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The World’s Largest Jet Engine Starts Certification Testing

At gereports.com - The World’s Largest Jet Engine Starts Certification Testing - Jun 20, 2017

The GE9X will power Boeing’s next-generation 777X passenger jet, but the path to get there is long and winding. The first build of the GE9X, catchily named FETT, or first full engine to test, took up residence at Peebles in March 2016 for a battery of tests at a cost of $1 billion.

The trials included icing tests that lasted for 168 hours and gathered data on more than 50 testing points. FETT spit out many terabytes of data during the tests, which lasted a total of 335 hours. Engineers took the lessons from those tests to build the engine that is being tested now.

“By incorporating all the learnings from the FETT engine, we start the GE9X certification program with a stable configuration and position ourselves to meet the schedule and performance expectations of our customers from Day 1 of service entry,” said Ted Ingling, GE9X general manager at GE Aviation.

The engine now on the test bed is nicknamed SETT, or second engine to test. The third engine is currently being built at GE Aviation’s headquarters in Evendale, Ohio and and a fourth will be installed before the end of the year on GE’s 747-400 test bed in the Mojave Desert. In total, eight GE9X engines will be used in the certification program.

The maturation testing of the engine started six years ago on at the component level. The engine will feature fourth-generation carbon fiber fan blades and a fan case, 3D-printed fuel nozzles and lightweight materials called ceramic matrix composites. The combination of these components decreases engine weight, boosts efficiency and will decrease fuel burn.


Published on May 15, 2017

Following the first full GE9X engine test in 2016, GE Aviation used the same engine at its Peebles Test Operation for preliminary icing tests through the bitter cold of this past winter. In total, the first GE9X engine accumulated 335 hours and 375 cycles of tests. The GE9X certification program begins in May 2017 with the second engine test.