That's huge.

I was on the dyno 58 yesterday and I was really impressed. But this is really prepared for the future generation of motors like the UltraFan. Much, much larger capacity and much, much stronger. - That's right, this is much bigger. But then again, it's bigger for a reason. On the UltraFan, the fan size is significantly larger. We'll put a lot more slow moving air through this dyno. Again, it's all about getting smooth airflow into that engine, and we can do that big time. Of course, we can do UltraFan and we've clearly designed it to do a little more.

But the important thing is that we can also do something small in this box, so we can also move to much smaller motors. Basically, you'll be able to make all the engines we make today and all the engines we intend to make in the future right now. - It's like a swimming pool. - Yes Yes. It's a bit, it's not really a pool. So what it is about, it's about we have a floor here, and when we're testing, the floor is flat. But when we want to get to the engine, because it's raised to such a height, what this allows us to do is raise the entire floor up to the engine, and this allows us to work on the engine while it's on the dyno, and then we lower it back down. .

But yeah, absolutely, you can imagine people coming in thinking it's our pool. But yes, no, it is a ground that rises and falls. (upbeat music) We've moved out of the trial cell. We are now in the first section of the tube, which is where we begin to manage the air coming out of the engine. Anyone who has been to the airport knows what the noise is like. And I think a lot of people have probably seen the videos on YouTube of people standing on the airport fences and watching the power of the engine as it takes off. (engines roar) Clearly, we need to make sure we do something about all that power, and that's what this is doing.

This is a fifteen foot section tube, which has actually been designed to allow us to slow down the air as it comes out the back of the engine. Again, when it comes out of the test cell, people won't even realize the engine is running. This is effectively where the air will leave the test bench. When we look at this, we call it a basket for obvious reasons. This is where the air leaves the engine, goes through the big tube that we've seen and enters here, which is an eight meter section. And what we're doing here is as the air goes down, it hits that, what looks like the front of an engine, it hits that cone.

But what that cone then does is spread the air throughout this space, and again the idea is that we spread the air, change its direction, slow it down, and then all the air can rise. This testbed, you know, builds a testbed like this probably every 10 or 15 years, so from an engineer's point of view, this is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So we have people working on this who are very, very excited, because they know that they are doing something for the future, future generations, and they know that they may not have the opportunity again in their career, which is really exciting. - Then your legacy would last a lifetime. - That's all, absolutely. - There are many more years for an engineering feat like this. - Yes absolutely. (air hissing) (bell sounds) (bubbles burst)