CFM International expects to start testing a technology demonstrator for its Rise open fan within the next 24 months. Executives at the French-U.S. engine maker told a pre-Paris Air Show briefing on Saturday that it will meet its promise of at least a 20 percent reduction in fuel burn compared with today’s Leap engines in time to support new narrowbody airliners now under development at airframers including Airbus and Boeing.
In the last few weeks, the Safran/GE joint venture’s engineers at Evendale, Ohio, began testing high-pressure turbine blades in a core based on the F110 powerplant. They also have used super-computers to assess new turbine airfoils, nozzles, and blades for Rise in a process that GE Aerospace head of engineering Mohamed Ali said has generated “fascinating, revolutionary results in terms of fuel burn and durability.” The company uses various additive and ceramic manufacturing techniques to make the new components.
To keep up the momentum of the program, Ali told reporters that CFM has started ordering long-lead-time hardware for the technology demonstrator. Later this decade, the company aims to start running tests using hydrogen fuel, and the Rise technology also appears in the NASA-led work on hybrid-electric propulsion. Rise stands for Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines.
“Rise isn’t just on paper, it’s for real,” Ali told reporters, summarizing progress made since program launch in 2021. Airbus has acknowledged its interest in the high-bypass-ratio engine for the single-aisle airliner it expects to launch in 2027 or soon after. CFM has conducted noise tests on its fan design at the Airbus facility in Hamburg, reporting lower noise than the Leap engines that power the European airframer’s current A320 family.
Leap Powers A321XLR
The latest member of that family, the Airbus A321XLR, is one of the stars of this week’s Paris Airshow. It is powered by a pair of Leap-1A turbofans, which CFM president and CEO Gaël Méheust said has now logged more than 22.8 million flight hours worldwide, while its Leap-1B sibling has flown 10.5 million. He said that Leap is now the fastest engine to reach the key maturity milestone of 30 million flight hours, and each turbofan now logs an average of more than 10 hours each day.
In a bid to shore up a reliability record now averaging 92 percent flown days, CFM’s engineering teams have implemented solutions to various durability issues, including starter air valve reliability, non-synchronous vibrations, carbon buildup in fuel nozzles, and degradation of high-pressure turbine blades and nozzles in hot and harsh environments. The latter issue prompted the company to establish a test rig in Ohio that uses imported dust and dirt from the Middle East and Africa to replicate the conditions faced by operators in those parts of the world.
Méheust said the Leap program now holds an order backlog of more than 10,000 engines representing more than five years of production. He said that both engine utilization and production rates have now returned to pre-pandemic levels last seen in 2019.
The latest member of the family to enter service is the Leap-1C engine, which powers China’s new Comac C919 narrowbody. On May 28, China Eastern Airlines became the launch operator for the type with an inaugural flight between Shanghai and Beijing.