Until China has a modern commercial turbofan in production there is going to be no flow to commercial applications. But if you look up single crystal metallurgy research in Chinese academic publishing you’ll see the literature is already pretty deep up to 4th Gen single crystal metallic materials (which correspond to 5+ gen and 6 gen engine designs). The same with coatings and cooling solutions.
Chinese Engine Development
- Thread starter jackbh
- Start date
I'm not really understanding this continued arguments about why F-135 performance isn't impressive. They are able to increasing the temperature because PW has access to very advanced and mature materials science from all its other projects. Sure China can do the same on WS-10 or WS-15 to increase their performance, but it takes time to develop these new material and put them into production. We see WS-10C now with much better performance and reliability than the original WS-10. Sure, they made some changes and fixed some design issues. But a larger part of that is using improved material that can handle higher heat. I mean most people here wants China to be closer to world leaders in engine development, but we have to be realistic about where they are. Engine industry has very high entrance barriers. What they've done with WS-10C, WS-21, WZ-9G, WZ-10 and WS-20 are all pretty significant already. The 3 leading US/British companies are just very far ahead here. Also, I don't buy this argument of ranking by military engine and then civilian engine. If RR actually had a project to develop 6th generation engine, they will have no problem doing it at about the same timeline as PW or GE.
I agree. Compared to industry leaders WS-10 is not an impressive engine. In fact it's about the same level as CFM56-5 which is very much legacy tech for the west. But it does facilitate the emergence of future, more competitive engines by giving China a solid foundation to work from, and that is its true significance. With the WS-10 out of the way, successive turbofans will have a more straightforward testing and certification process that doesn't involve incessant trial and error, paving the way for China to eventually match and surpass western engines.
That's because UK is right up there with US in turbofan technology. The main difference between them is funding more than anything else.
Some member/s contributed some insightful material months back. China is at gen 3 and 4 materials (for 5th gen and beyond engines) while UK and US are at gen 4 and 5 material. Japan developed some impressive new breakthroughs for gen 5 or 6 recently? Anyway on materials, China is definitely behind the top two players - US and UK. On the specific field of materials, even Japan is right up there if not at the bleeding edge, perhaps not overall in materials but certainly in some respects.
France is always not far behind the lead and continues funding this industry to keep their independence from US and UK supply. Germany and Japan have their strengths but don't seem to have the collective experience or funding of the others. Nor do they currently seem to have the requirements. Technologically they cannot be far behind and certainly not incapable. The surrounding industrial and scientific strengths in Japan and Germany make them tier 1 level if they wanted to put in the time, effort and money. They have only one of those three they can realistically spare. Germany however seems to be militarising so that may change.
India is not much ahead of Turkey in turbofans but seems to have more experience at least with the Kaveri program despite giving up on it due to not being able to overcome several tech barriers because it hasn't got the same surrounding industrial and scientific strength for it to engineer its way out of those problems. For example, India cannot make its own 4G networks without importing commercially available components it doesn't understand how they work or how to make them.
Russia is in decline. It's hard to imagine they will fund their engine programs as well as the other major players. Possibly not even funded as well as India's existing and future programs.
Korea... hasn't really got any existing plans that we know of. I don't think they'd be terrible at it given their overall scientific and tech prowess and general organisational skills - if they have the will and need, they would eventually gave the right people with the right tools working in the right ways and produce good outcomes.
Not an impressive engine at all compared to US turbofans but the WS-10 engines are exceptionally impressive in that it is one of around six engines (in service for years) in the high thrust and above category, out of dozens and dozens of engines still being used around the world. Al-31 family, WS-10 family, F110 family, Al-41 and 117 family, F119, F135.
It is no easy task to develop an F110 or Al-31 level engine. So far only China has been able to outside of Russia and USA. The UK can certainly do it but can do it is not the same as have done it already and that's not the same as have done it, modified and improved it and used it for over 10 years and produced an entire family of the engine.
F119 and F135 represent a step above. WS-15 aims to be in that class and it's getting into service. Russia's Project 30 too. These two newcomers have a long way to go to mature and iterate. All of these are pretty rare and world class. After all they are in a club of their own with no one else in Japan, Germany, UK, or France even coming close. Need and requirements blah blah sure but having done it is something impressive is it not?
Turbofans will eventually reach a design limit. There is only so far candle technology can go to produce light.
You can keep improving certain aspects but there is always a higher peak to seek out. This for 6th gen engines has become fairly well defined as variable cycle which so far only US and China have programs for that we know of. Perhaps UK has its own since they are an aviation powerhouse and maybe Russia and France too. Beyond that it's combined cycles and more exotic propulsion tech that isn't well known in the public domain.
I'd say China's turbofan tech has been surprisingly impressive given they started much later with fewer resources, and a lower knowledge base (at the start). Already China is one of three nations to have high thrust turbofan. 3rd gen materials level vs the leading edge 5th gen materials. Almost all major leading engine tech and manufacturing tech have been mastered and done, except ceramic composite blades.
Considering resources were split to also cover variable cycle engine development, TVC, combined cycle engines, scramjet/sodramjet for hypersonic vehicles, and research into other propulsion technologies, China has been surprisingly impressive with how far its come along with turbofans given how far behind it was in ... everything and how close to leading edge it is in ... everything now. In fact in sodramjet and scramjet, in the lead. Russia is claimed by certain fairly credible Chinese commentators to be a dominant player in scramjets (well keeping scramjets running in >mach 7) ... along with China which has kept what Chinese sources claim is some special form of scramjet engine running for long enough to circle the earth. India couldn't keep a rudimentary scramjet working for even 20 seconds at mach 5 which is lab level easy for even 1990s standards.
You mentioned only US, Russia and China have developed high thrust turbofans, with the caveat that UK could do it too but haven't. Why does Japan's XF9 not count? AFAIK it actually looks to superior to WS-10 and comparable to WS-15, which is still under development. Japan has superior materials and more experience to draw from, so given that I don't find it surprising they are slightly ahead with the XF9.
IMHO the era turbine engines is coming to a close. The beginning of the end is already visible . I give it 50 more years Max for commercial and 1 or 2 more generations of fighters. Combined cycle especially tbcc is the future . PDE is all hype and fluff .
The XF9 doesn't count because it's an unfinished prototype, not an in-service engine.
I see. Compared to the WS-15, how far along is XF9?
Apparently there are some problems inherent with the design. I read an article from a Beihang student that compared the configuration with that of F-119.