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Airbus will test a radical engine with visible fan blades, while the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer is making to develop a successor for his best -selling A320 family.
The European Air Force and Defense Group said the test flights of the “Open Fans” engine demonstrator will be held at the modified A380 supermobe towards the end of this decade.
Flights will inform the eventual decision of how best to attack the next generation of an aircraft with one passage that will inherit the A320 aircraft when they reach the market in the late 2030s.
Airbus Hope that the new engine configuration will contribute to the expected improvement of fuel savings of 20 to 30 percent compared to existing models. Current species use “Channeled fan” engines, where the fans are closed in the housing.
Bruno Fichefeux, Airbus’s head of future programs, said at the decarbonisation summit organized by the company in Toulouse that it must ensure that new technologies are coming to “maturity”. Then he would “bet” with his future design on them.
“One of the main breakthroughs is the technology of open fans,” Fichefeux said. “We need to lead it to maturity. We have a plan to do flight tests.”
The proposed engine design is part of the moves of the global airline industry according to the net zero contribute to atmospheric carbon by 2050. The industry, which accounts for between 2 and 3 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, hopes to fill the goal through a mixture of alternative fuels, new technologies and new aircraft designs, including a light main setting.
Analysts said that each new one -pass model will have to be 20 to 30 percent more effective fuel than the current generation of aircraft. It should also be able to power using only sustainable air fuel. Such fuel can broadcast as much as 80 percent less carbon dioxide during its life cycle from traditional air fuel.
Airbus cooperates with CFM International, with a joint investment between the GE aerospace from the USA, French Safran, on the open engine of fans.
Mohamed Ali, CEO of General Technology and Operation, told the Financial Times that companies are already working with regulators on questions about a new design. They included how to solve higher noise levels than open fans and any security problems.
But he said that the open fan would be very light and rotate with speeds of about 1,000 rpm in a minute compared to up to 3,000 revolutions in current conventional engines. There would also be “armored” on the plane to ensure that it is reinforced in areas that could be subject to any damage to the fan knife, he added.
Christian Scherer, head of the Airbus aircraft department, said it was vital to test the open design of the fan because it had “promising features of fuel consumption” from the fan.
The engines can be mounted either on the wing of the aircraft or rear.
Scherer said Airbus did not exclude any configuration and also spoke with Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney, the main competitors of CFM International, about what they could offer.
Airbus also used the event to confirm plans for the development of aircraft with hydrogen drive but did not give a new launch time frame. The company last month pushed Plans to launch an aircraft in 100 seats by 2035.
The company announced that it would progress with the concept test plans using the fuel cells powered by hydrogen.
Airbus Executive Director Guillaume Faury defended the decision to withdraw the launch, saying that the company wanted to avoid the risk of creating a “hydrogen reconciliation” – a reference to the supervisory aircraft that was commercially unsuccessful.
Although Airbus could develop and create a plane of the hydrogen actions, the company concluded that in the immediate future competitiveness of such a plane “would not be good enough,” Faury said.
“We would have a risk of horsetailing where we would have a solution that would not be a commercially sustainable solution on the scale,” he added.
