Rolls Royce Tests Huge UltraFan Engine

Sustainability and air travel: advances in the development of fuels and engines should make this vision possible. Rolls-Royce takes an important step. The engine of the future is now being tested in a specially designed test facility.

Less consumption, designed for sustainable fuels

No company has ever built such a large test engine: Rolls-Royce has been working on an aircraft engine called UltraFan for quite some time. The idea: is to combine all the necessary innovations for using sustainable fuels and improving consumption in one design. In order to be able to put the huge and complex engine, with an internal diameter of more than 3.5 meters, through its paces, the so-called Testbed 80 was set up in Derby, UK. Now the company can report that after design and construction, the next-gen engine and test facility are finally coming together.

“We have all long awaited this moment, which is such an important milestone for the program,” said Chris Cholerton, President of Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace in the official announcement of the first test campaign. “In the next phase, UltraFan will operate on 100% sustainable aviation fuel for the first time in 2023, demonstrating that the technology is ready to support more sustainable flight in the future,” Cholerton said of the planned process.

Efficient and frugal

The company has already clearly formulated its goals. In the short term, findings from the UltraFan development program should help to improve the efficiency and emissions of the Trent engines currently in use. Due to the scalability of the UltraFan technology to a wide range of aircraft types, a 10 percent improvement in fuel efficiency is expected in the long term.

But it is also important that UltraFan promotes the use of 100% sustainable aviation fuel. So far, the fuel – obtained from waste products such as waste oil and industrial waste – has been mixed with traditional aviation fuel in order to be used. It will therefore be interesting to see whether Rolls-Royce’s efforts will bear fruit in the tests next year.