Chinese Engine Development

ACuriousPLAFan said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1601809250141229056

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1601809259851026432

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I would be very surprised if the bearings on J-20s engines (WS-10C) were not already indigenous...

More importantly, do we know who this twitter account is?


If an account is directly quoting from CCTV verbatim that's fine, but did the CCTV program actually talk about J-20s engines or is it that account making their own statement?

Blitzo said:

I would be very surprised if the bearings on J-20s engines (WS-10C) were not already indigenous...

More importantly, do we know who this twitter account is?


If an account is directly quoting from CCTV verbatim that's fine, but did the CCTV program actually talk about J-20s engines or is it that account making their own statement?

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WS-10 is not mentioned, but the bearings are for aerial engines
The test is still ongoing, 50k hours is what has been passed so far.

Source:

vincent said:

WS-10 is not mentioned, but the bearings are for aerial engines
The test is still ongoing, 50k hours is what has been passed so far.

Source:

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I take it J-20 is not mentioned either, and I suspect C919 is not mentioned as well?

If so, then my suspicions stand -- i.e.: be wary of which claims are directly quoted verbatim from CCTV and which are a result of a random account's own inferences.

Blitzo said:

I take it J-20 is not mentioned either, and I suspect C919 is not mentioned as well?

If so, then my suspicions stand -- i.e.: be wary of which claims are directly quoted verbatim from CCTV and which are a result of a random account's own inferences.

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It is a brand new tech. Probably will take a few years to introduce the bearings produced with this tech and scale up the productions.

vincent said:

It is a brand new tech. Probably will take a few years to introduce the bearings produced with this tech and scale up the productions.

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? How does that relate to my statement about that twitter account's statement about J-20 and C919 being inaccurate??

The twitter account said "The bearings of future models including C919 and J-20, can be localized and no longer rely on imports!"
But as we agreed, this is their own inference, not from the CCTV program.

The idea of C919 using domestic engines (and thus having localized domestic bearings) is of course reasonable, and of course dependent on the

But the idea that J-20 at present which uses WS-10Cs, using imported bearings in WS-10C, is difficult to entertain, and it is unlikely.


So I'm not sure what exactly you are suggesting.

Blitzo said:

? How does that relate to my statement about that twitter account's statement about J-20 and C919 being inaccurate??

The twitter account said "The bearings of future models including C919 and J-20, can be localized and no longer rely on imports!"
But as we agreed, this is their own inference, not from the CCTV program.

The idea of C919 using domestic engines (and thus having localized domestic bearings) is of course reasonable, and of course dependent on the

But the idea that J-20 at present which uses WS-10Cs, using imported bearings in WS-10C, is difficult to entertain, and it is unlikely.


So I'm not sure what exactly you are suggesting.

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I'm agreeing with you that the tech is not being used today.

vincent said:

I'm agreeing with you that the tech is not being used today.

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My point was not about whether the specific domestic bearing type described in the video was being used or not.

My point is about whether WS-10C uses domestic bearings in general.
I'm saying it should be using domestic bearings.


Putting it another way:
- the video is talking about a specific new domestic bearing in development
- it doesn't mean China hasn't been using domestic bearings already in its existing domestic engine types (unless the CCTV program made such a statement)
- the twitter account made an unsubstantiated claim saying that J-20 would not need "imports" for bearings, implying that J-20's engines using imported bearings (i.e.: including WS-10C)
- I find it unlikely WS-10C (or other WS-10 variants) are using imported bearings

The bearing industry is highly concentrated and much of it is in the West. Painfully so I think.
IIRC the Russians used imported bearings on the PD-14 aviation engine, beats me if they replaced those or not.
The bearing industry in Russia had major issues after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some of the factories ended up in Kazakhstan I think. Russia became a major importer of Swedish bearings. Now with the current sanctions on Russia I suppose they will have to fix that problem eventually.

gelgoog said:

The bearing industry is highly concentrated and much of it is in the West. Painfully so I think.
IIRC the Russians used imported bearings on the PD-14 aviation engine, beats me if they replaced those or not.
The bearing industry in Russia had major issues after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some of the factories ended up in Kazakhstan I think. Russia became a major importer of Swedish bearings. Now with the current sanctions on Russia I suppose they will have to fix that problem eventually.

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so do you think China still use imported bearings for WS-10C?

antiterror13 said:

so do you think China still use imported bearings for WS-10C?

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I think the requirements for the jet fighters are different than commercial aircraft since engine longevity is not expected to be nearly as high. But this is not my field really. And it is not like this is something discussed a lot.

From what I heard the problem is less about manufacturing the bearings but more about certifying them and make sure they are reliable. It costs a lot to certify these processes and it is not cost effective to do this for small production runs.

Of course just about any Soviet era product will use their own design bearings. But later designed products might use Western bearings. Russia has been having problems right now replacing the bearings they use in their most modern high speed rail cars for example. IIRC they came from a factory SKF had in Russia. SKF left the Russian market and it turned out the bearings they "manufactured" there used imported components.