FEATURE

Aero engines lose

weight thanks to
composites
Aircraft engines have traditionally been the domain of metal but aero
engine manufacturers are now saving substantial weight by using
composites in the fan blades and containment case. George Marsh
reports on the latest developments.

A
irlines today are parking perfectly
serviceable aircraft in deserts and
acquiring instead current-generation
successors which, largely thanks to compos-
ites, are lighter and use less fuel. This shows
the extent to which aircraft operators are
prepared to invest in weight saving and
explains their desire for new types such
as the Boeing B787 Dreamliner and Airbus
A350 XWB in which reinforced plastics
account for about half the aircraft’s structure
by weight.

Reinforced Plastics readers will be well aware

of composites’ primacy in aircraft interiors
and their growing contribution to secondary
and primary airframe structures, but will
perhaps be less cognisant of the effect they
are now having on aero engines. While
the main ’guts’ of an engine are generally
too hot for composites, the cool running
front end – principally the large fan and
its containment case – is a prime prospect
for composites application. The fan on a
modern jet engine drives most of the air
entering the air intake round the outside
of the jet core and out of the back of the
nacelle, in doing so accounting for 70-90%
of the engine’s total thrust. The remaining
percentage is due to the core, the true The fan on a GE90 engine features 22 carbon fibre/epoxy composite fan blades. (Picture courtesy of GE.)

