Rolls-Royce reports that its newly developed hybrid-electric engine has completed its first fuel burn.
This engine, described as a small gas turbine, is purportedly designed for hybrid-electric flight.
According to the company, novel combustion technology was employed with the goal of producing ultra-low emissions. If accurate, this would mark a step toward the integration of the turbine into a lightweight turbogenerator system.
Rolls-Royce has developed the complete turbogenerator system with the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) market in mind. This market includes electrical vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) and electric short take-off and landing (eSTOL) aircraft, intended for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and commuter aircraft applications of up to 19 seats.
According to the same news release, the gas turbine tested also has potential uses within helicopter, auxiliary power unit (APU), and defence sectors.
Matheu Parr, Customer Director, Electrical at Rolls-Royce, was quoted saying, “The first fuel burn of our brand-new small gas turbine is a significant leap forward with successful stages throughout the test from light-up to the pull-away of the system.” Furthermore, it was claimed that the development time from concept to test for this new gas turbine took less than 2 years.
Rolls-Royce suggests that the turbogenerator system could allow electric flight to cover extended routes, implying that more passengers could potentially travel greater distances on aircraft with fewer emissions.
The company states that this system could offer scalable power between 500 kW and 1,200 kW. This might allow for a range extension using sustainable aviation fuels and, potentially in the future, hydrogen combustion. If validated, this would potentially challenge the distances current electric battery-powered aircraft can cover.
Parr added, “With this achievement, we have proven we can apply our expertise to novel designs and test them on a very quick timescale.” The release also indicates that the turbogenerator’s design allows its use in both serial and parallel hybrid applications.
Well done Rolls Royce ,still a world beater š¬š§ š
They are producing some incredibly innovative designs over a wide range of technology these days, a serious success story. I wonder if we had saved back in the day a few other of our deceased industrial assets that were thought to be lame ducks they too could have developed into successful exporting concerns. I remember when the Worldās most valuable company was told by a relative nobody to close down and sell off the assets. The rest is history. Been too much of that defeatist thinking this side of the pond over the years sadly. Hearing much of the same at the Tory Conference sadly too. Whatever his faults at least Johnson had some vision even if it wasnāt always as focused as it should have been of course.
What company was that?
Been wondering the same. Only ones I can think of are AT&T, which used to own Bell but was made to sell in the eighties. And maybe the Dutch East India Company which made much of its profits through slavery and was wound up by the government at the end of the eighteenth century.
If Spy remembers it, it probably wasn’t the Dutch one.
I looked at the worlds most valuable companies during the 70s,80s but didnāt see a British one at the top. These lists can compare value completely differently between lists so itās difficult.
You’ve also got ICI uses to be the biggest chemical company in the world then they got a new CEO who decided to sell off all the valuable assets to push the company in a different direction and it collapsed.
The new MD was the first non chemist to run ICI.
Unfortunately he didnāt realise that speciality chemicals was a very volatile market whereas bulk chemicals had smaller margins but could contract years in advance.
ICI had scale – massive integrated plants that made A into X and turned by products C & D into margin enhancers. To simplistic management consultants taking that and constantly optimising it doesnāt look ādynamicā IRL it is a very stable cash cow type business *if* you constantly invest – which ICI did really well.
Don’t need to tell me about the scale, from Teesside. Got the two massive plants that dominate the skyline, proper sight if you are coming down the A19 from Newcastle. Remember when I was a kid and you used to be able to drive through the plants was a great experience, most of it is gated off now.
Unfortunately as you said you need to constantly invest which a lot of the successor companies didn’t do. They came in bought the equipment and run it into the ground then sold it for scrap and moved on.
I used to work in Wilton offices for an innovation company and you had to drive through the manufacturing part and it was mostly abandoned and just a waste land.
Luckily there’s some interesting stuff on the table for Wilton and teesside as a whole which should be a massive boost.
He’s hoping š
The UK Beer industry destroyed by the Beer Orders and Interbrew was given the go ahead by Brussels ( surprise- surprise) for a virtual Europe wide monopoly.
