Chinese Engine Development

manqiangrexue

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
Inst said:
I'm wondering if it would have been easier to work in the Kaveri / F414 class instead of the Al-31 / F110 class to begin with, with the Chinese turbofans. Going to a dual engine design with the J-10 would have been beneficial in that engine reliability issues would have been less dangerous. Instead, we get a case where the Indians, with less funding, screw up with the Kaveri, and the Chinese, with more funding, screw up with the WS-10. Smaller engines tend to have higher engineering tolerances, and given that China's biggest weakness is in the engine field, it might have been more interesting to attempt to do a quad engine design (like American-proposed Sixth-Gens) for a heavy fighter. Remember, if we're comparing the J-10 to the Rafale; the former will likely peak between 140 and 160 kN, while the latter has already reached 180 kN for a T/W of 1.2 loaded and 1.4 at combat weight.
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Indians screwed up the Kaveri cus it's not usable and doesn't power anything. Chinese screwed up WS-10?? It's on over 200 aircraft and being continuously upgraded for the J-20. How's that a screw up? Initially, there were issues but initial trials don't mean something's screwed up.

Aim high. A small RD-93 class engine might have been easier (on the material science at least; I don't know about the higher tolerances) but the utility is significantly less as well. You can power small fighters with it but to use 3 or 4 on a heavy fighter makes the jet very maintenance-heavy for the crew and can affect aircraft readiness/ sortie rate. Also, while a higher number of engines in maritime training is better because it makes the aircraft more recoverable in the event of single engine failure, it is actually a disadvantage in heated conflict because essentially, you rely on all of them working to power your plane properly and if even 1 fails out of 2 or 3 or 4, you will at least have to abort mission, possibly get shot down like a sitting duck. So higher the number, more likely you will get 1 failure.
 
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Hyperwarp

Hyperwarp

Captain
manqiangrexue said:
Indians screwed up the Kaveri cus it's not usable and doesn't power anything. Chinese screwed up WS-10?? It's on over 200 aircraft and being continuously upgraded for the J-20. How's that a screw up? Initially, there were issues but initial trials don't mean something's screwed up...
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They DID screw-up initially. Thats why they had to ground the entire 1st batch of J-11B and then re-engine them with AL-31F. But thats not important. The important thing is they learned from their mistakes, they worked really hard and got the engine to acceptable levels. Now the WS-10 is very mature with over 400 units produced (now probably over 500 since the J-16 is kicking into high gear) with thrust ranging from 118 kN to 137 kN. Now the goal of the WS-10 teams would be building the newer variants (IPE?) with thurst greater than 140 kN.
 
K

Klon

Junior Member
Registered Member
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in the flag/slogan series.
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Translation appreciated.
 
SinoSoldier

SinoSoldier

Colonel
jobjed said:
Medium-thrust engine again, nothing new. There has been a lot of official material in recent months affirming the status of the next-gen medium-thrust engine, and gongke101 had been telling us that since last year.

Here's hoping it'll be ready by 2022 as per the schedule.
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Around the IOC time for the FC-31 program.
 
O

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Screw up or not, it's just semantics. Fact is WS-10 for a first turbofan is still useful for PLAAF. They went with this setup over two smaller and lower thrust engines for J-10 because they wanted something like F-16 F15 combo. Where high and low end both use same engine. Great idea. Just didn't have the level of expertise the Americans had when they developed the F110 decades ago. Pretty sure they'll get there if the trends continue. WS-10 is good enough to be upgraded in thrust and good enough to be fielded on ALL current sino-flankers. That's a decent first step, especially considering it is a high thrust engine. Europeans don't even have something similar (not that they couldn't develop one but can do and have done are still two very different worlds).

Kaveri was also a good learning opportunity for the Indians. They didn't persist. I still don't doubt the project was useful in some ways. Being able to build even a failed engine is still monumentally better than any other country. This is the very top league. Almost every country you point to on a map couldn't build one single component of a high thrust military turbofan, nor could any one of them copy and reverse engineer a truck engine let alone something like the WS-10. So whatever the WS-10 is, I'm thoroughly impressed. Ignore the dropkicks who talk shit and make fun of Indian and Chinese engine efforts. They're akin to the dumbest school kids who would tease someone for studying. Just because someone is at a preliminary stage in their journey and learning from the masters, doesn't mean they'll forever be stuck there. Recognising one's own deficiencies is the only way to succeed. These challenging programs for Chinese engineers will mold the culture and eventually it'll create more successful projects.
 
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