When you think of an airplane engine it’s likely that you’d imagine a humongous rotor encased in some sort of elliptical shell. While that’s been the driving design for most turbofan engines since their development in the 1940s a new, experimental engine is turning that idea on its head.
Created by French aerospace firm Snecma its unnamed engine prototype is discarding the ducting that insulates jet airline engines for a design that can draw air from all directions.
According to researchers at Snecma their new engine design can draw in and eject air at slower speeds increasing standard turbofan engine efficiency by some 30%. What’s more the French company claims its new open rotor design is much quieter and produces less CO2 than its cloaked counterparts.
Currently, Snecma is using a 1/5-scale prototype to test its new engine design but hopes that it can have a full-scale version attached to an Airbus A340 for test flights by 2019. If all of that goes to plan the new engine could be powering commercial flights by 2030.
What airplanes of that era will look like is anyone’s guess, but autonomous, open rotor airliners sound good to me!
Image Courtesy of Snecma