Tell me about it were I live growing up ICI and the likes of British Steel were Massive back in the day .Come think of it my Dad worked for BS just like a lot of my friends father’s or ICI.There again a lot of unemployment in Teesside back in the 80s .š¬š§
AT&T was Bell. They used it as a trade name. But wasnt forced to sell. The company was a sort of national monopoly, like the old British telecom, and the regional divisions of AT&T were split off into 7 Baby Bells- one used the Bell South trade name, another Bell Atlantic others used different names. AT&T retained for a while Bell long distance, Bell manufacturing and Bell Labs
Probably the UK Beer industry. All destroyed by Lord Young and his beer orders.
The EU gave the Belgians the effective monopoly.
Agree Johnson did have vision ,sadly mistakes in Covid brought him down hoveever he did the Vaccine roll out well.
The biggest handicap to any British innovation has and is Westminster.
Mainly because there isn’t any engineering representation, their all bankers lawyers and finance people. Though there are times when I wonder if there is any sense at all in that building.
I hope these are successful.
Adding them to larger eVTOLs should make for a more complete offering, greater payload and endurance. And as military aircraft need more power, for radars, EW and so on, again these generators could come into their own.
Well let’s hope we keep this TEC, and invest and not sell it on has a going concern to a foreign country š¬š§ š
RR has divested itself of some non core businesses such as the Ship design Business, but has expanded its core business and acquired others that are a better fit. BAe and RR may have been privatised but the UK Government still owns a share in each and its a Golden One.
I come from a family that has been involved with RR here in Derby since the 1930ās, Iāve never been involved with the Aeronautical side of things but the storyās from my family were fascinating.
RR are quite simply the world leaders in lift jets and have developed generations of them going all the way back to 1948. Dr Allen A Griffith was the originator and his theories on propulsion were revolutionary.
If you ever get the chance to visit the RR Learning & Development Centre itās very interesting. The Apprentices are exposed to all of RR History, the workshops, class rooms, lecture theatres and even the canteen are also where a large part of the RR Heritage collection is displayed. They are all there from Eagle to Griifin, from Derwent to Trent and in between these are the small RB engines which were designed and built at Barnoldswick but tested in Derby.
So no surprise the RR are in the game.
The *Lift jets* was Bristols project and their engine was the Pegasus as used in the harrier It was never a Derby engine or project.
The lift jets were probably the RB108 and RB162 which were the result of Dr Griffith’s desire to use multiple lift engines. They were a dead end because the Pegasus was a far superior concept.
See my reply to Duker for more detail.
Just because a concept isnāt viable in the past doesnāt mean it is a dead end.
It was way ahead of the technology available at the time, but it had lots of other uses such as APU. And a hell of a lot was learnāt about how to build reliable, lightweight engines.
Just remember the Gatling gun was a āDead endā design and made obsolete by the Maxim Gun which was more portable, had an higher rate of fore and was self powering.
100 hundred years later some bright spark remembered that Gatling had also stuck an electric motor on one and got 3k RPM out of one.
His concept was brilliant it had a much higher rate of fire and air cooled but it only became practical when lightweight materials and had a reliable supply of Electricity in Aircraft / ships etc.
As I said I have never had any active part of RR Jet business, but Iām pretty well versed in the joint History.
So forgive me if I point out the obvious, but we are talking about lightweight lift jets not Vectored Thrust Turbo Fans such as the Pegasus. They were completely different concepts and technologies.
The lift jet was a very lightweight but very high power to weight ratio jet engine and just like jet engines in general has been superseded by the turbo fan (see article for details).
Itās not surprising RR could do this so quickly as they have been able to leverage their previous experience for a completely different application. And one has to wonder what else you could do with this if upscaled ?
Lightweight, cleaner Marine Gas Turbine / Electric hybrid propulsion comes to mind š¤ Or even short term Electricity production to provide for surge capacity in the Grid.
In the 50ās everyman and his dog wanted to develop a VTOL aircraft, and some of them were really wacky (see US tail taking off fighters). Bristol developed a practical design based on the ideas of the French engineer Michel Wibault and after years of development produced the Pegasus which was used on the Harrier.
