Chinese Engine Development

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latenlazy

Brigadier
Re: WS-20 engine spotted on IL-76 test bed

TyroneG said:
Even though people are saying WS10A issue is solved and mass produced for J11B, I still feel something is not right fundamentally. How come so many other new aircrafts are avoiding WS10A. I don't know what that is.

Maybe that explains, I don't know. Maybe China is capable of producing medium-end ball bearing but not the high-end one therefore WS10A is not as reliable and durable as it should be.
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This news has far more relevance for the ws-15 rather than the ws-10. It's the kind of stuff that can prevent a design from entering production. The fact that we haven't heard anything like this over the two decades of the ws-10s development and the fact that it cleared design certification implies that this wasn't a problem for the ws-10.

EDIT: After reading the article, it doesn't seem to suggest that the weakness with high end ball bearings would actually set back engine development. The article's focus instead seems to be about how China is currently not a market leader in the production of high end ball bearings, and even mentions that China imports most of theirs (implying that China is still capable of making high end ball bearings, just in very limited quantities, and that there are ways for them to get their hands on the equipment). In the end this problem, while certainly an industrial weakness, may have no actual impact on engine development or performance...just on self sufficiency.
 
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chuck731

Banned Idiot
Re: WS-20 engine spotted on IL-76 test bed

AeroEngineer said:
Breaking news !!! Breaking news !!

WS-20 engine is for real.



View attachment 8964


:D
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I believe WS-20 is based on the core of the WS-10, WS-10 is already in production, which makes WS-20's appearence ahead of the WS-15 not only understandable, but expected. Besides, WS-20 has evident commercial applications, which means its development need not be wholly subsidized and could be funded by loans repayable though commercial sales. So the allure of derivatives of WS-20 profitably powering a significaqnt fraction of the world's medium commerical airliner fleet could independently support a push to get WS-20 into service irrespective of government largess.


By all appearence, WS-15 is not just a WS-10 scaled up a little. To match the performance of the US P&W F119 engine it would have to be a whole generation ahead of Russia AL-31 and presumably WS-10. It would have to feature substantially higher thrust to weight ratio, lower part count, more severe combustion environment and likely greater reliance on exotic materials than WS-10. So there would need to be a substantial period of development between WS-10 and WS-15. Furthermore, the day when any technology developed for WS-15 core can make it into a commerical engine is still probably far off, so the development pace of of WS-15 would have to be governed entirely by rate of direct government subsidy.
 
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latenlazy

Brigadier
Re: WS-20 engine spotted on IL-76 test bed

chuck731 said:
I believe WS-20 is based on the core of the WS-10, WS-10 is already in production, which makes WS-20's appearence ahead of the WS-15 not only understandable, but expected. Besides, WS-20 has evident commercial applications, which means its development need not be wholly subsidized and could be funded by loans repayable though commercial sales. So the allure of derivatives of WS-20 profitably powering a significaqnt fraction of the world's medium commerical airliner fleet could independently support a push to get WS-20 into service irrespective of government largess.


By all appearence, WS-15 is not just a WS-10 scaled up a little. To match the performance of the US P&W F119 engine it would have to be a whole generation ahead of Russia AL-31 and presumably WS-10. It would have to feature substantially higher thrust to weight ratio, lower part count, more severe combustion environment and likely greater reliance on exotic materials than WS-10. So there would need to be a substantial period of development between WS-10 and WS-15. Furthermore, the day when any technology developed for WS-15 core can make it into a commerical engine is still probably far off, so the development pace of of WS-15 would have to be governed entirely by rate of direct government subsidy.
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It will take far less time to develop the WS-20 than the WS-15 precisely for the reasons you stated. By now they will have years and years of data on the performance of the WS-10 to leverage, which makes the WS-20 both easier to develop and a less risky project.

There were talks of new materials being developed for the ws-15's fan blades as early as 2006 (leaked by Maya I think). There was also a leak that the core temperature would be around 1900-2100 c if I remember correctly (also from Maya). Given that the core was also said to have been competed around the time of those leaks 2015 would appear to be a reasonable though optimistic date for the ws-15 to complete pre certification testing. The WS-10 was actually installed on a J-11 before its certification, so it's entirely possible that we could see it being tested on the J-20 before certification as well. That might expedite its development by a year or so.
 
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Blackstone

Blackstone

Brigadier
If the WS-10 saga has taught us anything, it's to be skeptical of China jet engine development. A poster linked news about unreliable production of high-end ball bearings, but is that the only problem left or are there more revelations to come?
 
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chuck731

Banned Idiot
Blackstone said:
If the WS-10 saga has taught us anything, it's to be skeptical of China jet engine development. A poster linked news about unreliable production of high-end ball bearings, but is that the only problem left or are there more revelations to come?
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If the WS-10 saga has taught us anything, it's to be skeptical of those who think news of success means nothing while the news of problem is always just the tip of an iceberg.
 
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latenlazy

Brigadier
Blackstone said:
If the WS-10 saga has taught us anything, it's to be skeptical of China jet engine development. A poster linked news about unreliable production of high-end ball bearings, but is that the only problem left or are there more revelations to come?
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My conclusion with regards to the ball bearing article was that it's effects on China's engine development and production was over-interpreted.
 
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Preux

Junior Member
Engineer said:
I fail to see your rationale in waiting for WS-10 to equip J-10B/C and J-15s when there are already plenty of J-11B using WS-10.
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About 120, and with every indication that the J-16 production variant will also make use of it.

There are no rational reason to believe that if a carrier-borne fighter and a single engine fighter does not use an engine then that it must be defective in some manner; both have clearly different technical requirements; in the case of the J-10, the gear box's location is different and in the case of the J-15 the HTH would have to be sea-rated. It may be fair to say the WS-10 family hasn't gone as far as one would wish, but there's no reason to say the engine itself is unreliable in some undefined way.
 
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