The first engine run has taken place on Rolls-Royce’s new Testbed 80, said to be the world’s largest and smartest aerospace engine test rig.
In development for the past three years, the £90m facility is located at Rolls-Royce’s Deby test centre. It has an internal area of 7,500m2 and was designed to accommodate both existing and future Rolls engines, including the next-generation UltraFan demonstrator. The inaugural test run saw a Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine put through its paces on the rig.
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“Today is an important landmark in our journey towards a more sustainable future for aerospace and aviation,” said Chris Cholerton, president of Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace.
“Testbed 80 will not only test engines such as the Trent XWB – the world’s most efficient aero-engine in service – but also the engines and propulsion systems of the future, which will see us take another step towards decarbonisation. It’s great that the first engine test has been a success and we are looking forward to the official opening of the facility in the coming months.”
According to Rolls-Royce, Testbed 80 can collect data from more than 10,000 different parameters on an engine, using a web of sensors that can detect tiny vibrations at a rate of up to 200,000 samples per second. The testbed is also home to a powerful x-ray machine that is able to capture 30 images per second and beam them directly to a secure cloud, where engineers around the world can access them for analysis. Rolls-Royce claims it is the only aero manufacture to use x-ray imaging on its engines while they are running.
The company will also use the testbed to further explore the performance of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs), synthetic alternatives to petroleum-derived hydrocarbons. Rolls-Royce said that SAFs can already be used as ‘drop-in’ fuels for its existing engines. Testbed 80’s 140,000 litre tank can house various fuel types – including SAFs – and will be used to investigate different blends as part of the company’s decarbonisation strategy.
Fantastic news, the UK is still a major player in aero-engines. I remember seeing the original Frank Whittle test site which was basically slabs with a sloped rear section to deflect the hot gases upwards!
Rolls Royce used to have an Industrial and Marine division to package aero-derived gas turbines, I believe that this is long gone and Siemens now package the RR engines. It seems that there will be a case for open-cycle gas turbines to support the unreliable generation of wind and solar when we have no coal fired plant, maybe RR should re-start the I&M division? CCGTs are fine if they are on-line for long enough periods, but their efficiency is woeful if this period is short, and the maintenance costs increase rapidly.
Sadly, the UK is no longer a player in any of the CCGT schemes that are purchased in the UK, and no longer supplies power plant world-wide (as it did up to the 1990s). As with windmills, the UK only does the building and civil engineering side of power engineering now.
£90m sounds an awful lot for a big MOT ramp.
This is a 2 GB/sec 12Bit A/D converter with a multiplexer connected to 10,000 outputs. FYI, a present state-of-the-art Oscilloscope can handle it without skipping a beat. A last generation ~$26K Tek scope should be up to the task.
FYI, not all Digital Oscilloscopes are rated at 12Bit resolution (+/-0.0125% resolution and +/-.0024 linearity) . Typically they are rated at ~8Bits (0.2% resolution and +/-0.4% linearity) much easier to meet with traditional build techniques.
Brilliant news. Proud of Rolls Royce.
If you are trying to calibrate a sensor to 0.1% accuracy, and your transducer is only outputting 0 to 5v and you are reading a on a +/-10v input at 12bit resolution (4096 points), you only have 1024 bits ie 0.1% per bit, so you can’t achieve your calibration! Practically, 12 bits makes for a gritty reading.