Safran Aircraft Engines has solved the technical glitches that delayed certification of its Silvercrest engines by two years and now expects to deliver a certificated engine for the Dassault Falcon 5X in 2018, says chief executive Olivier Andriès.
“I can say today that the issues are behind us,” Andriès says.
Safran now expects to receive engine certification for the Silvercrest in the spring of 2018. The engine will then be handed over to support flight test campaigns for the Dassault Falcon 5X and the Cessna Citation Hemisphere.
The French company is now assembling the first Silvercrest with hardware and software changes needed to correct the technical deficiencies.
In mid-2015, Safran’s engineers discovered the Silvercrest had a few design problems. The airflow through the engine was not as controlled as the designers expected, which degraded performance, Andriès says.
In response, Safran added active clearance controls to the low pressure turbine, duplicating the same controls already installed in the single-stage high-pressure turbine. The software that controls the engine hardware was tweaked to maintain a steady air flow through the engine.
The airflow distortion appeared to be a side-effect of Safran’s decision to use an axial-centrifugal design for the high-pressure compressor of the Silvercrest. Such an architecture is normally found on much smaller engines.
But Safran argues that the axial-centrifugal layout holds the key to the Silvercrest’s performance advantage. It is the only engine in its thrust class designed specifically for a thrust range between 10,000-12,000lb, so is uniquely configured to produce the best performance for the lowest fuel consumption, Safran says.
“Now that the technical issues are behind us,” Andriès adds, “it is more a planning and execution challenge.”
Source: Flight Daily News