Yeah not saying it’s just plug and play. Just noting that there’s still a lot of potential commonality and they’re not exactly starting from scratch either.
Chinese Engine Development
- Thread starter jackbh
- Start date
China’s current tech level for the engines they have in production are more or less equivalent to what the West had in the early 90s to early 2000s already.
In terms of production capacity, the problem is not the sophistication of the technology but the proficiency of large scale production processes and the skills of production workers. Building a handful of one type of advanced equipment is not the same kind of challenge as building a thousand of them consistently.
Just to clarify, everything is produced according to computer instructions, rather than directly controlled by a human.
So when you are referring to skilled production workers, it's really about building up enough experience through trial and error.
So that the workers instinctively know how to programme the machines and then optimise the process to the perfection level required.
Well, firstly China has the comparable engine technology of the 70s and 80s.
The WS-10 is based on CFM-56 core engine, which first ran at 1979. The current WS-10 on J-20/J-10C/J-16 is estimated about the same level between F110-129 and F110-132, which is about 90s-00s technology. The only engines better than that are F119, F135 and EJ200, the underdevelopment project to equal this level is WS-15 and WS-19, which is expected to come out in the next 1-5 years.
In terms of the reason of China had such a hard time producing engine is a complex question, part of the reason is that top-level turbofan engine development these days is more related to basic science like material than engineering design. China, in general, has always been good at engineering but not very much in material science till around the 2010s'. As basic science subjects like material cost tones of money to progress, and a very long time to know-how. Also, material science does not provide a direct contribution to the economy and national defence project, so it didn't get that much attention from the high level for a very long time.
China, till early of this century, doesn't have the money spend on material science and didn't even notice the engine had become such a troublesome problem till the pass ten years. It was till Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), China finally raised the importance of aero engine to one of the national priorities, and fund the AECC out of the AVIC.
Currently, China could provide WS-10 to fulfil the production of J-20, J-10C and all the sino-flankers. yes, it's certainly not great, and I believe it will get better in the future, but for current status, I don't think it is in the same hard time as before.
China has difficulties in engine production? It is only true when compared to the US, Russia, Great Britain, and France.
The world has 195 countries, and less than 10 countries can manufacture engines.
This is not a bad result for China.
China industrialized late, but its growth was fast. He could fill the gap (engine )with Russia and the United States in the next 30 years and overtake the two in a 50-year period if China is on the right track.
yes, but it's not going to save you much time, the major challenge and most time-consuming part of engine development these days are turbine blades.
Scale-up and down of the blades simply means moving it from one working condition that is about its limit to another working condition which may be out of its limit.
This type of modification is simply a redesign, not only the structure, geometry of the blade may be changed, but more importantly, is the material.
Unlike structure, geometry, or other parts of engineering design, there is pretty much a short-cut on material, you have to try every single possible combination and process, and that will cost you a lot of money and time.
Sure, but it’s usually harder to scale up rather than scale down a design, because the mechanical tolerances are more stringent working in one direction than the other. Furthermore geometry changes should take far less time to determine than before with more advanced computational modeling. If the material science and basic component design foundations are already well established my understanding is the initial design isn’t going to take as long these days as it would have two decades ago.
I guess so, scale-up may be harder than scale-down, though I haven't acknowledged any existed engine is a scale up or down.
I don't think previous speed is a good reference for Chinese engine development, unlike other countries, it was insufficient funded before... so it could just because the money is in place...
Thanks guys.
So to sum up for my little brain to understand is:
China can produce engines (unlike some of the MSM I read that says they can't). But not enough quantities to satisfy current demand. Also the technology is about 10 to 20 years behind the west.
So China needs to ramp up production rate (I know it's not like a tap where you can turn on or off). But they are still flying with out of date engines. But apart from the thrust and longevity issue, it can still be used. So it doesn't mean China's air force is grounded or anything. (Unlike countries that import their engines, it can easily get embargoed).
So the situation it's not ideal, but it is not as critical or bad as I had been led to believe from the western MSM. It is certainly better than most nations including India and the surrounding nations. It's only the western nations and Russia that are flying around with superior engines.
These superior engines are not the real deal-breaker. And apart from the U.S. these countries are flying around with 4G planes still.
So yes. China should spare no effort in catching up, but it is not a big deal as far as defence is concern.
Have I got it summed up or not?
