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Inside Rolls Royce Factory - Building Future Jet Engines - YouTube
Channel: Sam Chui
[0]
- And we can move that
throttle to max power.
[2]
(engine whines)
[4]
(upbeat music)
[7]
- Over 50,000 horsepower, that's massive.
[13]
- Just be careful, Sam, the
leading edges are pretty sharp.
[17]
- Test cell, which is a
building within a building.
[21]
- Wow.
[22]
- But we can do water ingestion testing.
[24]
(engine whines)
[29]
- Well, this is our DreamFix facility.
[31]
- What went wrong with the Dreamliner?
[35]
- A special Trent 1000 over here.
[37]
- Wow, this is a very different one.
[39]
- Once it's finished, this
will be the world's largest
[42]
indoor testbed for experimental testing.
[44]
- It's like a swimming pool.
[45]
- Yeah, yeah, it's a bit, it
isn't actually a swimming pool.
[48]
- I'm really impressed, but
this is really geared up
[51]
for the future generation
of engine like the UltraFan.
[56]
Welcome to Derby in the U.K.
[58]
When you think about Rolls-Royce,
[60]
you probably think about their cars,
[61]
Rolls-Royce Phantom, Rolls-Royce Ghost.
[63]
But for AvGeek like me and many
of you, we love aeroplanes ,
[67]
we know Rolls-Royce make
great aeroplane engine.
[69]
Today we're going to take a look inside
[71]
the Rolls-Royce engine factory.
[73]
(upbeat music)
[80]
This building's like, huge.
[81]
Looking through what they done, to me,
[83]
it's like rocket science.
[85]
But here it's just production.
[86]
Every 20 days a new engine get produced.
[91]
- Welcome, Sam, to our
production test facility.
[94]
This is where we start
to build the engines.
[96]
So today we're going to look at
engine build for a XWB engine,
[100]
which is the exclusive engine on the A350.
[102]
(engines hum)
[109]
(upbeat music)
[111]
Start of the process really, here.
[112]
We've got behind us a fan disc.
[114]
So this is where the fan blades go.
[116]
If you look over behind the fan disc
[118]
you can see where the blades come in.
[120]
So they're manufactured
and brought into here.
[121]
So you've got fan blades, fan disc,
[123]
and over on the table
here the annulus fillers,
[125]
and they're the pieces
that go between the blades
[127]
to make a nice, smooth finish
[129]
for the air flowing into the engine.
[131]
So this really is the start of the process
[132]
for our XWB engine.
[138]
Then what we've got here now
is we've brought the disc,
[140]
the blades and the
annulus fillers together
[142]
and formed the fan that goes
at the front of the engine,
[144]
where the flow goes through the engine.
[146]
And it's the fan that
produces the majority
[148]
of the thrust for the engine.
[149]
And this is an assembled
fan for an XWB engine.
[152]
- Wow, look at this blade here.
[154]
- Just be careful, Sam, the
leading edges are pretty sharp.
[156]
- Pretty sharp?
[157]
- And that's to get a really
efficient flow into the engine.
[163]
We've just seen the fan at
the front of the engine.
[164]
What we're looking at now
is a turbine and a shaft
[166]
that goes at the back of the engine.
[168]
Now, what this is is what drives the fan
[170]
with a compressor end, so you tend to see
[172]
turbine blades hidden
in this casing up here,
[175]
and then a long shaft that goes through
[176]
the middle of the engine
and drives the compressor
[178]
or the fan at the front.
[180]
So this is another module on build
[182]
that comes together to
make our XWB engine.
[185]
(upbeat music)
[192]
What we've got here now is
the low-pressure turbine
[194]
at the back of the engine.
[195]
That's the start of the core build,
[197]
so that's why at the back of the engine
[198]
we've put that vertically
and gradually build that up
[200]
in what we call a stack,
that's building the core.
[202]
And then on the other side
of the shop, over here,
[205]
we've got the fan being built.
[207]
You saw the fan blades
being built nextdoor.
[209]
This is the fan case, and
you can see lots of pipes
[212]
and wires on the outside,
very complex build process.
[215]
And you can see we use electronic models
[217]
to direct the guys that
are building the engine.
[220]
So they'll look on the screen,
[221]
look at where the pipes
need to go, check that
[223]
before they go and actually
put them on the engine.
