Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney signed an agreement to join Virginia Tech. It is for pre-competitive research focused on the contaminants on the aero-engine operation and testing impact on the environment. It will be a four-year project that will be using Virginia Tech’s research. Also use cross-discipline expertise in instrumentation, engine operation, and geosciences. As well as the current research relationships with Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney are used.
According to the Rolls-Royce Commonwealth Professor at Virginia Tech, Changming Son, “The multidisciplinary group, teamed with Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, and Geosciences, will work together to tackle the impact of the airborne particulate on aircraft engines, which is a huge challenge for today’s aviation industry.” This research relationship continues longstanding collaboration between Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney on issues that are common across the aerospace industry. The two companies have partnered on several government-based research projects, including a study focused on volcanic ash damage to aircraft engines.
In an open-access paper published in the journal Aerospace in 2021, researchers from the University of Manchester and Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace outline the problem. “The dangers posed to the safe operation of gas turbine engines in the presence of airborne particulates such as volcanic ash and mineral dust are well documented, ranging from benign events resulting in minimal damage to engines being rendered inoperative and safety margins compromised. Encounters between aircraft and volcanic ash remain rare, but their consequences are well known due to several high-profile incidents involving commercial airliners.”
The research
According to the research, “… Airborne mineral dust is encountered with much higher frequency due to the growth of aviation in arid regions and can be especially severe during dust storms. Due to its constant presence in these environments, dust ingestion is often unavoidable, and although not encountered in large quantities over short time periods typical of volcanic ash, multiple flight cycles combined with dust storms can see the total quantity ingested reach comparable levels. However, to date, analogous safe quantities of mineral dust that can be tolerated by an engine have yet to be established.”
Work on this front has taken place in the US, UK, and around the world, with various groups developing some of the basic understanding needed before complex modeling can be undertaken. The collaboration between Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce, and Virginia Tech in this research initiative is designed to add the more complicated engine testing available at Virginia Tech to further develop mitigation strategies, and to provide information back to these more basic research activities from actual engine operations.
