Rolls-Royce PLC

The Trent XWB-97 is the most powerful variant of the world's leading large aero-engine, proven to deliver low fuel consumption and high reliability enabling the highest utilisation by top airlines globally. Many of our airline customers operate in challenging environments such as the Middle-East, where withstanding the impact of desert conditions creates ...

Project MOSFET will develop advanced technologies in electrical systems, electrical machines, and electrical drives for application in next-generation aerospace propulsion and beyond. These technologies will enable more-electric and hybrid-electric propulsion architectures and make possible more efficient, lower-emission aircraft. The project is led by Ro...

RUFUS is a highly ambitious, collaborative four-year project led by Rolls-Royce, in partnership with other industrial organisations and academic institutions, namely Meggitt Aerospace, Saab UK, University of Nottingham, University of Sheffield, University of Oxford and Cranfield University. Our vision is to create novel integrated systems technologies, ad...

Rolls-Royce has been developing its second generation powder nickel disc alloy RR1073 as an enabler for UltraFan and to provide significant improvement to life limited parts. RR1073 is expected to be the leading high temperature disc alloy for civil applications upon its introduction to service. In the design of the alloy, significant consideration was gi...

When producing parts in metal by 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), defects can occur. In common with other manufacturing processes, these defects may consist of cracks, internal pores or impurities, and these defects could lead to premature or unexpected failure of a part. To combat this, inspection and quality assurance processes ar...

Project ASCENT (Aerospace Composite Engineering for New Technologies), is a partnership between Rolls-Royce plc, Oxford University, Bristol University and Imperial College London. This project aims to advance state-of-the-art in the use of organic composites in gas turbine fan systems and provides significant understanding to mature Rolls-Royce's UltraFan...

System Optimisation for Noise using Advanced Technology Acoustics (SONATA) will provide Whole-Engine Noise design methods for a next generation of more efficient engine architectures from Rolls-Royce for both Narrow and Widebody applications. SONATA provides Cross-Cutting, enabling technologies and capability development for whole aircraft design using Ac...

Imagine a design system where a designer makes a small change to a component, and instantly the effect of this change propagates through the entire design system, initiating automated analyses to determine the effect of the change on the whole lifecycle attributes of the full product. Project Nene aims to reduce the length of a design iteration for a whol...

Project TUNE supports developing an UltraFan(r) engine integrated technology demonstrator for future single aisle aircraft. The project will understand how best to scale UltraFan(r) differentiating technology to single aisle application to maximise its value and develop novel concepts for how the UltraFan(r) can be manufactured at high rate and achieve hi...

Contrails are understood to contribute a significant proportion of aviation's overall climate warming impact. All flights utilising fossil fuel emit CO2 proportionally with fuel burn and therefore contribute CO2-related warming evenly with distance flown. Conversely, warming from contrails is attributable to a minority of flights depending on their flight...

UltraFan is the Rolls-Royce proposal for the next generation of ultra-efficient civil aircraft engines, significantly reducing fuel burn in comparison with conventional propulsion technology, hence, proportionally minimising the environmental impact from the atmospheric release of the combustion products. In order to support the development of the market ...

Achieving the UK Aerospace NetZero 2050 target and maintaining the UK's global competitiveness will require new ultra-efficient turbofans that improve efficiency and reduce the climate impact of aviation. Ultra-efficient turbofans will reduce considerably in-flight aircraft energy consumption and will enable energy savings on zero-carbon platforms, thus r...