Chinese Engine Development

[Blackstone]

Such discontinuities offer China the best opportunity to catch up.

The most difficult fields for China to catch up in are those that are product of successive generations of iterative refinement -- automobile engines, turbofans, submarines are all good examples of this. By way of contrast, China can adopt "disruptive" technologies almost as fast as the west. The contemporary development of unmanned drone aircraft -- a field in which China is relatively competitive with the west and arguably second only to USA -- is an example of this. When you shake things up, the institutional advantages accumulated by the leading players are reduced or dissipate entirely.

What about the supporting industries and all the educated and trained specialists to catch up? Even if China is doing as well as anyone could, it still takes a long time to mature main and supporting industries, plus staff. That's why I doubt the "'ess than 10 years behind the US' claim. Probably closer to 20, maybe even more.

 

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What about the supporting industries and all the educated and trained specialists to catch up? Even if China is doing as well as anyone could, it still takes a long time to mature main and supporting industries, plus staff. That's why I doubt the "'ess than 10 years behind the US' claim. Probably closer to 20, maybe even more.

Your faith in Chinese minds and ingenuity are disturbing. You don't think a lot of the West's brightest and smartest trained specialists are Chinese? China's large population with a hunger for higher education and drive for a better life had always made them the envy of the world for millenniums to build such a thriving continuous civilization without ever having to adopt Western religious institutions. I think that's why that has bothered a lot of them (not all).

 

[antiterror13]

b787, do non-Chinese jet engine experts really believe China is only about 10 years behind the US? What projects do Chinese engine companies have that can rival something like the GE90-115B and the upcoming GE9X?

I believe what he meant is in Military engine ... even that I highly doubt China is only 10 years behind the US, more likely 20-25 years

 

[Lethe]

What about the supporting industries and all the educated and trained specialists to catch up? Even if China is doing as well as anyone could, it still takes a long time to mature main and supporting industries, plus staff. That's why I doubt the "'ess than 10 years behind the US' claim. Probably closer to 20, maybe even more.

But what does that figure even mean? For the sake of argument, if we say that China's best efforts today are 20 years behind the west it does not follow from this either that:

(1) 20 years from now China will still be 20 years behind the west
or
(2) 20 years from now China will have caught up to the west

Again for the sake of argument, I expect that 20 years from now China will be fully caught up with the west in terms of the technologies in the R&D labs, maybe a decade behind in terms of the engines currently coming off the assembly line, and up to 20 years behind in terms of the average technology level of engines currently in service.*

When comparing where China is at compared to "the west" and what the future holds, there are linear, non-linear, and discontinuous (or "disruptive") processes at work, and numerous targets that we could be speaking about.

* Where the comparable figures for today would probably be something like 10-15 years behind in the R&D labs, 20-25 years behind in terms of engines currently coming off the assembly line, and 35+ years behind in terms of average technology level of engines currently in service.

 

[Deino]

Guys ... I don't know if this discussion leads to anywhere !?

YES for sure china still lacks in engine development and technology but if "how much" can be deduct by counting the number of available aircraft an relation to the number of Chinese engines, if these are 30, 20 or less years and if this gap closes or and will remain since others progress at a similar rate ... depends on so many factors, that You can discuss until the end of the day ...

Deino

 

[tphuang]

Do you believe the claim China's jet engine industry is less than 10 years behind US?

No, I do not believe it. Here is what I think with their high bypass turbofan projects:

Currently, they are using D-30KP2 on their transport, which is really old technology and such, but since they had experience with IL-76 already, it was easy to continue purchasing it for commonality reasons vs getting the slight more advanced D-30KP3 or the much more advanced PS-90A.

Now, PLAAF has the goal of achieving using domestic options for engines, so that's why we have these development. The engines themselves have enough thrust for the large transport, but their fuel efficiency is not really comparable to modern airliner turbofan engine.

First with WS-18, which is already certified, they have a domestic version of D-30 engine with more advanced components. Let's just say this will be comparable to D-30KP3 and that's what will be on Y-20 to start off. They can also replace the H-6K bomber engines with WS-18 in the future, although they seemed to have imported enough D-30KP2 for a fairly large H-6K or H-6U force. I think they originally ordered that to hedge the possibility that WS-18 would not be ready for Y-20, but now that is not the case anymore.

After that, they are in advanced development of WS-20, which apparently uses the core of Taihang. We've heard that this should have similar bypass ratio and efficiency to PS-90A. That will probably be sufficient for the air force. Airliners are extremely sensitive to the engine they use, since that's typically where the biggest improvement in fuel efficiency comes from and every dollar matters. For PLAAF, a less efficient engine means a little shorter range, but it should still have enough thrust to carry the different payload. If WS-20 is 10% less efficient than something else, it's not going to be end of the world.

For commercial airliner projects, engines simply have much higher requirements. The 2 major projects that I have heard about are SF-A and CJ-1000A. The first one is like WS-20 based on Taihang core. The second one is using WS-15 core apparently. The one advantage they have over WS-20 is that they can use imported components, since they are not military engines. So they have access to certain suppliers that WS-20 might not have access to. SF-A is supposedly comparable to CFM-56-5B engines which came out in the mid 1990s but was really improved in the mid 2000s. If we are to say that Chinese engine developer was comparing SF-A to the latter CFM-56-5B engines, then they would be probably 10 to 15 years behind fuel efficiency standard. Unfortunately, there was a big leap in engine technology in the recent years with GTF coming out and that has improved efficiency by 15% over CFM-56-5B engines. It's hard to say when CJ-1000A will be ready and it it can reach that level of efficiency.

 

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No, I do not believe it. Here is what I think with their high bypass turbofan projects:

Currently, they are using D-30KP2 on their transport, which is really old technology and such, but since they had experience with IL-76 already, it was easy to continue purchasing it for commonality reasons vs getting the slight more advanced D-30KP3 or the much more advanced PS-90A.

