GE Aerospace celebrates first airshow as standalone entity
As the world’s largest provider of aircraft engines for military and civil aviation markets, GE Aerospace’s presence at Farnborough International Airshow 2024 represented its first show attendance as a standalone entity (following the spin-off of GE Vernova).
Although orders this year are “maybe not as many as in previous years,” they’re nevertheless “strategic and important to us” highlighted Chris Lorence, chief engineer at GE Aerospace, who was also keen to elaborate on the company’s forward-thinking propulsion innovation.
In particular, the RISE programme (unveiled in 2021 by CFM International, a 50/50 joint company between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines) is continuing to mature technologies involved in its open-fan engine architecture. By removing the casing surrounding the conventional engine fan and create something that looks more akin to a propeller, “we can fly at speeds like a conventional turbofan” explained Lorence; elaborating that while the proposed product “is very competitive with current engine technology” it’s also 20% more fuel-efficient than the engine it replaces.
Employing a combination of propulsive efficiency and enhanced engine core technology (along with a great increase in bypass ratio), the project is currently moving from a component test phase to a subsystem test phase; setting out a path to be able to demonstrate full engine capability “in a few years”.
In parallel with the RISE programme, a recently-announced partnership with the US Department of Energy will also help bring the power of supercomputing to RISE evaluation efforts. “To really get this kind of efficiency requires much more computational analysis than we’ve ever had to do in the past,” concluded Lorence, who added that modelling airflow through the engine will help improve not only aerodynamic elements but also help to keep the noise equal to, or below, engines of today.
