Pratt & Whitney Completes First PurePower® PW1100G-JM Engine for Airbus A320neo Family of Aircraft

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, Oct. 26, 2012 – Pratt & Whitney has completed assembly of its first engine to test (FETT) for its PurePower® PW1100G-JM engine – the first engine to power the Airbus A320neo aircraft. Company leadership, Airbus, MTU, JAEC and employees celebrated the program milestone with a Last Bolt Ceremony at Pratt & Whitney’s West Palm Beach facility today, where the full engine is scheduled to begin testing soon. The engine, rated at 33,000 pounds of thrust, is the third member of the PurePower PW1000G family of engines to begin testing.

The PW1100G-JM engine test program will run a total of eight test engines over the next 24 months. Test engines will be built both at Pratt & Whitney’s West Palm Beach and Middletown facilities. Entry into service is scheduled for October 2015. To date, Pratt & Whitney has firm orders for 1,136 PW1100G-JM engines to power the Airbus A320neo family of aircraft.

The PurePower engine uses an advanced gear system allowing the engine’s fan to operate at a different speed than the low-pressure compressor and turbine. The combination of the gear system and an all-new advanced core delivers fuel efficiency and environmental benefits. Pratt & Whitney’s PurePower engine family testing recently exceeded 3,700 hours and 11,000 cycles of full engine testing.

Click here to read the Pratt & Whitney press release.

Coverage:

• Pratt & Whitney completes first PW1100G test engine (Flight International)
• P&W Completes First A320NEO Engine; Tests To Start Next Month (Aviation Week)
• A320neo's First Pratt & Whitney Test Engine Takes Shape (Aviation International News)
• P&W's NEO engine shows a surprising new face (Flight International)
• PurePower PW1100G-JM readies for tests (Air Transport World)
• Pratt & Whitney Completes Assembly of First Engine for Airbus A320neo (Aviation Today)
• First PurePower Engine For Airbus Finished (Hartford Courant)
• Pratt to test first PurePower for the A320neo (Hartford Business Journal)

AirInsight Offers Technical Analysis of PurePower Engine

Ernie Arvai of AirInsight recently met with Pratt & Whitney Chief Engineers Chris Kmetz and Graham Webb for a detailed discussion of the technologies used in the PurePower PW1000G engine. A full technical analysis is now posted at AirInsight. The post reviews the core of the engine, advanced manufacturing technologies and innovations beyond the gear.

"[Pratt & Whitney] has designed a new engine that isn’t simply a high technology gearbox added to an existing core, but an all new product across the board," Arvai writes. "By incorporating new technology throughout the core, and leveraging the gear to provide game changing fuel economy while minimizing maintenance costs, [P&W] feels that it has a “game changing” engine in terms of economics, and future growth potential." 

Learn more about the PurePower engine at www.purepowerengine.com. 

Coverage:

• AirInsight Technical Analysis: The Core of the PW1000G Geared Turbo-Fan

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Receives $1 Million Award from U.S. Department of Energy to Advance Oxy-Combustion Technology

The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and its team members $1 million to evaluate the benefits of pressurized oxy-combustion in a fluidized bed reactor to economically capture greenhouse gases emitted by coal-fired power plants. As part of the award, which the DOE signed into contract today, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and its partners will contribute an additional $267,000 toward the project.

Oxy-fuel combustion is the process of producing heat to generate electricity by burning fuel using pure oxygen instead of air. The combustion process using pressurized oxygen and recycled carbon dioxide gas improves process efficiency and eliminates nitrogen from the exhaust, thus enabling the economic capture of the carbon dioxide gas for geologic sequestration or enhanced oil recovery.

Click here to read the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne press release.

Coverage:

• Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Receives $1 Million DOE Contract (San Fernando Valley Business Journal)
• DOE awards $1mn to test emissions control technology (Power Engineering)