CFM International’s first core for the LEAP-X engine (known as eCore 1) has begun testing.
Fired up on 12 June, eCore 1 will undergo around 100 hours of testing in a high altitude atitude facility. The running of these tests will take about two months, according to CFM executive vice-president Olivier Savin.
The testing will cover aerodynamics, aeromechanical response, operability (including that of the TAPS II combustor) and system dynamics. “To understand all this, 1,900 pieces of instrumentation are coming out of the core and being analysed,” Savin commented.
eCore 1 has a single stage high-pressure turbine (HPT) and much of what is learned from its tests will be fed into eCore 2 which is due to go to test in 2011. “We have not made a decision yet on whether to go to a two-stage HPT in eCore 2, but it is likely,” noted CFM’s president and CEO, Eric Bachelet.
Meanwhile MASCOT, the full-scale LEAP-X demo engine featuring 3-D woven resin transfer moulded (RTM) blades on a CFM56-5C core (shown in pic), is now at Peebles, Ohio, where it has successfully completed crosswind tests and is undergoing acoustic tests. Once completed, the engine will return to the Villaroche facility in France to undergo a 5,000 cycle endurance test, where earlier this year it completed performance and aeromechanical tests. One set of the new RTM blades is being used for the complete set of tests.
Bernie Baldwin, editor, Low-Fare & Regional Airlines/LARAnews.net
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