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Boeing’s 777X Finally Gets Its Engines

(Image source: Boeing)

Less than a year after the GE9X turbofan  first flew on its Boeing  747  testbed, GE Aviation  and Boeing have installed the record-breaking engine on the aircraft it was designed for: the Boeing 777X  . Two massive GE9X engines are now hang under the wings of the Boeing 777-9X flight test aircraft.

With a 134-inch diameter fan, the new GE9X engine is larger than its GE90 predecessor; however, it produces 105,000 pounds of thrust – 10,000 pounds less than some GE90 variants. That’s partly due to the additional lifting power of the 777X’s 5,025 square foot wings, which decrease engine power requirements and fuel consumption by about 20 percent.

While the 777X will be Boeing’s largest twin-engine airliner yet, the company also focused on making it its most efficient airliner as well. The fan case is made from lightweight composites and the 16 fourth generation fan blades are made from carbon fiber composite material. The fan blades are made using direct metal deposition (DMD), a process where powder metal is propelled into a laser that fuses the metal to an additively produced component or part. It can be used to manufacture, remanufacture, reconfigure, repair, and restore parts. It can also extend the lives of components by applying corrosion resistant coatings.

Read more: A Phased Approach to Optimized Robotic Assembly for the 777X

Other key features include a next-generation 27:1 pressure-ratio 11-stage high-pressure compressor; a third-generation twin annular premixing swirler (TAPS) III combustor for high efficiency and low emissions; and ceramic matrix composite material in the combustor and turbine.

Read more: Boeing completes assembly of the first 777X

The GE9X are still in development and will finish environment regulation testing on the 747 testbed within the coming months. Over 700 engine orders for the GE9X have been placed.

Three additional 777X flight test airplanes will be built after the first flight test, which is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2019. Introduction is planned for December 2019, with first delivery in 2020.

William Kucinski  is content editor at SAE International, Aerospace Products Group in Warrendale, Pa. Previously, he worked as a writer at the NASA Safety Center in Cleveland, Ohio and was responsible for writing the agency’s System Failure Case Studies. His interests include literally anything that has to do with space, past and present military aircraft, and propulsion technology.

Topics:
Aircraft Aircraft Automotive Aviation Commercial aircraft Defense Engine/Powertrain Engines Fixed-wing aircraft Jet engines Powertrains Propulsion Turbofan engines Vehicles

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    Transcript

    00:00:00 we are here in Everett Washington this boy that's about 45 minutes north of Seattle my name's Josh Greene I'm one of the video guys here at Boeing and we are in front of the all-new GE 9x engine our teams recently installed it on our first triple 7 X flight test airplane in just a moment you see these guys down here ge is going to join us right here on Instagram live hey guys we'll get to you

    00:00:25 and just a second you gotta tell us more about the engine and what goes into testing a new engine but for you guys on Instagram thing you what like 3,000 at this point if you join our broadcast before you already know that the triple 7x is Boeing's newest family of twin aisle airplanes this really is an incredible airplane that passengers are going to love flying on our customers

    00:00:49 are excited about the fuel efficiency benefits as well I'm gonna step out of the way so you can see this baby behind me the airplane provides 12% lower fuel consumption and 10% lower operating costs than the competition the engine is a key contributor to what makes the triple 7x the largest and most efficient twin-engine jet in the world the GE 9x is designed specifically for the triple

    00:01:16 7x and its front fan is the largest the largest ever produced for a commercial engine that's cool right a little bit of perspective for you I'm going to walk back here within the cell on this thing I'm about 6 foot tall this is wider than a 737 fuselage that's pretty cool right then the cell is the visible sections that cover the engines that you probably see when you're onboard the aircraft I

    00:01:41 want to give a shout out to the Boeing teams that helped us get to this point while ge builds these engines you can find Boeing's fingerprints all over there are a lot of Boeing engineers and mechanics who work years to make this happen our propulsion teams in Puget Sound in South Carolina are led design of the nacelle and the actuation system Boeing's engineering work also allows

    00:02:04 the engine to integrate with the airplane that means the work it takes to start the engines for instance that things that make the fuel flow and even the designs of the on the wing we also design accessibility and maintainability of the components around the engine and when engines arrive here in Everett before we hang the engine on to the wing

    00:02:27 the GE 9x built on proven architecture architecture and performance at service entry let's talk to these guys at GE hey Jon and Jade good morning in California right tell us a little bit about where you are and tell us about yourselves well I'm my name is John omen I'm the chief test pilot for GE aviation and we are here at our flight test operation in Victorville California just outside of

    00:02:54 Los Angeles I'm de Guinn from g9x systems engineering and Cincinnati Ohio hey guys so let's start pretty simple I have a question for you so the GE INEX is an all-new engine designed specifically for the triple 7x back here but you're testing it on a 4-inch 747 can you explain to us why you test the engine that way sure we're actually sitting in

