The turbofan engine PD-14: characteristics, comparison, testing, application

At present, the domestic aircraft building industry is in a kind of "suspended" state: on the one hand, it exists, and on the other - we have not seen a single modern aircraft of purely domestic design in recent years. And the "Super Jet" does not count, because in it from the Russian - only "screwdriver assembly". The hope for the revival of the aircraft industry is the PD-14 engine, characteristics (comparison with analogues) which can be called one of the best in recent years.

The developers hope that the creation of a new engine will have the most favorable effect on the state of the entire domestic aviation industry, and will also contribute to the creation of a multitude of new jobs.

New project

Why did we create a new PD-14 engine? The characteristics (comparison with foreign models) of modern Russian engines were such that it urgently required the development of something radically new. The designers were guided by the idea of creating a power plant, which will allow them to further develop and build their own aircraft with a capacity of 130 to 180 seats. The only passenger car of the same class and completely Russian origin is Tu-214. Its production in small batches continues today.

But these planes do not have enough urgently, we need equipment for updating the entire aircraft fleet of our country. But to do it without completely new engines is absolutely impossible. According to technical characteristics and capabilities, they should not be inferior to their analogues from the world's leading manufacturers.

In general, in connection with the recent Ukrainian events and the complete breakdown of ties in the industrial sphere of the two countries, the engine PD-14 (the characteristics, comparison - in this article) is of great importance in the aspect of the complete revival of the development and manufacture of gas turbine engines in our country. In addition, during its creation it is planned to solve several important tasks:

• Full restructuring of civil aircraft building by redistributing roles and involving new players in this project.
• Finally, it is planned to divide the areas of responsibility and re-create the division of labor in the sphere of aviation production, which was completely destroyed at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• Also, the creators of the project count on the creation of new polymer and composite materials, which are extremely needed by the modern aerospace industry.

How it all began?

The idea that the country urgently needs a new aircraft engine, was born in the bowels of OAO Aviadvigatel, when the yard was the beginning of the 2000s. Time was then extremely difficult, and therefore few people believed in the reality of this project.

But the specialists of the organization at that time carefully and purposefully studied the world experience in the production of engines, and also analyzed the domestic transportation market, trying to predict which type of motor in civil aircraft will be in high demand. What specifically should have been allocated engine PD-14? Characteristics (comparison and comparison) of it with foreign samples simply had to reveal its noticeable superiority.

Why? It's simple. At that time, the products of foreign aircraft manufacturers were "pushed" to our markets by extremely aggressive methods. Alas, but to some extent, some leaders also contributed to this. Today, in connection with sanctions, this issue is not so relevant. Moreover, the state itself "suddenly" became interested in the possibility of producing domestic engines. So the company Aviadvigatel then quickly turned into the focus of both domestic and foreign media.

Main tasks of the project

The main task at that time was to ensure an acceptable cost, according to which this product would indeed be intensively purchased. It was then that the idea of creating a unified and universal gas generator was born. If it succeeds, it will be possible in our country to create a huge list of its own industrial equipment, which can not but rejoice.

What is a turbofan engine, the principles of operation

How better to understand the advantages that the new turbofan engine provides? The principle of operation of all similar engines is similar, and therefore this issue should be considered in more detail, since otherwise the advantages of new technologies will be hardly understood.

Turbo-fan in the special literature is called motors with a high degree of double-circuit. Their distinctive feature is the presence of a large diameter fan, due to which a very large volume of air always flows through the engine. Due to the large dimensions of this part, the external nozzle of the engine often becomes unnecessarily "monumental", and therefore it is shortened. To ensure that there are no dangerous swirls of air, the design includes fixed blades that rotate the flow of the air mixture in the desired direction.

Accordingly, according to the principle of their operation, these engines strongly resemble rocket ones, but there is practically no mixing of the flows in them. The advantage of turbofan engines is that the jet leaving the missiles "into the pipe" in this case untwists an additional fan, which is a powerful source of traction. It is he who produces not less than 70-80% of the total traction effort. Thus, the aircraft engine PD-14 is extremely economical. The internal contour of these engines almost completely repeats the design of rocket models, but their last stages "in combination" are the fan drive.

Advantages and disadvantages

Like all its "relatives", the aircraft engine PD-14 has both positive and negative sides. Among its strong sides is the high profitability, which makes it possible to widely use these power units even on long-distance routes.

What are its drawbacks? The most significant - very large dimensions and a decent weight. Despite all the efforts of engineers and scientists, turbofan engines create significant resistance to incoming airflow in flight. It is assumed that this problem will be solved when there are ways to reduce their overall size.

Comparative differences

A new turbofan engine, the principle of operation of which is similar to the "classic" domestic models, is still very different from its predecessors. Of course, differences "by eye" are visible only to engineers. If we compare it with the model PS-90A (IL-96, Tu-214, IL-76), then a qualitative leap in the technological process and possibilities is immediately noticeable, let us not be afraid of this word.

The degree of the double circuit has grown exactly twice, the temperature of the gas in front of the turbine has increased immediately by 100 K, the degree of general compression (in different conditions) has increased by 20-50%. In comparison with the above-listed varieties of domestic engines, the new aircraft engine PD-14 allows you to save at least 12-16% more fuel.

Weight saving

For the first time in the domestic civil aircraft industry, the engine design uses the technology of producing hollow turbine blades made of high-strength titanium alloys.

This gives a saving in mass of 30%, the total new aircraft engine PD-14 is facilitated by about 10%. Also at the Perm Engine Plant today is mastered the technology of manufacturing single-crystal turbine blades. It is reported that this approach will raise the operating temperature of gases immediately to 2000 K.

