Chinese Engine Development

dengyeye said:

Any idea why China is so much further behind in civilian engines than military ones? Is it because the CCP views indigenous development of military tech as more important, and has therefore poured more resources into it?

And yeah engines are a weak point for China, so it's pretty impressive even in this area of relative weakness China manages to be the 4th-6th best country in the world, depending on how you look at it.

Semiconductor equipment is another obvious weak-point, but aside from that I think China is in the top 2 for all other frontier technologies, and in areas like 5g and big data lead the world. Maybe someone who is more knowledgeable can correct me.

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As always the reasons are varied and often a bit complex. Why doesn't Germany have space tech, why doesn't Italy have computing tech etc etc.

China's relative competence in military turbofans is no doubt stronger and started well before civilian high bypass turbofans for airliners mostly because it is a far lower priority. Civilian vs military. That should say enough. I'm surprised this question is even worth asking. You can buy civilian engines for airlines. Airlines are businesses. Civilian engines are sold to everyone. Military engines are not. Militaries are not businesses (okay I get it some people are going to feel otherwise but you get my point).

China didn't start developing CJ1000 engine until the program really started in the 2000s. Firstly because its industrial basis and skills just weren't good enough before that era. Mainly because it is a lower priority. WS-20 and CJ1000 have different tolerances, different economics and so on. WS-20 is more or less ready and in service. CJ1000 still has to go through much more testing since commercial operations are so very different to military.

This video explains China's aviation (commercial mostly) lag and the whys. It raises some good points. Basically the CPC didn't prioritise civilian aviation and didn't regard aviation as a priority tech sector until 2000ish. Space was regarded as a priority decades before that. Military is a whole different thing altogether. You can't buy stuff for military. Well you shouldn't if you can help it. PLAAF can't just buy any engine it wants. So naturally it was more important to create he domestic industry for military turbofans first before commercial. USSR and Russia failed to break the Airbus Boeing duopoly. No other comes close to USSR and Russia - Embraer, Bombardier, Mitsubishi can barely develop and produce regional jets. Could a 1980s or even 2000s AVIC do it? They didn't bother even trying. Would you as a high school dropout immediately try solve PhD problems or would you need to go on the path and develop first?


In military turbofans (entire thing not just niche and parts otherwise even China is top tier here and there) - US, UK top tier, France second, China and Russia third tier. China moving up and up and up and the last French turbofan is the M88 which while fairly sophisticated, certainly more so than WS-13 and RD-33, China's got WS-15 and WS-19 now (pretty much since at least WS-15 has been in testing for years) which should be a step above M88. WS-10 tech probably not comparable to even M88's. France stagnating hard and no projects on the horizon and even if there is one an engine program takes well over a decade from conception to service.

In civilian high bypass - US and UK top tier, France second, Russia closely behind France, China below Russia but again on the up and up ... and up.

This stuff is generalising a lot but I think a fair summary. There are literally no other nations that can produce a serviceable turbofan all on its own. Japan's new engine is a prototype and FAR from even service let alone matured and proven. India's Kaveri failed and never reached service. Germany Sweden and Italy don't have entire engine programs and have not got programs. Turkey may have a program but a program and a product are worlds apart so we'll see how Turkey goes. They may get on a path for their own high thrust engine.

Civilian engines require the highest tech and the thing you do last. I'm frankly surprised China even started civilian engine programs before the turn of the millenia and worked on delivering results after that. Very, very, very few countries have the science tech and industrial capabilities to even make working turbofans let alone serviceable, reliable, safe, economical, and efficient turbofans. Basically this is the field of technology China left to the last, after near or at achieving leading edge level for just about every single other important tech field.

Telecomms - check, computing - check, information and data - check, software - check, all other forms of transport - check, electronics and just about every single kind of consumer and industrial product - check, marine tech - check, space tech - check, advanced tools and machinery - half check.

They left aviation to last because you can't take big risks and it requires a market too. It's very difficult to break into the civil aviation market at the Boeing Airbus level. No one is even close except USSR in the past and now Russia's Rostec + UAC and to a lesser degree, China's AVIC.