RR up at Barnoldswick (hence the RB designation) went down the other simpler route. Instead of using a heavy set of 4 heavy mechanical swivel thrust vectors, just build an engine that is powerful but very lightweight.
Bristol werenāt the only folks to work on thrust vectoring either RR (under A A Griffith again) did as well (see RB141 Medway for details).
Both the Pegasus concept and the Lift Jet/Fans were demonstrated to work (Germany and France built prototypes using the RB lift jets). But both were shackled by the technology and materials available at the time. In short both concepts produced aircraft that were short on range and payload compared to conventional take off aircraft. The trade off was just too great for most customers to justify at the time.
Hence the Harrier Pegasus was a bit of a niche product for USMC, RN and VTOL carriers. It did well against the Argentinian Air force but they were on the limits of their range and we had much better missiles and early warning. The P1154 would have had a supersonic development but was killed off by U.K. Government. Iām not so sure it would have done too well myself as the materials and tech available was heavy. It needed time for things to catch up.
Interestingly both concepts are still alive and well and RR has its feet in both camps. It designed and developed the RR Lift System for the USN F35B which uses a single far more advanced method of thrust vectoring (3BSM) than the 4 heavy mechanical swivel thrusters used on the Pegasus. That design also transfers energy via a shaft to the front lift fan which is again a bit of a heavy solution, but it works (and hence the F35B has less range / payload than the A/C versions š¤).
And RR never forgot the lift engines it just needed lightweight composites and way more advanced control systems.
If I were a betting man Iād wager that if anyone builds another VTOL military Aircraft it will either have a (3BSM) high bypass turbofan at the back and 1 or 2 lightweight lift fans at the front OR something like the US Osprey but with lightweight lift fans instead of turbo props on the wing ends.
For me the really interesting bit about this article is the Hybrid fuel saving concept, that is a quantum leap. And if it really works the technology could possibly have other applications.
Downscaled would be useful too. Jackal is an example of a small eVTOL that wants to integrate a turbogenerator to go hybrid, but at 200kg+, these are double the weight of the drone.
I also wonder if anyone will design another high-bypass engine for a fighter. Adaptive may become too commonplace.
Thanks for that great information
However the F35B still relies heavily on the ‘vectored’ main engine thrust. Just it does it with the mechanically vectored rear nozzle which rotates through 90 deg – just as the Pegasus would do in the Harrier.
The harrier of course had engine in mid fuselage and split the thrust both sides rather than a single rear nozzle.
This arrangement for the F35B allows it to be supersonic
The F35B lesser fuel capacity comes from the shaft driven lift fans taking up the space behind cockpit for fuel thats used in the A and C model . The C model gets its longer range from having extended wing span a purely aerodynamic effect – which I would think some A model customers would need for a longer range strike optimised version.
It doesnāt rotate it does something way more complicated it bends for 0 to 90 degrees using 3 interlocking sections and is computer controlled.
Itās a bit like an Armadillo or flexible fingers of a suit of armour.
The down side isnāt just less range and payload.
Also the F35B canāt carry the same weapons internally due to the smaller weapons bay and it has a lower G limit.
There’s not much in it – the F35B limited to 7, F35C limited to 7.5 – which is the same as F/A18E.
Its a rotating nozzle that redirects the thrust. The fingers you talk about are what all supersonic fighter jets have to create a variable area outlet because they have after burners.
Your earlier claim
The F35 is the heavy and complicated system- two types of directional thrust from lift fan and rear nozzle , whiule the Harrier is simplicity its self – but could do less. Remember the harrier is an extremely light plane so something heavy wouldnt work.
That RR lift fan forward is the reason for the smaller weapons bays and smaller fuel load – its a complicated system and heavier and has more restrictions because of the layout . Harrier was light and simple by comparison
Excellent news. Congratulations to all at Rolls Royce. Make sure design, technology and IT systems are utterly secure. You can guarentee the Chinese will want to steal this intellectual property.
Thats what GCHQ are for and RR is very heavily internally fire walled.
