The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) has made significant progress in developing turbines for efficient and c

DLR and Rolls-Royce Deutschland develop more climate-compatible aircraft engines

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2024-07-09 19:00:05

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) has made significant progress in developing turbines for efficient and climate-compatible aircraft engines in collaboration with Rolls-Royce Deutschland. Researchers have deployed a trick carried over from many modern aircraft wings: attaching 'winglets' to the tips of the turbine blades to increase engine efficiency. Winglets and other technologies are already being used in the latest Rolls-Royce engines from the Pearl range and have significantly reduced fuel consumption.

Researchers at the DLR Institute of Propulsion Technology in Göttingen worked with Rolls-Royce Deutschland to investigate a new type of two-stage high-pressure turbine. At the Göttingen institute's Next-Generation Turbine Test Facility (NG-Turb), which offers infrastructure unrivalled in Europe, the researchers were able to validate turbine computer simulations from Rolls-Royce. In a turbojet engine, the turbine is positioned after the combustion chamber, from where the emerging exhaust gas jet causes the turbine blades to rotate. The NG-Turb test bed replicates this set up, putting turbines through their paces under real-world engine conditions.

The initial measurements on the NG-Turb test stand, conducted as part of the German government's aviation research programme (the LuFo HittTurb project), initially focused on the efficiency of the turbine. As the operating point of turbines varies during take-off, cruising flight and landing, determining the relationship between efficiency and the speed and pressure ratio of the turbine was crucial. "This turbine serves as a demonstrator for various technologies that are to be used in the real engine, including winglets on the rotor blades," says Andreas Pahs, Project Manager of the DLR Institute of Propulsion Technology's Göttingen site. Applying winglets to the blade tips significantly changes the geometry of the blade and hence the flow around it, giving rise to improvements in both turbine and overall engine efficiency.