Last week, Airbus organized its third Summit In Toulouse, in France, to share its latest progress for the future of theft through an innovative conception, advanced technologies and a new engineering.
The key to this vision is the development of open fan engine architecture, which could help fuel a unique new generation aircraft This could also integrate foldable wings and hybrid electric batteries. During the “Technology Pionering for Future Aircraft” session of the summit, Mohamed Ali, main vice-president and technology chief and operations manager at Ge Aerospace, joined Frank Haselbach, Vice-President Director of Propulsion Engineering at Airbus, to discuss the way in which open fans technology could cause in commercial aviation.
Ali has stressed that in the past 70 years, enormous progress has been made in the effectiveness of commercial jet engines. “If you think about it, our new CFM, the CFM Leap CFM, is 15% better in fuel burn than its emblematic predecessor, the CFM56 engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rguzuzd4jxw
However, for all the improvements in the design of the engine that led to these fuel combustion reductions, the shape of the commercial jet motor has changed little. As Haselbach noted, the industry is at the crossroads. He can do something evolution by developing more ultra-biigpass-ratio driving engines. “Or we can really look at something that is much more rewarding, much more difficult, much more revolutionary,” he said. “Who is an open fan.”
What is open fan?
The open fan is an engine architecture style which aims to provide the same level of safety, speed, noise and power as current jet engines while providing a significant reduction in the use of fuel and carbon emissions. How is it going to do this? By losing the “conduits” which traditionally include the engine.
CFM International, a joint 50-50 company between Ge Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Motors, develops an open engine architecture (AKA undubulated) as part of revolutionary innovation for sustainable engines (INCREASE) Program for development and technological demonstration. Unveiled in 2021, the RISE program advances technologies to support a future airplane engine that targets 20% more economical in fuel than current commercial engines while meeting customer expectations in terms of sustainability and reliability.
The engineering teams working on an open fan through CFM have great hopes for the change of steps that this new architecture will lead to an energy efficiency while being designed to operate with alternative fuels like Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) And Hybrid Electric Systems, two other key initiatives currently continued by the two companies to support industry efforts to reduce flight emissions.
How can Open Fan change the future of theft?
“The next change, the next improvement in fuel burn to do so in this 20%district, cannot occur without a fundamental change in the engine shape. And these are just the laws of physics,” said Ali.
This is due to the “circumvention ratio”. To improve the burn and fuel efficiency, the approach was generally to enlarge the engine fan. This fan rises from the air and throws it at the back of the engine to generate a larger push. But in this process, part of this air ends up burning with the fuel. Ideally, the quantity of air that “bypasses” burned with the fuel should be as high as possible to provide the thrust – the derivation ratio.
Seventy years ago, the derivation report for jet engines was around 2 to 1. today, it is around 11 to 1. but as Ali noted, engineers cannot continue to follow the same formula to improve this ratio because of the conduits, which become larger to support larger fans, producing a drag that eats the advantages of fuel combustion. “There is a point which is not far from the place where we are today in which this conduit is so large that it erases the gains which come from the enlargement of the fan,” he said.
This is where the open fan comes into play. The current design of Ge Aerospace aims to take the derivation ratio from 11 to 1 to 60 to 1. “It is at six zero from where we are today,” added Ali. “This is the opportunity for fuel burn that is delighted and excited to us.”
Test, test: Put an open to the test fan
The Rise program has finished Over 250 critical fields so far. Ali highlighted two special blower tests that have simulated the integration of the open fan and the wing. The first 300 hours and more tests were Supplemented by the aircraft saffron engines in an installation led by OneraThe National Aerospace Research Center Français, in “the largest blower in the world”, using an open fifth scale of the open fan occurring at cruising speed. This was followed by a second series of tests in collaboration with DNW in the Netherlands, carried out at low speed to simulate an airplane during takeoff, climb and descent.
Ali called the “extremely encouraging” results, not only in terms of performance and noise validation, but also the calculation analysis that Ge Aerospace made with the help of Frontier, one of the fastest supervisors in the worldMaintained in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory of the US Energy Ministry. Last November, the company announced a new project He works with Boeing, NASA and OAK RIDGE to use supercalculculcul to study the aerodynamics of an open fan architecture mounted on an airplane wing under simulated flight conditions.
“As a rule, when you get calculation results and compare them to the blower (tests), there is a difference between the two. You spend a lot of time reconciling,” he said. But in this case, there was “no reconciliation”. He added: “The capacities of these superordinators are unprecedented in the ability to simulate the future.”
Following steps for the open fan
“We are in the middle of many tests to validate sustainability, vibrations, endurance and ingestion,” said Ali. “And we do all these tests not only for the open fan, but there are many other technologies that are part of the RISE program behind the fan, whether it is a more advanced hybrid nucleus or electric electric.”
In fact, a light compact nucleus, which shelters compression, combustion and high pressure turbine modules of the engine, is being resettious by the RISE program team to be smaller and optimize thermal efficiency, with an advanced cooling system and materials that can withstand extremely high temperatures. The nucleus is tested for compatibility with new generation fuels, including SAF and non -mixed hydrogen, as well as with hybrid electrical systems like those of Ge Aerospace Develop with NASA.
Steal
The challenge of a more effective flight is not resolved by an invention or a business. This is innovation and collaboration across industry.
“All this leads to demonstration flight That we will do jointly with Airbus later in this decade, “said Ali, recognizing” the solid partnership “between CFM and Airbus, he added:” It is really a reflection of what technology wants us to do, which is a deeper and better integration between the engine and the plane. “”
Watch the video of the discussion of the open fans of Mohamed Ali at the Airbus Summit 2025 here.