32 REINFORCEDplastics NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012 0034-3617/12 ©2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The 18 blades for the LEAP engine’s composite fan are produced by RTM. (Picture courtesy of Snecma.)
jet portion of the engine. This latter also
powers the fan which can be likened to a
large propeller, albeit with a greater number
of blades and revolving at higher speed. In
the latest turbofan engines, up to 12 times
more air is driven round the engine core
than passes through the core itself, the
actual proportion being referred to as the
by-pass ratio.
Traditionally, fan blades have been made
from metal, usually titanium, but aero
engine manufacturers can now save
substantial weight by substituting compos-
ites. Similarly, the containment case, there
to contain the results of any blade separa-
tion and prevent high-speed debris from
impacting the airframe or aircraft systems,
can now be composite rather than metal
or a metal-composite hybrid (typically
aluminium over-wrapped with aramid).
Weight saved in the fan/containment case
pairing has a knock-on effect, enabling
components such as shafts and bearings,
the pylons which attach the engine to the
wing and the associated wing structure to
be made lighter also. In aggregate, half a
ton or more can be saved per engine, a
prize well worth having given the high price
of aviation fuel today.
Composites are also more durable, notably
having greater tolerance to fatigue than
metal, and can be moulded into shapes
that are nearer to the three-dimensional
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aerodynamic ideal. They also resist creep,
the outward expansion that can occur in
metal blades due to centrifugal force gener-
ated at revolution rates of around 2500 rpm
(typical fan rate in cruise), meaning that the
clearance engineered initially between the
blade tips and the surrounding duct has to
be greater than it should be for optimum
engine performance.
Pioneer
Although Rolls-Royce was a notable pioneer
of composite fan blades (more of this later),
the first company to successfully introduce
a commercial jet engine having such blades
was American engine maker GE. Its initial
GE90 engine, which first entered service
on British Airways Boeing B777 long-range
widebody twinjets in 1995, has a by-pass
ratio of 8.4 and a 10 ft diameter fan having
22 wide-chord fan blades that are moulded
in a toughened epoxy resin reinforced with
high-grade carbon fibre. A polyurethane
surface coating reduces wear on the blade
while a titanium leading edge provides
protection against strikes from birds, ice
chunks and other ‘foreign objects‘. This
titanium guard, which also provides the
required sharp leading edge that is difficult
to engineer in composite, is replaceable and
can be re-blended.
GE, which boasts 25 years of prior develop-
ment in composite blades dating back to
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012
FEATURE
original NASA-funded programmes, says that
its GE90 blades have withstood a battery
of aggressive tests including the critical
chicken-gun test in which bird carcases are
fired into running engines to simulate bird
strike events occurring at flying speeds.
Positive test results have been buttressed by
results from dozens of actual ingestions on
aircraft in service of birds as large as herons
and multiple Canada geese, in which no
significant fan damage occurred. Laminated
blade specimens exposed to aircraft fluids
(fuel, hydraulic oil etc) maintained, says
GE, 95% of their base properties. Service
experience shows that moisture uptake and
material fatigue are minimal. Blade-off tests
in which blades are explosively sheared so
that they are flung outwards by centrifugal
force, have proved the efficacy of composite
containment cases.
A growth version of the GE90, the GE90-
115B, is currently the world’s most powerful
turbofan engine, an example having deliver-
ed nearly 128,000 lb of thrust on a test rig
(although the engine is rated at 115,000 lb).
A smaller engine, the GENx, has been
developed for medium-capacity long-range
aircraft including the new B787, Boeing’s
latest and most fuel-efficient passenger
jet, now in early revenue service. Use of a
111 in diameter 18-blade composite fan,
derived from the GE90 technology, has
enabled weight of the B787 twinjet to be
reduced by 700 lb per aircraft compared
with what could be achieved with metal-
fanned engines.
Manufacture
Blades are produced by CFAN, a joint
venture between GE and French engine
specialist Snecma, at a dedicated composite
component facility in San Marcos, Texas,
USA. This factory has so far produced more
than 20,000 composite blades, initially for
the GE90-115B and, for the last few years,
for GENx engines as well. A rigorous manu-
facturing process results, says the company,
in blades that are free of voids, wrinkles and
other defects.
GE90 blades are made using preforms that
comprise hundreds of plies of unidirectional
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 FEATURE
Composite fan blades. (Picture courtesy of GKN Aerospace.)
carbon prepreg tape and fabric near
the blade root, where thickness is up to
4 inches, thinning out progressively to
about 0.25 inches at the tip. Plies are cut
ultrasonically, each ply shape having
previously been computer generated.
Plies are then laid up using a laser projec-
tion system. The resulting preform is placed
in a mould and resin is injected. Cure takes
place in an autoclave at some 150°C, with
consolidation pressure also being applied.
Resulting near-net shape parts are milled to
final dimensions in 5-axis CNC machining
centres.
The fan containment case developed for
the GENx is manufactured by GKN Aero-
space Services at its aerostructures facility
in Alabama. It comprises a combination
of biaxial and triaxial carbon/epoxy braids
woven against a fan casing tool. A triple
layer of triaxials laid mutually at 60° makes
the weave thicker in the critical centre
section of the sleeve than towards its ends.
This all-composite construction is claimed
to be superior to the Kevlar (aramid)/
aluminium containment system widely
used in other engines, with its tendency
for moisture to collect and cause corrosion
at the interface between the two materials.
34 REINFORCEDplastics NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012
GKN Aerospace Services also manufactures
the single-piece acoustic liner that substan-
tially reduces fan noise. The liner comprises
glass fibre/epoxy skins sandwiching a
Nomex aramid honeycomb core.
At this year’s Farnborough Air Show, GE
Aviation said it is working on fourth-gener-
ation composite blades for the planned
GE9X engine intended for new Boeing B777
models, dubbed B777X. The company is also
investigating the potential for saving more
weight by combining the fan containment
case with the air inlet in a single integrated
unit.
LEAP forward
Meanwhile, CFM International, the GE/
Snecma joint venture that produces the
CFM 56 engine powering many of today’s
ubiquitous narrowbody workhorses,
is adopting a new way of producing
composite fan blades and containment
cases for its advanced LEAP engine. This
new powerplant is being developed for the
Airbus A320neo (a re-engined version of
the popular A320), the Boeing 737 MAX (a
similarly upgraded B737), and China’s new
COMAC C919 narrowbody. The 15% more
fuel-efficient LEAP engine will have a high
by-pass ratio of 12:1.
Snecma, the Safran Group company respon-
sible for the engine’s fan module, says it
has spent 15 years and some $200 million
developing the material and production
system for its composite fan and contain-