[227]
(upbeat music)
[234]
So this is where we build
the core of the engine.
[235]
So what we do there is we
start with the compressor
[237]
at the bottom, build up to the combustor
[239]
and then the turbines on the top.
[241]
And as you can see, the different levels,
[243]
where the guys that are
working on the engine
[246]
need to be close to the
bit they're working on,
[248]
so the floor moves as the
engine build progresses.
[252]
(upbeat music)
[272]
Behind me, the core
has finished build now.
[273]
She is now ready to marry with the fans.
[276]
You remember the fan and the
core are built separately?
[278]
Here's the final core ready to go,
[280]
we just need to join it to the fan.
[281]
If you look behind me here, you can see
[283]
the core has been flipped
to being from vertical
[285]
to being horizontal, and the big fan case
[287]
has been put on the front.
[294]
- [Sam] Phil, what's this
machine's been doing,
[296]
spinning around?
- Okay.
[298]
Well, before we put the
fan blades in the fan case
[300]
we need to make sure that the fan blades
[301]
are a perfect fit to the fan case.
[303]
We don't want a very big
gap between the fan case
[305]
and the blades, so this
is just checking that
[307]
and making sure that they're
going to fit perfectly together.
[318]
- Behind the 22 giant fan blade
is the turbine blade inside.
[322]
They can generate, each
of 'em, 800 horsepower,
[325]
so together, 68 turbine blade generate
[328]
over 50,000 horsepower, that's massive.
[331]
This looks like the
engine's ready to roll.
[334]
- Just 20 days from start to finish,
[335]
and the engine's ready
to go across to test
[337]
before it goes to our customer.
[339]
So let's go over now and
look at our test facility.
[340]
- Test facility, so the engine
go to test facility now?
[342]
- That's right.
- Then let's go.
[343]
- That's where we go next, let's go.
[347]
(upbeat music)
[357]
- Welcome to 58 Bed control room.
[359]
Here is where the guys
take control of the engine,
[362]
whether it's to gather data
or ensure build conformity.
[366]
We take the engine, we rig
it to the test facility
[369]
and we carry out the
customer's requirements,
[371]
either to test it for maturity,
for different strains,
[375]
pressures, temperatures,
we can do many things
[377]
here in Derby in the test bed.
[379]
This is basically the pilot takes control
[382]
of the engine with the throttle,
[383]
and we can move that
throttle to max power.
[386]
(engine whines)
[391]
And that will then put the
engine in a certain mode
[394]
through the power range.
[396]
We gather the data, we
write everything we do
[399]
electronically and
record everything we do.
[401]
And we also look at real-time
data in the control room
[404]
to ensure we are getting
the customer's requirements.
[412]
So we have a safety system
here in the test facility
[415]
which allows us to make sure
that we have all the people
[419]
and the personnel out of the test facility
[421]
before we start work
and rotating the engine.
[424]
So every single system has a lock on.
[427]
Until all those locks are in place
[429]
we cannot start the engine.
[430]
It's an interlock system for safety.
[433]
So here we are, entering
the the test cell,
[436]
which is a building within a building,
[438]
which makes the building extremely quiet
[441]
when we run the engine.
[446]
(upbeat music)
[449]
This is the test cell now.
[451]
So when we go through this door
we'll go into the test cell,
[455]
and we'll be able to look
at the test facility.
[461]
- Wow.
[462]
(upbeat music)
[469]
- This is where we do
different types of testing.
[471]
We can do pass-off testing right before
[473]
engines go to the customer,
[474]
we can do research testing
or development testing.
[477]
Some of them really exciting
and interesting tests
[479]
that we don't do very often,
that we do in development,
[482]
ready for certification,
could fan blade-off tests,
[485]
where we blow a fan off and check
[487]
that it's contained within the system.
[489]
We could do a--
- Oh, you have to destroy it?
[490]
- Destroy a blade to show--
- How they can sustain that.
[493]
- To just prove that should
that happen in service,
[496]
very unlikely that it would,
but we got to prove that
[498]
that event is safe, so we do that.
[501]
We can do water ingestion testing.
[503]
(engine whines)
[507]
We pour loads of water down
the front of the engine
[509]
to simulate a storm and
flying through a storm,
[511]
and show that the engine
performs correctly in that.
