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I received an e-mail today from Pratt & Whitney (P&W) about its PurePower PW1000G demonstration engine. P&W will announce tomorrow (pwpressrelease.doc) that the jet engine completed its first phase of flight testing, having logged about 43 hours in 12 flights on a company owned test plane.Â
The PurePower engine uses P&W’s patented Geared Turbofan technology, which I discussed in a previous post. The technology is covered at least in part by U.S. Patent Nos. 7,021,042 and 6,964,155.
The Geared Turbofan design integrates a gear box between the engine’s fan and turbine to keep the turbine and fan on the same driveshaft while allowing both to operate closer to their optimal speeds. This boosts efficiency (by increasing turbine speed) and reduces noise (by lowering fan speed).
According to P&W, “[t]he PW1000G engine targets double-digit reductions in fuel burn, environmental emissions, engine noise and operating costs for the next generation of commercial aircraft.”
The next stop for the PW1000G is France. The demonstration engine is on its way to Toulouse for the next phase of testing, where Airbus will become the first aircraft manufacturer to fly the PW1000G on its own A340 flight test aircraft.