But do those other players have such comprehensive understanding, mastery, manufacturing etc etc in all those other tech fields like China does? And this is China as a developing nation with only a GDP per capita around $10,000 USD and still some poverty left to resolve along with underdeveloped/ undeveloped parts. I'd say China's been budgeting its efforts and resources ... amazingly well.

sunnymaxi said:

so you sill think China need Motor Sich tech. are you kidding ?

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Maybe some benefits in helicopter engines but overall I don't to be honest... not even in helicopter engines although it can't hurt to have Motor Sich be Chinese state owned to cooperate and learn from as well.

In turbofans, absolutely not. China is WELL ahead of Motor Sich in the programs they've done. Motor Sich would undoubtebly have advantages and strengths in programs that AVIC isn't involved in. So there could be gains in those respects and in those specific class of engines.

dengyeye said:

I think it will be a good idea to send a message to Russia that they have two choices; either sell China whatever engine technology it wants, or don't and China will catch up anyway through espionage/poaching/innovation/etc. Second choice might take longer, but end result is the same, which is that China will catch up to and surpass Russian engines. Russia can choose to cash out and speed up this process or not and watch its people starve. Not a hard decision to make I think.

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wah...? this stuff is honestly idiotic on so many levels and plain wrong. What engine tech does China want from Russia? Possibly ceramic composites Russia is ahead in but this isn't even known. For all we know there's 50% chance China's own 4th and 5th gen materials are more advanced. It's been many years since.

And this also just isn't how you cooperate and deal with other countries, especially ones that share some strategic interests (rare!) and have an important place in your own future. In this case, access to raw materials and energy.

sunnymaxi said:

Don't think so its possible after Russia-Ukraine conflict even if China wants Al-222 engines. China sold J-10C with domestic engines. it could be the pattern for future sales. i m sure L-15 now have domestic engines.

This guy is an EX-PLA officer & have pretty much good source related PLA developments & Engines. recently he made a Video about small engines of China & mentioned AL-.222 .. check this out

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LCR34 said:

Salyut can make AL-222 no?

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Yes and yes.

Russia already has an alternative to Al-222 which itself is a low low low tech thing.

It's just a hassle to have to also develop it yourself and spend the resources rather than just buying it off the shelf from Ukraine. For Russia that's understandable given Russia Ukraine dynamics in the last decade. For China, it's unfortunate that it cannot simply pay Ukraine money China has to buy a product Ukraine wants to sell. Again there's politics (after 2013) and as for blocking Motor Sich sales, direct US foreign influence on Ukraine to stop supply of Al-222 engines for the L-15 trainer. However Russia has an alternative and surprisingly China also bothered to develop one as well. Like China wouldn't even really need to buy Russia's alternative. The Al-222 is like below important for PLAAF. Some China haters talk about Al-222 supply like its Al-31 in 1999. Fucking idiots totally misrepresenting things. PLA/AF would be, wait for it... no different with or without Al-222.

Al-222 is so unimportant there is literally no way to overstate how unimportant Al-222 is for China... it's the biggest meh of them all. The real issue with Motor Sich is some Chinese businessman who wanted to buy the supplies for L-15 trainer which would make him billions, spent billions to secure ownership of the supplier but got blocked by the US and has lost billions in that endeavor.

Miniture reactor to power aircraft,both us and ussr already tested it the oate 50s and early 60s,the biggest worry was if the aircraft it going spew a lot of radiation.

ougoah said:

But do those other players have such comprehensive understanding, mastery, manufacturing etc etc in all those other tech fields like China does? And this is China as a developing nation with only a GDP per capita around $10,000 USD and still some poverty left to resolve along with underdeveloped/ undeveloped parts. I'd say China's been budgeting its efforts and resources ... amazingly well.

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I mean I think US definitely beats China overall technologically, but China's progress is insane for such a short time period, and starting from such a low trough. Semiconductor equipment and aviation must be the only two areas where China is not at the leading edge.

sunnymaxi said:

CJ-1000AX during assembly process.

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Only first one is cj1000, others are all cj2000.

