Trent 1000 blade issue causing 787-9 headaches

a reply to: Woody510

It depends on what and where the actual damage is. It's not going to suddenly become cheap, but if it's fairly minor damage that's easy to replace, but not something you can fly with long term, it'll be cheaper.

a reply to: Zaphod58
It begs the question, why did they continue flying with high vibes? They must have been off the scale to have caused serious damage,and not one but two airframes? There are several SE Asian airlines who have been notorious for continuing to fly with vibration levels that other airlines would have grounded. Maybe LATAM should be footing some of that bill too?

Higher loading and thrust maybe?

Airbus has announced that the A330neo is suffering similar problems as the 787, and they are unlikely to be solved before the aircraft enters service.

www.bloomberg.com...

Rolls Royce is warning of increased disruptions due to required inspections of the Trent 1000 with the Package C compressor. The Package B engines aren't affected, but there are 380 Package C engines in service.

www.flightglobal.com...

All Package C equipped 787-9s are to have their ETOPS certification reduced to 140 minutes.

Two of 11 787-9s operated by Air New Zealand are grounded while their engines are sent to Singapore for checks and maintenance.

They're saying today that new blades that will resolve the problem are a year away. That's going to hurt badly.

Wow, the new AD that was released on the 16th has a lot more detail. The IPC seal, stage 1 and 2 blades, and dovetail posts that attach the blades to the IPC shaft are suffering from resonance vibrations under specific thrust and temperature conditions that increase fatigue damage. It's believed that the resonance is caused by interaction between the stage 2 blades, and the fan wake. They're now calling for inspections of all engines, initially after 2,000 cycles, and then every 200-300 cycles after that point.

aviationweek.com...

Thats a potentially complex problem to solve. They either need to stiffen the IPC blades, change materials or treatment processes, redesign them, change the blade root, or change the fan blade design. Failing that the only other avenue I can see is maybe software changes to change the engine scheduling, fan speed etc at certain flight phases. Possibly a combination of all of these things too. I wouldn't be surprised if the 1 year delay extends beyond that due to the complexity of this kind of interaction. Meanwhile this is having quite a severe impact on operators like Air NZ, with 1960's style fuel stops required for routes that haven't seen that kind of need in decades.Air NZ 787 ETOPS FG article

a reply to: thebozeian

They're looking at several solutions, from new blades, to altering the engine software to not allow operation in that range, to altering flight profiles.

So the fatigue isn't a result of larger diameter and then the increased centrifugal force just plain outwards tryin to go near super sonic....?I'm just curious, seems some turbines push a little into supersonic

a reply to: GBP/JPY
No the problem is a combination of larger diameter and corresponding centrifugal forces coupled with greatly increased Engine Pressure Ratio's (EPR) and increased thrust. There really isn't any increase in either RPM or a trend towards supersonic tip speeds, that would just increase noise greatly and increase fuel burn. If you take a look at the difference in say the 737-100 of 1967 fitted with a P&W JT-8D's with a 737-8 MAX from 2018 powered by CFM LEAP 1-B you see a roughly doubling of thrust from around 14/16,000lbs to over 29,000lbs. Even more importantly we see pressure ratios increase from well below 20:1 in the JT-8 through the high 20:1's to low 30:1's in the later CFM-56-5/7's through to 40:1 or up to 50:1 at top of climb in the LEAP-1B. However there hasn't been a corresponding increase in weight, even though it has gone up. Despite materials advances, something has to give. In some engines there is an even greater leap in these numbers so its little surprise that we are seeing these failures.

And the hits just keep coming. There's a little confusion about this one, but it appears that Virgin Atlantic at least has been told their ETOPS flights are reduced to ETOPS 60, meaning they can be no farther than 60 minutes from a diversion airport.

Meanwhile Rolls Royce has said they're working hard to fix the problem, but that fix might not be fully implemented until 2022.

airwaysmag.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58
What?.... 60 mins ETOPS, f**k! That is going to severely hamper a lot of Trent 78 operators if it becomes widespread. It could also potentially bankrupt RR. I'm betting my previous assessment that its a much more complex problem than first thought is the case.

a reply to: thebozeian

They say it'll only add about 45 minutes to the flight to Boston, but yeah, if it hits some other airlines, they'll have no choice but to ground their 787s.

I can see the CAD Monkeys spending many sleepless nights on fatigue simulations on designs..

British Airways has filed for regulatory approval to wet lease three Qatar A330s from 1 June to 30 September. They have to justify leasing them since Qatar is a non-EU company.

www.flightglobal.com...

BA cancelled a dozen direct London-Abu Dhabi flights at the start of Ramadan because of issues with their 787s.

airwaysmag.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58
All I can say is thank god we ordered GenX powered 78's. On which I may very possibly be getting a licence soon.