    00:03:19 front of that airplane you can only see the GE 9x behind us but we're sitting in front of the airplane you mentioned and we refer to it as our flying testbed or our FTB and it's a highly modified 747 400 that we use to do the in-flight developmental testing of all our developmental commercial aircraft engines to include the GE 9x as a matter of fact just prior to putting the GE 9 X

    00:03:48 on the wing of this airplane we were doing testing on the Filipe 1b which is on Boeing 737 max it's a it's a great platform for engine testing one because when we put the test engine on we still have three production engines GE CF 6 is and and and that provides inherent redundancy to the aircraft and aircraft systems with all three production engines and when we have an engine this

    00:04:18 size with this much power on the airplane would help to have those 3 production engines to counter any asymmetric thrust that's produced by by this big engine when it's up at full power hey guys when you're up there what are you testing for and what kind of test do you do on an engine like this well we do a wide variety of testing in preparation

    00:04:45 for the eventual certification of an engine like this on a Boeing airplane you mentioned earlier the the fuel efficiency of this new engine so certainly a lot of the testing we do is devoted to validating our our fuel efficiency but there's a there's a spectrum of other tests repeated from work systems performance operability controls and transient testing anywhere

    00:05:14 things like in-flight air starts transient performance with respect to the how the airplane or how the engine performs very bursts and chops of the throttle the most the most interesting testing we do from a test pilot perspective is Inlet compatibility which is where we ensure pure satisfactory operation engine under Morden event demanding flight environment high angles

    00:05:47 of attack high sides with high aircraft rotation rates and things like that okay is there anything there really a design group or a discipline within GE and its partners around the world that doesn't look to what we're doing here in the Calvert on the high death to get the 1,300 pieces of information this engine and an additional 300 plus specifically for Boeing so we have to follow up on

    00:06:19 donkey testing for all these different groups with certificate certification data or validation of of the performance optimization of what we're getting out of the code or pan and then Boeing also will participate in quite a bit of testing and we'll do testing specifically for yep Gigi's been doing jet engine testing

    00:06:46 with California high desert for as long as to finish the engines in America and for all of us it's complicated on this we don't need the work blow over the desert floor or your test range and I'm sure there are a lot of people out there right now who are jealous if you guys one of your job that's for sure it's let's see we have about 1,500 people on the live cast right now just to let you

    00:07:29 guys know Josh I work for Boeing I'm here in Everett Washington we're talking to John and Jay who are in Victorville California is speaking with us with GE about the new GE 9x engine and the triple 7x so we're talking about testing can you guys I'm sure a lot of this stuff happens in the air right but can you talk a little bit about the testing that you do on the ground there so the

    00:07:53 testing started years ago you know we you take the advanced technologies you give you a component testing you do rig testing and you you make parts and you put them in sand another GE product and you go off and you you end thousands of simulated flight cycles you validate you're going into the 9x testing itself with the proven technology then our testing in very rural Ohio southern Ohio

    00:08:21 that people and we there's a number of engines to on durability operability crosswind bird blade it's everything that we need to certify and ensure that we're ready for service also icicle peg canada and for engine tests come to this the middle and engine and Evendale behind though it's been going off a year continue you know specific to the FTB it's we

    00:08:58 look to before we fly to provoke white safety and mission readiness we got sufficient durability demonstrations and controls and we're ready to come out and have a very safe and efficient flight test maintained that's awesome hey we're step by the way again so folks can see this engine you know it's hard to ignore how big it is but it's not just for show right I mean the larger

    00:09:31 fan is a big part of what makes this engine and the airplane for that instant so efficient can you tell us more about that and how efficient they are well John and I are test people but I'll tell you from the design side and stress efficiency you know it's it's all about how can we make those it's large yeah but you know you take your advancements and analysis materials and manufacturing

    00:09:58 for composites in this case and you can make this very very large fan with only 16 fan blades and you couple that with the compressor and combustor and turbine advancements to make something that's very efficient you know you make the size aspects of the testing we're doing this the largest end and obviously we've ever flown and and we worked with our partners up they're going to design a

    00:10:32 pylon to mount this engine on the wing so that we can we can put this engine on the 747 with sufficient ground clearance to operate it but it's the unique challenge to fly this and end in this size we're only able to do so with the partnership we have with Boeing and been working together guys it's gonna be great to see this

    00:11:01 thing in use on the triple the the triple 7x and the triple 7 XO rollout and the first flight later this year guys if you have any questions please leave them in the comments of our last at Boeing Instagram post or the last GE aviation Instagram post John and Jay from GE thank you guys so much for joining us from Victorville California this is really cool thank you so much

    00:11:28 thank you we enjoyed it too

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