[514]
We can do bird strike
testing, where we fire birds
[516]
at the engine to simulate
what could happen
[519]
if you were to hit a bird and show
[520]
that the engine's strong
enough to take that.
[522]
And we can also do what we
call cold-start testing,
[526]
where we basically bring
a massive fridge in
[527]
and put the engine in it.
[529]
- Make it really cold.
- Overnight,
[530]
make it really, really cold,
and then take the fridge away
[533]
and prove that we can start
it cold, 'cause engines
[536]
find it more difficult to start
in really cold conditions.
[538]
So all kinds of really important testing
[540]
that we can do on this cell in Derby.
[542]
- All right.
[543]
- So should we go now and
look at the preparation shop
[545]
where we get the engines ready
[546]
before they go on to the testbed?
[550]
Okay, so we're entering our prep shop,
[551]
our preparation shop,
where the engines come
[553]
before they go on the testbed.
[555]
Now, every engine that
we build here in Derby
[558]
will come through here before it gets
[560]
delivered to our customer.
[561]
So relatively simple setup
checks that we do on the testbed,
[564]
just to make sure
everything's working properly.
[566]
Very similar to what you
might get with a car.
[568]
So anytime we build a car,
before they deliver it
[571]
to the car showroom they
just give it a quick drive,
[572]
just to make sure everything's
functioning correctly.
[574]
We put the white on the
front, which simulates,
[577]
it's different to what
would go on in service,
[579]
but it simulates the front of the engine.
[581]
We connect it up to this
sort of carriage at the top
[585]
which simulates the pylon,
[586]
the bit that attaches the
engine to the aircraft.
[589]
It's not exactly the same,
but it represents it.
[592]
And then you can lots and
lots and lots of connections.
[595]
So the data then comes from
the engine into the pylon,
[598]
the pylon connects
together in the test cell,
[600]
and all that data flows
back to those computers
[602]
that we saw in the control rooms,
[604]
so the engineers and the test engineers
[606]
can understand how the
engine's performing.
[618]
(upbeat music)
[626]
- So Sam, this is our DreamFix facility
[628]
which is a physical
representation, if you like,
[631]
of the effort we're putting
into fix this problem
[633]
we've got with the Trent 1000,
[635]
and reduce the disruption
for our customers
[637]
which we are really regretful of.
[639]
At the moment we've got
about four engines in here
[641]
which we're fixing quickly on a turn time
[643]
to get them back out into the fleet.
[645]
And you see around you,
about the activity in here
[647]
to really start to get onto
this problem and crack it,
[650]
embody all the fixes that we
know we've got designs for now.
[653]
(upbeat music)
[657]
- The Trent 1000 engine
is developed specially
[659]
for 787 Dreamliners, but
somehow they suffer a problem.
[663]
What went wrong with the Dreamliner
[665]
on the Trent 1000 engine, Richard?
[668]
- Well, we had three issues,
but I think the easiest way
[671]
to try and understand
it is use a car analogy.
[674]
Imagine you've got a car,
it's been proven safe for use,
[678]
but you know that the tyres
will wear out at some point,
[681]
you know that the windscreen wipers'll
[682]
wear out at some point.
[684]
Those things happen,
and you bring those in
[686]
to fix them as and when they need.
[687]
Two of our problems were like that.
[689]
So we had an HP turbine and IP turbine
[691]
that were wearing out slightly
earlier than expected,
[693]
so you bring them in to replace
them earlier than expected.
[696]
On top of that, and the
third problem which made it
[698]
a bit trickier was we had
an IP compressor problem,
[701]
which was not something that
you can monitor on condition.
[703]
So it's not like wearing your tyres out
[705]
or looking at your windscreen wipers.
[707]
Imagine you had a problem with an oil pump
[709]
that you had to bring in.
[711]
If you bring that car in because the tyres
[713]
you know have worn out,
you don't necessarily
[715]
replace the wiper blades and
the oil pump at the same time.
[717]
That's why it's take a while for us
[719]
to flow all of these fixes in,
[720]
just because you don't necessarily
fix everything at once.
[723]
The engine's perfectly safe
and perfectly reliable,
[725]
it's just that we're not
making it last as long
[727]
as we and our customers would like it to.
[729]
So that's the three
problems we're addressing.