ment case. It is working in close collabora-
tion with Albany Engineered Composites,
USA, a prime mover in developing and
manufacturing the fan blades and contain-
ment case, utilising its strong experience in
3D engineered composites.
The 18 blades for the LEAP engine’s
composite fan are said to be the first to be
based on 3D woven materials, resin transfer
moulded, as opposed to being laminated
conventionally in multiple plies as with
current-generation blades. According to
a Snecma official, the three-dimensional
woven material structure provides superior
damage tolerance while the RTM process
allows a thinner, more curved blade to be
produced, with consequent aerodynamic
benefits. Three years of testing have demon-
strated the ability of the blades to withstand
bird ingestion and fan blade off events
as well as meeting stability and durability
criteria.
In production, carbon fibres are woven
into preforms, which are cut to shape by
waterjet. The preforms are then placed
in moulds where epoxy resin is injected.
Cure takes place in the mould at 180°C
and 8.6 bar pressure. Parts are then
de-moulded and trimmed to shape with a
5-axis machining centre. According to the
company, this out-of-autoclave technique
facilitates the series production of complex
curved shapes, with minimum material
wastage.
To manufacture the LEAP composite
fan case, 3D and contour weaving are
combined to produce near-final net shape
preforms, which are then moulded to final
shape using RTM. Utilisation of contour
weaving allows the entire fan case preform,
including flanges, to be formed as a single
entity without the need for cutting and
darting, while the continuously woven
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nature of the part eliminates fibre buckling
after moulding.
Extensively automated production of the
blades and other RTM parts – the fan
containment case, the blade platforms
and spacers beneath the under-roots of
the blades – is due to take place in two
centres, a new LEAP composites facility that
AEC and Safran Aerospace Composites are
constructing near AEC’s Rochester, New
Hampshire, headquarters and a second new
plant to be built in Commercy, France. Pros-
pects for the LEAP engine and consequently
for its composite components, are good,
commitments having been received already
for more than 3,500 engines.
Rolls’ U-turn
Until recently, Rolls-Royce has avoided
the adoption of composites for the fan
modules of its large turbofan engines,
having resolutely stuck to the high-tech
processes it developed for fabricating
titanium blades and metal containment
cases. However, this year it has announced
that a new engine being developed for
introduction towards the end of the decade
will have a composite fan and case.
Although this looks like a U-turn, the
company actually produced its first
composite blades over 40 years ago, for
the RB211 engine used on the Lockheed
Tristar triple-engined passenger jet. Unfor-
tunately, this bold venture proved ill-fated.
The main problem was that those early Hyfil
carbon fibre/epoxy composite blades, whilst
satisfactory in normal service, too easily
succumbed to bird strikes. Manufacturing
repeatability was another issue. These prob-
lems could not be resolved at the time so
there had to be a reversion to metal. Rede-
signing the engine for titanium blades and
retro-fitting existing aircraft effectively bank-
rupted the original company, which had to
be resurrected as a new corporate entity.
But the inexorable drive to reduce aircraft
weight has caused today’s Rolls-Royce
to re-evaluate composite fan solutions.
Taking into account advances in composite
materials and manufacturing that have
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ELF programme
The Environmental Lightweight Fan (ELF)
programme aims to introduce a carbon fibre
composite fan blade which can reduce the
weight of major components in the gas
turbine engine and increase their operating
life. Reduced weight saves energy and fuel and
consequently reduces emissions.
This programme has focused on the
development of composite fan blade design
and manufacturing technologies. It initially
taken place since the RB211 debacle, it has
decided that it can no longer delay joining
the composite fan set.
One of the factors inhibiting an earlier move
has been that, although carbon fibre rein-
forced plastic (CFRP) blades can clearly be
lighter than metal equivalents, it is difficult
to make them as slender, so their shape
has been aerodynamically non-optimum.
Robert Nuttall, Vice President Strategic
Marketing stresses that any new blade must
be at least aerodynamically equivalent to a
metal counterpart as well as lighter, more
resilient and more durable. He accepts that
new composite technology means that this
combination can now be delivered and
asserts that weight saving per engine will
be substantial.
Rather than risk repeating earlier mistakes,
Rolls has decided to ‘buy in’ certain com-
posites expertise. Accordingly, it has part-
nered with GKN Aerospace, this UK Tier 1
supplier having extensive experience with
composites, including 3D materials. The
partners have developed a CFRP fan blade
demonstrator that is as thin as a titanium
aerofoil but can nevertheless survive bird
strike and other critical events, as ground
tests have shown. Next year, the blade is
due to begin flight testing on a Trent 1000
engine, the Rolls-Royce power plant option
on the Boeing B787. Rolls-Royce is confident
that its composite solution will be suitable
for all its large by-pass turbofans (including
a new Trent derivative intended for Boeing‘s
B777X), although titanium will still be
competitive for small business jet power
plants.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012
FEATURE
concentrated on material selection and
construction and the development of an
automated manufacturing process. A series
of progressively evolved and optimised
blade designs have been manufactured and
evaluated.
The ELF consortium consists of GKN and
Rolls-Royce supported by a number of Euro-
pean universities. The programme started in
2007 and will finish this year.
In tandem with the blade, a composite fan
case has been developed. The inner skin
carries an abradable inside coating so that
if the tips of any blades should bridge
the tight gap engineered between the
rotating blade tips and the case during,
say, vibration or turbulence, the resulting
contact will not cause significant damage.
In January, Rolls-Royce and GKN Aerospace
opened a new facility on the Isle of Wight,
UK, to develop efficient, low-weight engine
technology using composites. Composites
Technology and Applications Ltd (CTAL)
is a joint venture that will develop the
processes needed to manufacture the
new fan blade and containment case
designs. GKNA’s experience with automated
fibre placement and other automation
will be valuable in securing the high-rate
production likely to be required. About
half the £14.8 million being invested in
the CTAL facility and its programme comes
from UK government sources through the
Environmental Lightweight Fan (ELF) project,
the rest being subscribed by the partners.
Here to stay
Overall, it looks as if the emerging partner-
ship between advanced composites and
aero engines is here to stay. Indeed it will
proceed further as ceramic matrix compos-
ites (CMCs) start to be used in engine hot
sections. It seems unlikely that aviation
fuel prices will fall substantially any time
soon, so the drive to reduce engine weight,
in line with reductions that have already
occurred in the latest airframes, is bound to
continue. ■
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