Chinese Engine Development

weig2000

Captain
Shi Lao said the WS-15 has been flight tested early last year (most people assume on a modified J-11 because he specifically mentioned not J-20).

Most likely it has. No one can say for 100% but it is very likely at this point. As with the WS-10, there is not going to be much news until after serialization.

This is either psyop or fanboy-ism. You need provide some hard evidence, preferably a signed statement from Ministry of Defense or an email from Xi Jinping himself.
 

Xizor

Captain
Registered Member
Can someone post about the latest "official" Attestation regarding the status of Chinese engine Reliability scores (MTBO) and Spool up time.
It is my belief that -
The latter issue has been solved.
China has eclipsed Russian engines in MTBO. (since CFM56 is rumored to have been the basis of core technology).

The reference here is the latest WS-10 engines.
Most information regarding them about TBO and Spool issues is atleast a decade old. Certainly progress has been made?
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
Well, comparing with the CFM56 is a bit of a misnomer, the engine core dates back to the 1970s from the GE B-1 bomber engine core.
There are much more modern engines available right now. Even the Russians have better engines than the CFM56 by this time.
I doubt the Chinese engine shares much with the CFM56. They might have started with that as a base but I doubt it hasn't changed significantly. I think most significant improvement they had was with the turbine blades. They finally got relatively modern technology for those. It seems they got the technology from Germany? And now they are supplying the Germans with turbine blades.
Europe is ever more pathetic.

I think China has the potential to eclipse Russia with the use of CMC (Ceramic Metal Composites) in the hot sections of the engine in the near future. This means the engines would be able to run at much higher core temperatures and thus have increased efficiency. But the Russians have always had a lot of tricks with metallurgy so who knows they might be able to cope even with that.

Remember the MiG-25 was made to intercept Valkyrie bombers and the SR-71. The SR-71 used all titanium construction. The Valkyrie used a honeycomb metal meta-material that never quite worked properly without cracks and deformations (this was one of the reasons the project was eventually canned), the Russians? They just used steel with nickel coating. Sure it's heavy, but you put two HUGE engines on it and make it look like a brick with just the minimum wings you can put on it, guess what it does the job. Even Elon Musk, who started with fancy carbon composites for his Starship project, remember this is a spacecraft which is to fly at high Mach speeds, switched to really thin and hard steel alloys.

I think the next Chinese military engines will have CMCs and perhaps cooling channels, if they don't have already, and I suspect they will be able to operate at high Mach regimes with a variable intake of some form.

I am currently interested in what the heck the Russians are doing with the PAK-DP. That is supposed to be the aircraft the SR-71 successor never was. Given their budget restrictions other countries might have just manufactured more Su-57s. But this is Russia. I suspect they will make a high-speed long distance interceptor and perhaps even bomber aircraft. This is a big ticket item I think China also needs to have and make the technology for this. If you make it large enough, think Tu-22M sized, it could be a superb AA/AD weapon against all sorts of air and naval threats. This will require all new engine technologies. The Russians are also investigating pulse-detonation engines. But I doubt we'll see one of those anytime soon.
 
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NiuBiDaRen

Brigadier
Registered Member
Chinese team test jet engine ‘able to reach anywhere on Earth within 2 hours’
  • Prototype flown in hypersonic wind tunnel simulating flight conditions at nine times the speed of sound
  • The ‘sodramjet’ engine could offer the biggest hope so far of commercial flight reaching hypersonic speed, the scientists say
Chinese scientists have built what they claim is a revolutionary plane engine for Mach 16 flight. An aircraft powered by the engine could reach anywhere in the world within two hours, they said.

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Temstar

Brigadier
Registered Member
Chinese team test jet engine ‘able to reach anywhere on Earth within 2 hours’
  • Prototype flown in hypersonic wind tunnel simulating flight conditions at nine times the speed of sound
  • The ‘sodramjet’ engine could offer the biggest hope so far of commercial flight reaching hypersonic speed, the scientists say
Chinese scientists have built what they claim is a revolutionary plane engine for Mach 16 flight. An aircraft powered by the engine could reach anywhere in the world within two hours, they said.

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Damn, there's been a lot of breakthrough into scramjet and hypersonics, and it all seem to be greatly accelerated thanks to that hypersonic wind tunnel.

I have heard rumours that the purpose of such research is to develop airbreathing hypersonic intercontinental cruise missiles, to complete nullify any ABM system in development which depend on exoatmospheric interceptors. DF-100 may in fact be a theatre range version of such a weapon.
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Perhaps a great hope for commercial hypersonic flights but that would be decades away from getting a sodramjet engine to working well enough for practical purposes which is probably years if not decades away even if the working prototypes are being wind tunnel tested. The Israeli guy's right about hypersonic commercial flights probably not even going to happen soon if ever. Still excellent stuff.
 

PiSigma

"the engineer"
Perhaps a great hope for commercial hypersonic flights but that would be decades away from getting a sodramjet engine to working well enough for practical purposes which is probably years if not decades away even if the working prototypes are being wind tunnel tested. The Israeli guy's right about hypersonic commercial flights probably not even going to happen soon if ever. Still excellent stuff.
The point of this image is not to show a commerical engine. The point is that they can make a one time engine easier and use it for the military.
 
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