[731]
So imagine you're bringing in your tyres,
[733]
we're putting new tyres
on, not necessarily
[735]
changing the windscreen
wipers at the same time
[737]
because they might still be good to go.
[739]
Then you come in next time,
[740]
you change the windscreen wipers,
your tyres are still fine.
[742]
That's why it takes a long time,
[744]
but we'll get there and
we'll fix this problem.
[746]
It's all ready, the design
fixes are already in place.
[751]
So Sam, we're in the DreamFix facility
[753]
looking at Trent 1000s,
and we've actually got
[755]
a special Trent 1000 over here
[757]
that's got some of our newer technology
[759]
for future engines on, which
I could like to show you
[761]
if you want to walk this way.
[762]
- Let's take a look.
[763]
(upbeat music)
[769]
Wow, this is a very different one.
[770]
This one has blue turquoise
colour engine blade.
[775]
It looks like carbon rim here, yeah.
[779]
So what's the latest technology
breakthrough at Rolls-Royce?
[782]
- So this is actually a test engine
[785]
for our latest carbon/titanium
fan and containment system,
[789]
which is the application
of carbon technology
[792]
to reduce the weight of
the front of the engine,
[794]
the fan and the fan case.
[795]
It's running on a Trent 1000 donor engine,
[798]
'cause it happens to be the right size,
[799]
but we're putting this
engine and the new system
[801]
through its paces.
[803]
This technology, it's taken a while for us
[805]
to surpass our own
class-leading titanium blades.
[808]
And that's fundamentally because
first and second generation
[811]
carbon blades, while they
were good for weight,
[813]
they weren't as good for air dynamics,
[815]
whereas our titanium blades
that we saw in the Trent 1000,
[818]
they're excellent for both.
[819]
Now we've got a technology where,
[821]
because of the 3D weave
of the carbon fibre,
[824]
we can make a blade
that is both lightweight
[826]
and aerodynamically efficient.
[828]
So a system like this at this size
[830]
would save about 750 pounds per engine,
[835]
which is about, obviously
on a twin-engined aircraft,
[837]
1,500 pounds of weight
that you can really,
[840]
either burn less fuel
or take more passengers.
[844]
'Cause what we'll also do
during certification testing
[847]
is we'll put an explosive
bolt into the root here
[850]
and explode that when the
engine's at full power,
[853]
and then the engine has
to prove it can contain
[855]
the kinetic energy of that blade.
[857]
If one of these were to let
go under those circumstances,
[861]
the amount of energy that
we're talking about containing
[864]
would be similar to if
you take a BMW 3 Series
[867]
and drive off a 100-foot cliff.
[869]
That's the amount of energy
that this has to contain.
[871]
And what we've got to prove
as the engine manufacturer
[874]
is that, the engine doesn't necessarily
[876]
have to continue running
and producing thrust,
[878]
but it does have to make
sure that it runs down safely
[880]
and no high-energy debris
penetrates the casing
[883]
to go and harm the fuselage.
[886]
So if one of these were to
happen while you are flying,
[889]
then you might spill your gin and tonic
[891]
but you'd be perfectly safe.
[897]
(upbeat music)
[900]
- So today we're changing
up to construction gear,
[904]
because today we're going to see something
[906]
under the construction.
[913]
- We're here today at Bed 80.
[915]
So once it's finished, this
will be the world's largest
[918]
indoor testbed for experimental testings.
[920]
This is where we actually push our engines
[922]
to their ultimate limits
so we can understand
[924]
how they really perform.
[926]
So what we're doing now is really putting
[928]
the intelligence into the building.
[930]
We're fitting out the
systems which will allow us
[932]
to control the engine,
but more importantly
[934]
understand what the engine's doing.
[936]
And we can actually read
up to 10,000 parameters
[938]
on this bed, and we can
take that data real-time
[941]
and we can actually stream
it back out to the cloud
[944]
so that it can actually link real time
[946]
to all our various models.
[947]
So really exciting for us,
[949]
it's not just a construction
project, you know?
[952]
This is about testing for
the future for Rolls-Royce.
[958]
We're now inside what
we call the prep shop.
[960]
So this is where we
bring what essentially is
[963]
a built experimental engine,
[964]
but we're now bringing it in
here to get it ready for tests.
