Boeing 787-10

The Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 TEN engine, which will power the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, has received official certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
The certificate was officially presented by Trevor Wood, Certification Director, EASA, to Gareth Jones, Trent 1000 Chief Engineer, Civil Aerospace, Rolls-Royce at Farnborough Airshow today. The presentation was attended by Nicole Piasecki, Vice President Propulsion Division, Boeing.

Certification confirms the engine has fulfilled EASA’s airworthiness requirements and is the major engine milestone prior to the engine powering the 787 Dreamliner into service next year.

Last year, R-R discovered that a new, cost-saving material used to make the banded stators in the compressor was not ready for operational service, so the company redesigned the component with a conventional metal, Moore says.

“That was a cost reduction opportunity and on the basis of the test results it didn’t work out as we thought it would,” he says. “We took time to fix that. Certification is an important milestone but what you want is a robust product and something the customer can use as an everyday, reliable machine.”

Moreover, fatigue testing on the Trent 1000-TEN revealed cracking in the intercase about one-third of the way through the 3,000h-cycle, Moore says. In that case, a pedestal attaching a solenoid to the intercase cracked under the pressure. After tearing down the engine, R-R discovered that the out-of-balance testing conditions had exceeded the design parameters, so the components were being shaken harder than the engine was expected to experience in service. R-R’s engineers have slightly lowered the pedestal to prevent cracking and the redesigned component should re-enter testing by July, Moore says.