I think PRC has intention o chunk out large quantity of J-10 to make PLAAF a modern and large airforce. WS-10 is ceritify but nothing beats having both domestic and foreign factory chunkng out many engines to make rapid replacemnt of many PLAAF warplane. I suspect PLAAF is trying to produce 80-100 J-10 fighter a year. It will speed up the process much faster with outsider helping u makes engines..
Chinese Engine Development
- Thread starter jackbh
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Chengdu J-10
Junior Member
80-100 J-10 fighters a year???That is a lot of aircrafts being built in a year. I don't think this is possible due to the J-10 being pretty expensive per unit and the tight PLAAF budget in which they are confined in. Also isn't the J-10 production rate at 3 planes per month so that would give the PLAAF 36 J-10's a year. What you have indicated is triple this figure so the production rate of the J-10 would need to be 7 a month. Not to mention the production of the J-7, J-8, JH-7 are still alive and being produced. To produce 80-100 J-10 a year you would need to halt production of these aircraft to allow room and funding for this mass production of J-10.
Crobato is right on with what he said about Russian sales pitch.
As for J-10 being expensive, it's only expensive compared to J-7. Compared to J-11, it's still cheaper. Compared to the imported flankers, it's much cheaper. As for production rate, they have 3 production lines at CAC. If they convert 2 of them to J-10 full time and one of them to J-10 for half of the year. Use the other half for JF-17. (darn this plane) Assuming each line produces 3 per month, they can easily handle 7 per months. J-7 is no longer getting domestic orders, this year is the last year for domestic delivery of J-7s. If they really wanted to speed up J-10 production, they can always add another line.
As for engines with Russians, they actually get delivered really fast. The 100 engines agreed on in August of 2005 were finished delivering in 1 year pretty much. I seriously doubt WS-10 has reached that production level yet.
As for J-10 being expensive, it's only expensive compared to J-7. Compared to J-11, it's still cheaper. Compared to the imported flankers, it's much cheaper. As for production rate, they have 3 production lines at CAC. If they convert 2 of them to J-10 full time and one of them to J-10 for half of the year. Use the other half for JF-17. (darn this plane) Assuming each line produces 3 per month, they can easily handle 7 per months. J-7 is no longer getting domestic orders, this year is the last year for domestic delivery of J-7s. If they really wanted to speed up J-10 production, they can always add another line.
As for engines with Russians, they actually get delivered really fast. The 100 engines agreed on in August of 2005 were finished delivering in 1 year pretty much. I seriously doubt WS-10 has reached that production level yet.
oringo
Junior Member
My facts? I already gave you the facts: GE has a joint venture with Liming to make gas turbine parts. These are not trivial parts that they can just make anywhere, and this partenship strongly suggests that GE is helping Liming.
I don't know enough to tell whether you are telling the truth, but I do know one thing, and that is you are avoiding the central question: could technological help with the gas turbines assist the critical development of turbofans? I asked you for facts, and all you do is calling me ignorant. I'm tired of this discussion with you on this subject, and you need to know when to stop.
I am telling you this from the very start.
NO.
Let me put it this way. Someone is going to help you make truck engines and that will help you solve the problems you have with your Formula 1 engine? A Formula One and a truck engine has the same operating principle right? So by that logic, it should help right?
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oringo
Junior Member
And I've been saying this from the beginning also: it's not the mechanical design that China needs help on. It's the material science engineering and quality control. Turbojets don't achieve the same amount of pressure ratio as turbofans. In terms of the compression ratio and reliability requirements, gas turbine generators are closer to turbofans than turbojets are. The implication is that understanding how to make the critical turbine components for the gas turbines helps making similar compoents for turbofan.
I don't think the compression ratio is really the problem. Military turbofans even have lower compression ratios than civilian turbofans which has more compressor stages. The fact that a stationary version power plant version of the WS-10A got certified first and is already available for sale tell you that's not the problem.