So to sum up for my little brain to understand is:
China can produce engines (unlike some of the MSM I read that says they can't). But not enough quantities to satisfy current demand. Also the technology is about 10 to 20 years behind the west.
So China needs to ramp up production rate (I know it's not like a tap where you can turn on or off). But they are still flying with out of date engines. But apart from the thrust and longevity issue, it can still be used. So it doesn't mean China's air force is grounded or anything. (Unlike countries that import their engines, it can easily get embargoed).
So the situation it's not ideal, but it is not as critical or bad as I had been led to believe from the western MSM. It is certainly better than most nations including India and the surrounding nations. It's only the western nations and Russia that are flying around with superior engines.
These superior engines are not the real deal-breaker. And apart from the U.S. these countries are flying around with 4G planes still.
So yes. China should spare no effort in catching up, but it is not a big deal as far as defence is concern.
Have I got it summed up or not?
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
That is more or less correct China weakness is material science well science is misnomer since it is more or less trial and error and incremental improvement over time See the first stage turbine blade will experience extreme temperature.
Additionally, the first stage (the stage directly following the combustor) of a modern gas turbine faces temperatures around 2,500 °F (1,370 °C), up from temperatures around 1,500 °F (820 °C) in early gas turbines. Modern military jet engines, like the Snecma M88, can see turbine temperatures of 2,900 °F (1,590 °C).
At that temperature most metal will melt So the only metal that can withstand that temperature is Titanium but it bring their own problem of difficult to manufacture So you need Metal alloy but to do that you need exotic metal and single growth crystal couple with air cooling (drilling hole in the blade which itself bring problem since it weaken the blade unless done perfectly)
Only recently China master the technology You can create good blade on lab but when it was installed on real engine it got problem so continuing improvement over time just like any combustion engine That is why only old industrial country like Germany, French and Japan master the technology. Anyway China now master the technology Here is the planned production of WS 10 from security exchange filling.
Another thing is organizational. In the past it was fragmented and poorly funded with Engine design traditionally design by each aircraft institute and China give the appearance of late because they design engine and aircraft at the same time legacy of Soviet style integrated company. Normally engine take a long time to perfect averaging 2 decades sometime 3 decades for civilian engine. In the western practice the engine and aircraft manufacturer are separate and the engine is done first before the aircraft separate funding and design team. China now follow this practice with formation of AECC with large funding and strong independent organization and R&D designing both military and civilian engine therefore leveraging large and competent design team with no up and down of fragmented project funding
The WS-10, which powers the J-10, J-11, J-15, J-16 fighters is having a successful production run. The company sees gradual increase in annual production numbers starting from 320 engines in 2020 till 450 engines by 2026.
Additionally, the first stage (the stage directly following the combustor) of a modern gas turbine faces temperatures around 2,500 °F (1,370 °C), up from temperatures around 1,500 °F (820 °C) in early gas turbines. Modern military jet engines, like the Snecma M88, can see turbine temperatures of 2,900 °F (1,590 °C).
At that temperature most metal will melt So the only metal that can withstand that temperature is Titanium but it bring their own problem of difficult to manufacture So you need Metal alloy but to do that you need exotic metal and single growth crystal couple with air cooling (drilling hole in the blade which itself bring problem since it weaken the blade unless done perfectly)
Only recently China master the technology You can create good blade on lab but when it was installed on real engine it got problem so continuing improvement over time just like any combustion engine That is why only old industrial country like Germany, French and Japan master the technology. Anyway China now master the technology Here is the planned production of WS 10 from security exchange filling.
Another thing is organizational. In the past it was fragmented and poorly funded with Engine design traditionally design by each aircraft institute and China give the appearance of late because they design engine and aircraft at the same time legacy of Soviet style integrated company. Normally engine take a long time to perfect averaging 2 decades sometime 3 decades for civilian engine. In the western practice the engine and aircraft manufacturer are separate and the engine is done first before the aircraft separate funding and design team. China now follow this practice with formation of AECC with large funding and strong independent organization and R&D designing both military and civilian engine therefore leveraging large and competent design team with no up and down of fragmented project funding
The WS-10, which powers the J-10, J-11, J-15, J-16 fighters is having a successful production run. The company sees gradual increase in annual production numbers starting from 320 engines in 2020 till 450 engines by 2026.
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