As we fly over to another country, or state, we usually use plane as a mode of transportation. However, how many of you really know about the machine that you are relying your life on and how they are made. We may think that the plane that we ride on are just a simple machine but I think they are one of the most complex machine in the world. Amongst all the parts in a plane, I would say that the engine itself is one of the most crucial part.
Rolls-Royce Trent 1000
GE GEnx-1B
These engines are made through different processes that includes precision engineering. Bcause this is a massive machine that requires extremely skilled engineers, that only two companies are capable in produce Boeing 787’s engines. They are GE and as most people know, Rolls Royce, one of the best car manufacturer.
With extremely complex work of art, the main component of the engines are made in 8 different sections of modules. However, ultimately, each enignes requires thousands of thousand components in order to build one.
What’s so special about the engine?
Well, basically in the past, what really distinguishes the old engines and Boeing 787 engine is the huge fan at the front. In the past, engines used to rely fully on the jet exhaust to thrust the plane forward. Unfortunately, this method was inefficient and was extremely noisy. With technological advancement and complex engineering design, they were able to achieve this new ideas of having a fan in front.
How does it work? As the jet exhausts, energy of the exhaust is harvested to turn these massive blade. Just for your information, each of the gigantic blade cost as much as a family car. When the huge blades starts turning, they push huge amount of cold air quietly into the side of the engines which thrust the plane forward.
Many parts of the engine requires loads of designing and thinking but one changes that made from the past was the blade. Well, when you look at it, it looks like a simple piece of metal blade fitted into the engines. However, they are actually made of 3 sheets of metal (Titinium) bonded together. However, they inner part of the blade is actually hollow to make it super light but super strong.
Furthermore, these blades must have a perfectly balanced for engines to turn perfectly and smoothly. Hence, each blade are measured, tested and weighed in order to improve the precision and balanced.
While assembling of the 5/8 sections are pretty simple due to the gravity assisting the engineers’ job, 3 remaining parts are regretfully much tougher and requires much more concentration as even small scratch could make a disasterous accidents.
Being a freshman in Engineering student and its my first time that I am actually evaluating and researching about designs, I am unable to elaborate any further. However, what I learnt is that although computers have the ability to do what humans are unable to do, they still need engineers in order to carry out their duties and most of extremley complicated duties. And that is the charm of being an engineer!
References
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy4A-z2WKhw
http://www.rolls-royce.com/news/press_releases/2013/19062013_787_9_first_flight.jsp
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/2012_q3/2/
http://www.rolls-royce.com/news/press_releases/2013/08082013_derby_flyover.jsp