In addition, for the first time domestic manufacturers in the design and manufacture of engines are going to use such a quantity of polymer composite materials. With this approach, not only the engine mass will noticeably decrease, but its strength and resistance to overload will also increase.

The value of creating a new motor

As we said at the very beginning of the article, it is impossible to create any new aircraft without first developing new engines. With the latter everything is gradually beginning to get better: the test of the PD-14 engine in the form of the State inspection will soon start ... But which machines will be equipped with them?

It is assumed that specially for these engines will be created aircraft MS-21 (trunk, 21st century). If this is really implemented, then it will be possible to talk about a real breakthrough, for the first time since the time of the USSR something new has been created in our country. More importantly, the Russian engine PD-14 will create a whole line of new aircraft designed for both long-haul flights and domestic routes. Until recently, everyone said that domestic aircraft would have to be equipped exclusively with imported engines. Today it turned out that this, fortunately, is not so.

What kind of cars are they going to equip?

It is already obvious today that the unified design of the new engine will allow using it successfully not only on passenger, but also on transport aircraft. Since its traction is as much as 14 tons, this model can be installed on the MS-21-200 / 300/400. For sure, they will be allowed to complete the IL-76 and IL-214. There is information about the beginning of an even more powerful modification with a thrust of 18 tons, that is, PD-18. It is supposed to be used on Tu-214 and IL-96 aircraft. Recall that today all these machines are equipped with "old man" PS-90A.

Also, developers report that it was already decided to create a light version of this engine with a thrust of ten tons. We can assume that it will be used to produce long-suffering "Superjets", for which no one now wants to buy engines for France. Finally, a special helicopter version of this motor will also be created, which will be equipped with the famous transport cow, which is the Mi-26 helicopter.

Until now, the Ukrainian D-136 engines were used in the production of these machines. Even preliminary calculations show that the existing demand for these motors is more than enough to cover all the costs that were received during the development of new technology. In total, it is planned to attract at least 70 billion rubles of investments, and half of them - funds from the federal budget. The latter circumstance shows how much the country needs this project.

What's wrong with the old PS90-A?

The newest engine for the MS-21, PD-14 is a new generation of turboprop engines. In addition, it is perfectly compatible with relatively old aircraft modifications. So, the deserved "veterans" IL-76, whose modernization has been intensively conducted since last year, when installing a new engine on them, several tens of thousands of hours can fly off. In addition, it will be possible to increase the range of flight from four to five thousand kilometers, without load, the distance will also grow by a thousand kilometers, and fuel consumption will be reduced by about 14 percent. The latter circumstance is especially important, because thanks to it it will be possible to reduce the cost of transporting a ton of cargo by 10% at once.

Thus, the old motor, which has truly served its time of exploitation and developed in the USSR, is still coping with its duties, but it does not correspond to modern requirements. The main problem is high fuel consumption and increased noise. In principle, this was known for a long time, but concrete steps to improve the situation and create a new engine were made only now. For the sake of justice it is necessary to say that only today all the means necessary for this work have appeared.

Official progress information

Officially, the engine has been in development since 2008, but in fact it was designed by a talented team of designers started in 1999.

In 2012, for the first time, a complete demonstration version was assembled. At the same time, intensive development of gas generator systems was under way, and it delivered the main problems to designers. To date, all the shortcomings have been successfully eliminated. For the first time this Perm engine was launched in mid-2012. At the same time, the designers found out that the high design parameters are quite in line with the practical situation, which further strengthened their conviction of the need to urgently set up the production of new engines.

Bench tests were originally planned to be completed three years ago, but due to some problems there is information that in part they continue to this day. It is assumed that this year will begin mass production, and over the year Permyaks should collect at least two or three dozen new engines. And this is very little, as the domestic aviators believe that, while maintaining the current pace of flights by 2019, aircraft engines should be produced at a titanic pace - 200 pieces in 12 months. I would like to hope that the domestic industry will be able to "pull" this project.

And what about MS-21?

For the first time information about the beginning of work on the production of a new aircraft began to arrive at the beginning of last year. At the moment it is known for sure that the first fuselage of a new domestic airliner, which in its environment is better known under the "unofficial" name of the Yak-242, is already assembling at full strength in the Irkutsk aircraft plant.

A wing of unique composite materials is collected in Ulyanovsk. Most likely, it has already arrived in Irkutsk. Domestic media, having their representatives at this enterprise, firmly promised that the first board would be able to rise in the air already this summer. It is reported that the manufacturer already has a total of 175 solid contracts for the construction and supply of MS-21. Customers were many large organizations, including Sberbank, which sells new aircraft for leasing.

There are also reports that an additional 100 aircraft of this type can be additionally ordered, and not only domestic but also foreign translators will act as customers. This message is really unique, since the last time someone showed interest in our passenger aircraft only in the times of the USSR.

The importance of the MS-21 project is that it is the first and so far the only domestic aircraft created independently and without the use of old developments of the Union times, in which foreign components are not used. On the flight routes the first aircraft of this brand will come out only after the final completion of all types of flight and bench tests, which continue to this day.

conclusions

Thus, the new promising engine is a real breakthrough of all domestic industry and, in particular, civil aircraft construction. As for the need for these motors, it is enormous. For a very long time domestic carriers have said that they are not too eager to buy decommissioned imported aircraft, the resource of which is almost exhausted. But at that time the domestic industry could not offer them anything suitable.

Today there is both an engine and an airplane. Since sanctions have been introduced against our state, there is no opportunity to buy something abroad, and the currency rate that has flown up to the sky does not add to this decision of attractiveness. So the domestic project has grandiose prospects. I would like to hope that the industry will not fail and will be able to provide manufacturers with all the necessary components.