The Most ADVANCED Aircraft Engine Ever Made Has A GIANT Problem

This is the CFM Rise, a revolutionary

aircraft

engine

that promises to push the boundaries of aerospace travel. Nearly 40 years of research and collaboration have gone into the

most

efficient and innovative

engine

of all time, but if this engine's innovative design has been around for four decades, why? It takes this long for the aviation industry to start paying attention to really understand the extent to which CFM plans to push the boundaries of aerospace engineering. We must first look back to where airplane engines started at the beginning of the 20th century, the WRI brothers successfully. He completed a flight with his historic right wheel that marked the beginning of powered

aircraft

flights in our world.

The right flywheel was powered by a self-built piston engine. Early piston engines were typically of inline or radial configuration. Inline engines had ERS arranged in a single row often with a water cooling system to control engine temperature. Piston engines work on the principle of internal combustion. They use a mixture of fuel and air that is compressed inside the cylinders by the movement of the pistons. The ignition of this air-fuel mixture produces a high-pressure gases that drove the pistons converted the energy into rotational motion that drove the airplane's propeller. The biggest

problem

, how

ever

, with these early inline piston engines was reliability, they required frequent maintenance due to wear on components such as valves, pistons and bearings, cooling systems necessary.

Careful monitoring to avoid overheating, especially during long climbs or high power settings. Because of this, the 1930s saw the emergence of radial engines that featured cylinders arranged in a circular pattern around the crankshaft. These engines were built using materials such as cast iron for the cylinders, steel for the crankshaft, and aluminum for components such as pistons and cylinder heads. Radial engines such as the Pratton Whitney r985 wasp Jr became popular for their greater reliability, ease of maintenance and ability to deliver more power compared to earlier in-line cylinder designs, they were widely used in both the civil sector. and military aircraft during World War II.

The first piston engines played a crucial role in the development of aviation inline engines where the cylinders are aligned in a single row. They also saw progress during this period. Superchargers were introduced to increase engine power at high altitudes, improving aircraft performance. the Rolls-Royce Merlin used iconic aircraft such as the Spitfire and the P-51 Mustang show the capabilities of these new and improved inline supercharged engines; How

ever

, despite the advances that were

made

with these engines, the limitations with them were still clear, the improvements

made

to them definitely made them more efficient and allowed them to move faster and faster, but unfortunately it was not efficient or fast enough.

To keep up with the demands for more capacity to perform maintenance even became significantly easier, but it did not change the fact that the required maintenance frequency was still quite high, the use of a piston alone had inherent drawbacks of wear, even when they changed the materials used to build them, so if they wanted to get rid of this

problem

they would need to make some serious improvements to the way they built the pistons or perhaps they could try a completely different way of powering their engines. The urgency of World War II prompted intensive research and development in aviation technologies during the 1940s, the development of gas turbines, which are engines that convert energy from burning fuel into high-speed gas formed the basis of what would become the first jet engines.

Engineers realize that these engines provide a higher thrust-to-speed ratio compared to piston engines, making them more suitable for high-speed, high-altitude flight, not to mention a significant drop in maintenance frequency. Necessary, the development of these jet engines revolutionized aviation in the mid-20th century, the German Messer Schmid ME262 became the first aircraft-powered fighter aircraft operational during World War II. Post-war engines developed rapidly and led to the introduction of turbojet, turbofan and turboprop engines, this marked perhaps the biggest step in evolution since the Wright brothers first unveiled the aircraft engine and would be the basis on which that all engines would be built, including increasing CFM, as of today, of course, jet engines have only continued.

They evolved from the point where they were historically introduced during World War II, as they evolved they continued to increase in diameter. They do this because of the need to generate more thrust, which is the force that propels the plane forward. It is produced by the combination of high-pressure airflow generated by the fan and high-speed exhaust gases exiting the engine to generate more thrust. They've largely done this in two ways: finding ways to push the air back faster or pushing. a larger air mass at the same speed or the second, more efficient option increases the size, allowing them to increase their bypass ratio.

This essentially means they use a larger fan that can push more air or bypass the motor core, a problem that may be obvious. is that if you increase the size of the engine, it also becomes heavier over time, the positive aspects have outweighed the inherent disadvantages of increasing the weight of the aircraft, there is no absolute limit to how big an aircraft can become, but there are practical limitations. and diminishing returns influencing engine size as engines become larger, their weight increases proportionally. Maintaining a high thrust-to-weight ratio is crucial to aircraft performance, especially during the takeoff and climb phases.