[966]
So this is where we put
the engine on our pylon,
[969]
so effectively we've made the engine think
[971]
it's fitted to an aircraft.
[972]
So that the reason for
the size of this building,
[975]
is to allow us to actually
manoeuvre the engines
[977]
and get them ready, and with UltraFan,
[980]
clearly one of the largest
engines we've done,
[982]
particularly in terms of its fan size.
[984]
- That's huge.
[985]
Yesterday I was in Testbed
58, I was really impressed.
[989]
But this is really
geared up for the future
[991]
generation of engine like the UltraFan.
[993]
Much, much bigger and much,
much stronger capability.
[997]
- That's correct, this is a lot bigger.
[1000]
But again, bigger for a reason.
[1002]
The UltraFan, the fan size
is significantly larger.
[1005]
We will be putting a
lot more slow-moving air
[1007]
through this testbed.
[1008]
So again, this is all about
getting a smooth flow of air
[1011]
into that engine, and we can do big.
[1014]
Absolutely, we can do UltraFan,
[1016]
and clearly we've designed
it to do a little bit more.
[1019]
But the important thing
is we can also do small
[1021]
in this bed, as well,
so we can also go down
[1023]
to much smaller engines.
[1024]
It will basically be able to
do every engine we make today,
[1028]
and every engine we're
intending to make in the future
[1030]
at this point in time.
[1032]
- It's like a swimming pool.
- Yeah, yeah.
[1033]
It's a bit, it isn't
actually a swimming pool.
[1035]
So what this is about,
[1037]
this is about we have a floor in here,
[1039]
and when we're testing,
the floor's down flat.
[1042]
But when we want to get to the engine,
[1044]
because it's raised to such a height,
[1045]
what this allows us to do is
we lift the entire floor up
[1048]
to the engine, and this allows
us to work on the engine
[1051]
while it's in the testbed,
[1052]
and then we lower it back down again.
[1054]
But yeah, absolutely, you can imagine
[1056]
people do come in thinking it's our pool.
[1058]
But yeah, no, it's a floor
which comes up and down.
[1062]
(upbeat music)
[1067]
We've moved from the test cell.
[1068]
We're now into the first
section of the tube,
[1071]
which is where we start to manage the air
[1073]
coming out of the engine.
[1074]
Anyone who's been at the airport,
[1076]
you know what the noise is like.
[1077]
And I think lots of people
probably have seen the videos
[1079]
on YouTube of the people
standing at the airport fences
[1083]
and seeing the power of
the engine as it takes off.
[1086]
(engines roar)
[1091]
Clearly, we need to make
sure that we do something
[1093]
about all that power, and
that's what this is doing.
[1095]
So this is about a
five-and-a-half-meter section tube,
[1099]
which has actually been
designed to allow us to slow
[1102]
that air down as it comes
out the back of the engine.
[1105]
Again, so by the time it
actually leaves the test cell,
[1107]
people won't even realise
the engine's running.
[1115]
This is effectively where the
air will leave the testbed.
[1118]
When we look at this we call it the basket
[1121]
for obvious reasons.
[1122]
So this is where the air,
it's come out of the engine,
[1125]
it's come through the big tube we've seen,
[1128]
it comes into here which
is an eight-meter section.
[1131]
And what we're doing here
is as the air is coming down
[1133]
it's hitting that, what does look like
[1135]
the front of an engine,
it's hitting that cone.
[1137]
But what that cone's then
doing is spreading the air out
[1140]
throughout this space,
and again the idea is
[1142]
we spread the air out,
we change its direction,
[1144]
we slow it down, and the
air can then all lift up.
[1148]
This testbed you know,
build a testbed like this
[1151]
probably every 10 to 15 years,
[1153]
so from an engineer's point
of view this really is
[1156]
a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
[1158]
So we've got people working on this
[1160]
who are very, very
excited, 'cause they know
[1162]
they're doing something for the future,
[1164]
future generations, and
they know they may not get
[1167]
the opportunity again in their
career, so really exciting.
[1169]
- Then your legacy would
last for a lifetime.
[1171]
- That's it, absolutely.
- Many more years to come,
[1173]
for such an engineering feat like this.
[1175]
- Yeah, absolutely.
[1177]
(air whooshing)
[1180]
(bell dings)
[1181]
(bubble pops)
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