Rolls-Royce is close to completing a round of testing on the latest version of the Trent 1000 engine for the Boeing 787, according to the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) in the USA.
Since earlier this year, AEDC has hosted an R-R team performing altitude operability performance and icing tests on engine serial 11003, one of several prototypes developed to certificate the Trent 1000-TEN upgrade.
The tests on engine 11003 have been “fantastically successful”, according to Tom Schmidt, a project manager for the Aerospace Testing Alliance, which was overseeing the testing by the AEDC.
That echoes comments by R-R executives last month, who said the then-ongoing testing at AEDC had shown better fuel efficiency for the Trent 1000-TEN at higher altitudes.
The TEN upgrade migrates several features developed for the Trent XWB engine back into the lower-thrust engine for the 787. The new features include a rising-line compressor and a three-stage blisk at the front of the high-pressure compressor section.
R-R has predicted that the Trent 1000-TEN upgrade will provide a 3% advantage on fuel consumption on short flights up to 3,000nm compared to the competing GE Aviation GEnx-1B engine.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