I doubt Russia would have more advanced ceramic composites for turbine engines than China. China has been working on ceramic composites probably for two decades already. Russian traditional strength has been metallurgy. Given this situation probably little Chinese engine industry could learn from Russian one there. The fact that projects like Zircon and Burevestnik even exist however means Russia must have made either some sort of material breakthrough or design breakthrough in propulsion or both. Zircon cannot have that range without advanced propellant, it cannot reach that speed in cruise mode without some sort of advanced material for the airframe. Buresvestnik would require a high temperature nuclear core with all new reactor design. Otherwise it could not be that compact or that light. It probably uses ceramic or carbon clad high temperature fuel elements to keep weight down. This is all speculation on my part but given historic design projects seems most likely.

On the civilian vs military front, there are many good reasons why they are further ahead in military engines. First, they are cut off from advanced Western military engines, so would otherwise be dependent on Russian engines. Which depending on Russia's own engine demand (which was quite high in 2014 to 2016 range) could cause serious delay issues. As such, they had no choice but to put as much resource into military engines as possible. More importantly, the requirement for entry into service is different in military and civilian engines.

The requirement for reliability, availability, service life, ease of maintenance, part replacement and most importantly burn rate is far higher in civilian engines. Military engines need higher thrust to achieve higher top speed. For the most part, if an airliner can reach cruising speed of Mach 0.8, that's pretty good already.

Can you imagine how bad it would be if an aircraft losses both engines in the air? Or if you have multiple engine failures over a short time? In civilian aviation, any aircraft using that engine would be grounded immediately until issues can be sorted out. For military aviation, you'd get some negative reports coming out and then air force would do their own investigation before continuing. In the case of J-11B, they kept flying with WS-10 until all the small issues got worked out.

In civilian aviation, you need an aircraft to be available. 99.5% of time. As such, engines will need to be available for usage even more frequently than that. The largest operating cost to an airline is the cost of owning an aircraft. As such, airlines make money by flying its aircraft as many hours as possible. It's not unusual to see airlines operating A320s over 12 hours a day (utilization rate). A good chunk of remaining time is for maintenance. There is no similar demand in military aviation where aircraft often needs many hours of maintenance after each sortie.

Service life and maintenance of engines are also huge parts of the cost of operating aircraft. Keep in mind that a civilian engine can be used for over 4000 hours a year. Even the most reliable military turbofan engines for fighter jet would need MTBO after 1000 or 1500 hours. It doesn't matter your engine is cheaper, if your service life is half of your competitor. Airlines need to do heavy checks on their aircraft to know that the engines are operable. As a new player in civilian aeroengine industry, you'd have to get up to speed with the demand of airlines very quickly. Airlines need to train their staff to be able to maintain engines. And you need to provide after sales care. That's where a lot of the profits for GE/RR/PW comes from. If you cannot provide timely after sales care, then airlines would simply not be able to operate their aircraft. If enough engines are awaiting maintenance, then the airline will need to ground the aircraft using it.

A few years ago, issues on RR's Trent 1000 engines caused 787s using it to ground operations.
The issues with GTF when A320NEO first started operating are well documented. So even the big 3 aeroengine companies are not immune to reliability issues on their engines.

And then there are burn rate cost. For variable operation cost, about 40% for your typical LCCs are related to fuel cost. This would be even higher when gas is $120 a barrel. In this environment, airlines treasure every % of additional fuel efficiency. Aeroengine companies are routinely putting out PiP (performance improvement package) to improve the fuel burn of their engine by a couple of percent. This is a very cut throat business. It would be hard for a new player to get involved here if it's 10% off the fuel burn rate of the market leader. Again, this is not an issue in military aircraft. If WS-10's burn rate is 20% worse than F100, then the worst case scenario is that its range is 20% less. You can overcome that with larger fuel tanks, external fuel tanks or aerial refueling.

I think it's great that ACAE is working on numerous high bypass engine projects. However, it would be very hard for even a domestic airline using their engines for a major subfleet. Maybe they canuse it on a small subfleet as a favor the government to help out with resolving the availability and maintenance and after service care issues that any new aeroengine player would have to deal with. I would not be surprised if non-airline users end up procure some aircraft with domestic engines to help its adapatation. I think this project will also allow them to get additional Western help on aeroengine design that they would not be able to get on military projects.

A peek inside a research facility where manufacturing processes are developed for making engines.