After several months of refurbishing a special NASA test rig, GE Aviation and NASA this summer will begin a windtunnel test programme to evaluate counterrotating fan-blade systems for open rotor jet engine designs.
The testing will be conducted throughout the year at windtunnel facilities at NASA's Glenn Research Center. This is not a full engine test, but a component rig test to evaluate subscale fan systems using GE's and NASA's advanced computational tools and data acquisition systems, says the engine maker.
The first tests will be of blades such as those used to develop the original GE36 jet engine flown in the 1980s on Boeing 727s and MD-80s, to establish baseline data for comparison with five new blade designs.