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Chengdu J-10
Junior Member
What's holding them back on creating more production lines? Just curious. Imported aircrafts are mostly more expensive than domestic aircrafts.
cost of setting up these lines, whether or not individual suppliers can supply enough parts for assembly and such. And you are not going to see imported aircraft anymore imo. I don't expect anything more than 14 su-33s.
Here is some things I found.
Gas turbines and civil turbofans do not have the same heat issues as the military turbofans and turbojets. While not all stationary gas turbines use turbofan designs, some do, and are essentially stationary high bypass turbofans.
Despite much higher compression ratios, a turbofan uses the bypassed mass of air to cool its entire body length, to help ensure a longer operating life and preventing it from burning and melting out.
Essentially, turbojets are short lived for that reason as they lacked that cooling ability.
Military turbofans are low bypass designs, and unlike civil engines, they feed the bypassed air to the afterburner. While there is still a cooling effect, it won't be to the same degree as a high bypass turbofan.
Civil turbofan uses the mechanical energy generated by the turbines to drive the fans on front, which blow air around the engine and creates a thrust of its own. Low bypass turbofans still have to rely on the velocity and mass of the outgoing gases from the afterburner and nozzle for propulsion. In that sense, a low bypass turbofan is still closer to a turbojet while a high bypass turbofan is closer to a turboprop in moving principle. Existing gases are slowest with a civil high bypass turbofan, but a lot faster with a miliitary low bypass turbofan with afterburner, and then even faster with a turbojet with afterburner (actually the fastest is with a ramjet).
Civil and stationary engines do not have to deal with supersonic air velocities entering the intake. With stationary engines, the source of air is stationary, and with civil engines, at subsonic. With military engines, with air rushing in at supersonic speeds, the massive pressure build up can choke the engine or crack the compressor blades. Which is why you need a careful design of the intake tunnels to reduce the air velocity to subsonic and still make sure the engine is properly air fed. Thus engines are not plug and play, cannot expect an engine to just work with an aircraft whose intake tunnel is designed for another engine.
This is why even after the WS-10A is certified, there is going to be some work adapting the J-11s and J-10s to that engine. Those that already have the AL-31F/FN cannot be switching to the new engine just like that and expect to work.
Gas turbines and civil turbofans do not have the same heat issues as the military turbofans and turbojets. While not all stationary gas turbines use turbofan designs, some do, and are essentially stationary high bypass turbofans.
Despite much higher compression ratios, a turbofan uses the bypassed mass of air to cool its entire body length, to help ensure a longer operating life and preventing it from burning and melting out.
Essentially, turbojets are short lived for that reason as they lacked that cooling ability.
Military turbofans are low bypass designs, and unlike civil engines, they feed the bypassed air to the afterburner. While there is still a cooling effect, it won't be to the same degree as a high bypass turbofan.
Civil turbofan uses the mechanical energy generated by the turbines to drive the fans on front, which blow air around the engine and creates a thrust of its own. Low bypass turbofans still have to rely on the velocity and mass of the outgoing gases from the afterburner and nozzle for propulsion. In that sense, a low bypass turbofan is still closer to a turbojet while a high bypass turbofan is closer to a turboprop in moving principle. Existing gases are slowest with a civil high bypass turbofan, but a lot faster with a miliitary low bypass turbofan with afterburner, and then even faster with a turbojet with afterburner (actually the fastest is with a ramjet).
Civil and stationary engines do not have to deal with supersonic air velocities entering the intake. With stationary engines, the source of air is stationary, and with civil engines, at subsonic. With military engines, with air rushing in at supersonic speeds, the massive pressure build up can choke the engine or crack the compressor blades. Which is why you need a careful design of the intake tunnels to reduce the air velocity to subsonic and still make sure the engine is properly air fed. Thus engines are not plug and play, cannot expect an engine to just work with an aircraft whose intake tunnel is designed for another engine.
This is why even after the WS-10A is certified, there is going to be some work adapting the J-11s and J-10s to that engine. Those that already have the AL-31F/FN cannot be switching to the new engine just like that and expect to work.
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