The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certified the updated high-pressure turbine (HPT) hardware durability kit to Boost Engine Longevity for the CFM LEAP-1A engines, that power Airbus A320neo family aircraft.
On December 6, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration certified an improved high-pressure turbine (HPT) hardware durability kit developed by the company for CFM LEAP-1A engines that power the Airbus A320neo family of aircraft.
The durability kit was designed by CFM International, a 50/50 joint venture between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines, to increase time on wing (Time between Overhauls), especially in hot and harsh environments, and includes the HPT stage 1 blade, HPT stage 1 nozzle, and forward inner nozzle support.
GE Aviation made a release saying,
"Sometimes the hardest thing to correct for is the thing you cannot see."
On the updated high-pressure turbine (HPT) hardware durability kit development background, GE Aviation provided a reasoning, which read,
"Case in point: fine airborne particles, some no wider than one-tenth the width of a human hair. Otherwise known as dust — the kind naturally suspended in the first few thousand feet of air, where commercial jet engines can ingest it during takeoff. "
"Over time, and especially in hot and harsh environments around the world, these particles can work their way into an engine’s core, wearing down crucial components and affecting its efficiency and durability."
CFM LEAP-1A engine undergoing dust testing – a key milestone in the validation of the more durable high-pressure turbine (HPT) hardware that was certified in December 2024.
Worth mentioning here, the LEAP’s architecture includes hotter temperatures and higher pressures in the hot section of the engine, much more so than the Pratt & Whitney GTF.
This relatively hotter "hot section" is experiencing greater wear, manifesting through rapidly eroding EGT margins. The result is an increased shop visit schedule between 2,000 and 6,000 cycles, with operator feedback suggesting a planning base of 4,000.
Now, the durability kit — which includes the HPT stage 1 blade, HPT stage 1 nozzle, and forward inner nozzle support — will help bolster the LEAP-1A engine’s durability and time on wing, helping customers keep their fleets flying especially in hot and harsh environments.
Gaël Méheust, president and chief executive officer at CFM International, said:
"This new hardware is fulfilling our promise to ensure that LEAP-1A engines achieve the same level of maturity, durability, and time on wing that our customers have enjoyed with the CFM56 product line."
To ensure that the improvements would address durability challenges in harsh environments, CFM worked with a team of geologists to engineer dust that mimicked what engines experience in these environments around the world.
Using a proprietary dust ingestion system, the company was able to replicate HPT blade wear that operators were seeing in the field. This innovative system allowed CFM to design, test, and validate improvements to increase the durability and time on wing of these parts.
As per GE Aviation, development required around 15 years of lab work, analyzing millions of hours of field data, concocting a homemade compound that mimics the effects of the earthly dust particles (what GE Aerospace engineers affectionately call “pixie dust”), and subjecting a series of LEAP-1A engines to a battery of dust ingestion simulations in test cells.
Carlos Perez, senior director of engineering for LEAP engines at GE Aerospace, who worked on the tests at company headquarters in Cincinnati, noted in an article last year that
“the dust tests on LEAP-1A engines are some of the longest endurance tests we’ve ever run in terms of simulating the environments we see in the Middle East.”
Installed in the core of the engine, HPT blades spin at thousands of revolutions per minute (RPM) in temperatures hot enough to melt wrought iron, powering the compressor that feeds air into the combustion chamber. Ultimately, the dust ingestion tests were able to replicate the wear on the LEAP-1A engine’s HPT stage 1 blade that operators were seeing in the field.
During these lab work, the CFM team found out the flaws needed to be improved, and they saw how and where that was affecting the components, which again enabled the engineers to make subtle but significant changes, optimizing the casting and cooling of the HPT blade and improving the design of the blade tip and trailing edge.
Additionally, they made adjustments in the HPT stage 1 nozzle and forward inner nozzle support to ensure that the whole system is more durable.
The CFM LEAP engine family delivers 15 to 20 percent lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, as well as a significant improvement in noise, compared to the previous generation engines.
CFM International Press release read,
With more than 3,500 LEAP-powered aircraft in service, the engine has allowed CFM customers to avoid more than 40 million tons of CO2 emissions compared to the same flights powered by CFM56 engines.
The engine has been the most successful new product introduction in CFM's 50-year history, with the fastest ramp-up of engine flight hours ever in the industry – surpassing 60 million hours in eight years.
A similar solution is under development for the CFM International LEAP-1B engines, which power Boeing's 737 MAX planes.
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