Balancing the thrust generated with the weight of the engine and aircraft structure becomes more challenging as the engines get larger. Larger engines will generally also experience greater drag and aerodynamic challenges that affect the overall efficiency of the aircraft. Additionally, while larger engines can produce greater thrust, they can consume more fuel, which affects the range and operating costs of the aircraft. Improvements in engine efficiency, materials and aerodynamics help mitigate fuel consumption, but there are practical limits on how much fuel a given size engine can use efficiently, not to mention that it will become increasingly difficult to place the airplane engine under the wing, since space is limited, at some point you will need to do that too. increase the size of the plane entirely and that only compounds the problems that come with increasing size and weight.

Fortunately, this is not the only way that has been discovered for an engine to push a really large mass of air backwards. Manufacturers would simply have to look back. A couple of decades to discover a solution back in the 1980s, engine and aircraft manufacturers were exploring something called a propeller fan, which is also known as an open rotor engine. These operate much like turbo fans, but are not enclosed in a cell to meet the required efficiency, thrust and tractable diameter, early versions of these open rotor engines had two counter-rotating fan discs that had variable pitches. Unlike the fan blades we see on modern turbofans, having a variable pitch would further increase efficiency, many companies at the time studied. and developed this design, one of the largest companies was General Electric with its G36, they based their designs on NASA research together with a French engine manufacturer, snma, a manufacturer known today as saffran, a company with which they continue partners as part of the CFM association. company that is developing the rise engine, one of the propeller engines developed was selected for use in Boeing's new 7 j7 to replace the 727 model at the time, even though the 757 had since been used, to some travelers frequent did not like the increase in size that came.

With the new model, Boeing wanted to introduce a smaller alternative, however, this plan never came to fruition and Boeing decided to launch the 737 NG to replace the 727. Instead, the designed plan was the G36, but the part What stopped the eventual implementation of the design was excessive engine noise, which was even louder than the lower bypass turbofans that the MD80 and even the 727 it was intended to replace used at the time. Another setback came with a drop in oil prices during the 1980s because of this. Manufacturers cared less about the need for more fuel-efficient designs, especially if it meant a massive increase in noise and the use of radically new and unproven technology.

Unfortunately, this resulted in much of the aircraft manufacturers losing interest in open rotor engines for the time being, so what exactly? changed in today's market that has resulted in renewed interest in Des designs with the increase in CFM, what if I told you that GE, al

most

20 years later, would strike gold when an old friend of yours revealed a design that would solve almost all their problems? The issues, first and foremost fuel efficiency, are of course again on everyone's minds today as prices have skyrocketed and demand for such fuels has only increased. Fortunately, despite the loss of interest in the designs, many engine manufacturers did not stop developing and studying open rotor engines.

Innovations such as

advanced

blade containment systems ensure safety in the event of blade failure, preventing debris from causing damage to the aircraft or other engine components. Variable pitch and sweep mechanisms allow for optimal blade angle adjustments during different phases of flight, improving performance in a variety of operating conditions. Additionally, during that time, GE continued to improve the fan blades and introduced a new composite design for the blades. This, among other new improvements based on knowledge from research conducted over the years, proved useful in General Electric's new ge90 engines to be used in Boeing's Tri 7 and the CFM jump engines used in the 737.

Max and the Airbus A320 Neo now, while interest in efficiency returned and many discoveries would lead to improvements in overall aircraft engine designs, open rotors were still somewhat prevalent Noise problem This is where the manufacturer Frenchman and CFM member, Saffran, came into play when they built and tested a new open rotor model. It was quite similar to the G36 of yesteryear, but used a gearbox to help drive the two counter-rotating fans. Saffran reported that the noise level in these new designs was the same as current CFM jump engines, essentially solving the biggest problem open rotor fans had faced when it came to properly implementing them in modern aircraft. .

GE and Saffran together discovered a way to minimize the design moving to just one fan from the two counter-spinning in the previous design, made possible by new advances in technology, this design is now the basis for the increase of CFM which was revealed in June 2021, this new design further reduced engine noise levels and also allowed the use of smaller, more reliable gearboxes currently used in modern turbofan models. The expectations in terms of efficiency are astonishing. Current models see a bypass ratio of approximately 12 to 1 and CFM expects an increase of up to 20 to 1 in fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions are expected to see a 20% improvement over current engines on the market.

Airbus is also preparing an Airbus A380 with CFM to test the new engine they plan to use burning hydrogen. turbofan that will further reduce CO2 emissions since the use of hydrogen as a fuel source does not cause any greenhouse gas emissions. The use of hydrogen fuel has become a goal for all current and future aviation engines and this would be a big step in ensuring efficiency. and reliability of this fuel source. Ground testing is expected to begin in the middle of this decade with flight testing to follow shortly after if all goes to plan, goodbye for now.