Now, PLAAF has the goal of achieving using domestic options for engines, so that's why we have these development. The engines themselves have enough thrust for the large transport, but their fuel efficiency is not really comparable to modern airliner turbofan engine.

First with WS-18, which is already certified, they have a domestic version of D-30 engine with more advanced components. Let's just say this will be comparable to D-30KP3 and that's what will be on Y-20 to start off. They can also replace the H-6K bomber engines with WS-18 in the future, although they seemed to have imported enough D-30KP2 for a fairly large H-6K or H-6U force. I think they originally ordered that to hedge the possibility that WS-18 would not be ready for Y-20, but now that is not the case anymore.

After that, they are in advanced development of WS-20, which apparently uses the core of Taihang. We've heard that this should have similar bypass ratio and efficiency to PS-90A. That will probably be sufficient for the air force. Airliners are extremely sensitive to the engine they use, since that's typically where the biggest improvement in fuel efficiency comes from and every dollar matters. For PLAAF, a less efficient engine means a little shorter range, but it should still have enough thrust to carry the different payload. If WS-20 is 10% less efficient than something else, it's not going to be end of the world.

For commercial airliner projects, engines simply have much higher requirements. The 2 major projects that I have heard about are SF-A and CJ-1000A. The first one is like WS-20 based on Taihang core. The second one is using WS-15 core apparently. The one advantage they have over WS-20 is that they can use imported components, since they are not military engines. So they have access to certain suppliers that WS-20 might not have access to. SF-A is supposedly comparable to CFM-56-5B engines which came out in the mid 1990s but was really improved in the mid 2000s. If we are to say that Chinese engine developer was comparing SF-A to the latter CFM-56-5B engines, then they would be probably 10 to 15 years behind fuel efficiency standard. Unfortunately, there was a big leap in engine technology in the recent years with GTF coming out and that has improved efficiency by 15% over CFM-56-5B engines. It's hard to say when CJ-1000A will be ready and it it can reach that level of efficiency.

Thanks for the information, but you and I know the naysayers and doubters can't even take in all of these in before they ignore it and start coming up with some kind of excuses.

 

[Engineer]

Unless you believe that PRC is forerunner of every industry in high technology it would be difficult to claim PRC is at par with western counter parts.
For example, like I posted in the ATD-X thread Japan is the forerunner in material science especially in industrial ceramic composite and carbon composite materials.
PRC is at least 10 years behind in this certain field of expertise.
Western nations can benefit from these expertise like siegecrossbow suggests.
I believe the next generation engines which will require to handle even more higher temperature, electro-magnetic encasement and plasma actuator technology which would probably become the center of focus which will broadens the required field of expertise even further.

This is a common mistake people make when discussing China's technology level. They like to take some niche products from country X, in this case composite materials, then compare against the aggregated technology level of China.

The thing people fail to realize is that a system such as an aircraft engine is like a chain. There are 100 links in the chain and all of them have to work. China may be missing one or two links, but the country got all the other links done already. Countries with niche products just have one or two very good links, but that is still very far from having a chain at the end of the day.

With the exception of United States, many countries are actually missing a whole bunch of links in their chain. What those countries can do is get most of those missing links from somebody else. China doesn't really have such luxury. That's why those countries appear to be ahead of China, but they may in fact be very behind for not being able to make as many links as China can.

 

[tphuang]

Just to add to things from my last post, we can't just believe it in the civilian aviation business if an engine maker says it can achieve certain level of sfc.

It took P&W over 30 years to complete development in GTF and it's said to have achieved its claimed sfc. And there is a lot of improvement that will come, but issues over its software has forced delays in the a320neo delivery.

CFM international, which has many years of experience developing this size engines, are having trouble meeting their promises. They were forced to match PW GTF efficiency level, so there is a high part to meet with their leap series. Leap-1A for a320 series is said to be 2% behind expectation in sfc whereas Leap-1B for MAX series is said to be 5% behind right now. And they have to pay penalties upon delivery to the airliners for not meeting their expected efficiency until the pips come. That might cause airliners in the future to not choose CFM series, if they think PW GTF will always be maintaining an advantage of Leap series.

And that's with a company with decades of experience in this business. For China, CJ-1000A is a tremendous undertaking. It's unlikely any airliner will pick it over Leap-1C unless there is tremendous financial incentive. Outside of efficiency of the engine, airliners also have to consider the maintenance and overhaul costs. CFM international's CF-34E engine for E-175 jets are know to be subpar for their maintenance and that has been a problem for the secondary market cost of E-jets. To the point that embraer have picked PW1000G (GTF) for their next gen E2 airliners. Any Chines engine maker will have to build up a network of after sales support, maintenance and overhaul network. So even if they are close to these western companies in fuel efficiency and safety, it will be hard for any airline to pick it. So for the time being, i think the chinese high bypass engines will be mostly used by the military transports.

 

[Equation]

This is a common mistake people make when discussing China's technology level. They like to take some niche products from country X, in this case composite materials, then compare against the aggregated technology level of China.

The thing people fail to realize is that a system such as an aircraft engine is like a chain. There are 100 links in the chain and all of them have to work. China may be missing one or two links, but the country got all the other links done already. Countries with niche products just have one or two very good links, but that is still very far from having a chain at the end of the day.

With the exception of United States, many countries are actually missing a whole bunch of links in their chain. What those countries can do is get most of those missing links from somebody else. China doesn't really have such luxury. That's why those countries appear to be ahead of China, but they may in fact be very behind for not being able to make as many links as China can.

Well said Engineer. That's why those countries are behind China in HGV and ASBM technologies.