The projects the UK had on Engines and aircraft back in 50s 60s was really something ,sadly not enough investment bad decisions by governments.Sometimes even making our American friend’s jealous. š
See RR involvement in F35B for details.
IT’S great RR involved in F35 ,I was referring to UK own projects š š¬š§
RR was teamed with GE for an alternative engine for the F35 but sadly the funding was dropped after the demonstration phase about a decade back.
Now PW tells everyone they need ‘more thrust’ as the reserves have been used up just for cooling all the electronics and other power consumers, and want money to develop a better version!!
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Tragedy they didnāt go for it.
Define a UK project ? They all have international partners and vice versa. F35 is a US project but we build 15%+ of every single one. Heck parts built in UK are in every single USN Nuclear Submarine and are single source and absolutely vital. US upgraded B52 will be RR powered by the RR US / German bits of the company. As for BAe they are everywhere and their biggest market is the US Department of Defence.
What is going on with the Orpheus low-cost demonstrator engines, announced not too long ago. (Or are we not allowed to look back at them?)
Just go onto the company website and check out Orpheus, itās all there and as far as I am aware they are still testing and developing, all in 2 years since start up.
Love the story of how it started with a Team of 2 and the 1st thing they did was look up what RR had done that was similar in the past.
If you want a scratch your head moment check out the Video that has a picture of an engine. Itās Mmm interesting and the Dragon is rather good.
I think that someone went out for a long Friday liquid lunch and then spent Saturday Magic Mushroom picking up in Dovedale, came home and overdosed on The Lord of the Rings Films. Then felt inspired and somehow ducked past the D&A inspectors.
Its really worth a watch.
https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/defence/future_combat_air_capability/orpheus.aspx
LOL. Great video. Loved it.
Orpheus as a demonstration of the right way to build demonstrators is inspirational, but that’s all a bit last year. The story was told July ’22 (admittedly sans dragon), with one demonstrator built and a second on test at Bristol. I was wondering what’s happened in the last fifteen months, other than the production of cool videos.
A lead customer, perhaps? Or, the cynical side of me asks, have they been mopping up technical debt? There was a stated aspiration at the time to increase the number of components created through additive layer manufacturing, so perhaps they are taking time to optimise manufacturing process time and cost. or perhaps increase the engine’s resillience.
I was also wondering if lessons learned from Orpheus were used in these turbogenerators. The thing about tech demonstrators is that the tech can be adapted and pop up again in different guises.
I am struggling to see what is news here.
RR have developed a new lightweight efficient jet engine. That is what they do.
It is described as a hybrid, turbo generator initially using conventional hydro-carbon fuel and later hydrogen.
I assume the engine is driving a turbine to generate electricity for electric motor use and charging batteries, or is thrust used to drive aircraft? Neither sound super efficient.
Sorry, simply trying to understand the power cycle, maybe I am simply slow.
Imagine you only have battery-driven electric motors on your eVTOL. You can fly maybe 20 miles before needing a recharge on max payload or 30 miles on low payload. Then what? You have to land and wait to recharge or swap out the batteries.
Think of a turbogenerator used as a range extender. You still take off and land using batteries: low noise, low ground-level pollution. But you extend the range in the middle by switching on the turbogenerator to both produce electricity to drive the motors and recharge the batteries in flight. A turbogenerator can run on sustainable aviation fuel or hydrogen, making the whole thing effectively zero carbon, or as we see here, a first-step low emission design.
Perhaps when the energy density of batteries make a leap, this use-case won’t be needed any more. That’s just one of the many uses of a small efficient turbogenerator. You ask will it be used this way or that ā which is like asking do you use your electricity to boil kettles or power your Playstation? Would you suggest the inefficiency of electric kettles was a reason not to have a mains supply?
When I was young, you could get maybe 25% efficiency out of a single cycle gas turbine. About 15 years ago gas turbine efficiency was over 50% and creeping towards 60% full cycle at high load, and these days in a cooled combined cycle gas turbine, I’ve seen claims of over 95%. I’m not a power engineer and I have no idea what the efficiencies of these particular turbo generators are, but I’m not going to make assumptions that they must be hideously inefficient.