Aircraft

General Electric and NASA today announced details for a pending series of the first wind tunnel tests for open rotor technology since the late 1980s.

The tests will begin in the third quarter by re-enacting the 1980s-era tests using identical counter-rotating fan blades as used on the GE36, GE says.

After establishing a baseline, GE and NASA will then run five more sets of increasingly exotic fan blade designs in two wind tunnels. Snecma is participating with fan blade designs.

The wind tunnel tests are crucial for the future of open rotor technology.

NASA's Glenn Research Center's high-speed wind tunnel will gauge whether the counter-rotating fan design achieves an anticipated breakthrough in fuel savings. Meanwhile, a low-speed wind tunnel will measure the amount of noise generated by the large, unshrouded fan blades.

"These tests will help to tell us how confident we are in meeting the technical challenges of an open-rotor architecture," David Joyce, president of GE Aviation, says.

GE is considering open rotor for the LEAP-X engine, an all-new core expected to compete after 2016 for replacing the CFM56 that currently powers the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 fleets.

The wind tunnel tests revive GE's experiments with the GE36 unducted fan in the 1980s, which demonstrated both the potential for fuel savings but also higher levels of nose emissions.

The current round of tests will feature a front row with 12 blades and a back row of 10 blades at 1/5 scale, GE says.

The wind tunnel testing on a NASA-owned test rig refurbished from the GE36 programme will continue through 2010, GE says.