RB.211- The Engine That Sank and Then Saved Rolls Royce

when rolls-royce went into receivership in 1971 it was like a hammer blow to british industry and was almost as unthinkable as the fall of the monarchy or the church of england and yet one single project caused more damage than the combined forces of hitler and the luftwaffe in the darkest days of world war ii to bring down one of the most famous engineering names in the world however in a twist of fate worthy of any great piece of fiction that same project was also the salvation of rolls-royce and turned it from a mid-sized engine maker into a global leader this is the story of the rb211 high bypass turbofan engine [Music] this video is sponsored by nordvpn now if you're interested in keeping a low profile out there on the internet keeping the bandits out there from trying to get access to your computer and the important information it may be holding like passwords and bank logins etc it's very important that you keep it safe and one of the best ways to do that is to use a vpn like nordvpn which is what i use using a vpn hides your computer's real ip address and makes it more difficult for hackers to gain access to your computer but it's not all about logging into your bank account you can also keep a similarly low profile and watch things like videos or visit sites that are geographically blocked to you by logging in from another country and now with nord links technology which is built around the y-guy protocol it's even faster than before and outperforms any other mainstream vpn protocol with users experiencing up to two times performance increase in both download and upload speed with nord links you can now get this with 73 off plus four months free by using the link in the top of the description below and there's even a 30-day money-back guarantee so there's no excuse for not trying it out to find out how rolls-royce got into such a position we have to go back a few years to america and the introduction of a new type of wide-bodied aircraft that airlines were looking to buy which would allow them to move more people more efficiently and over longer distances part of this was driven by the crossover of military programs like the us defense competition for the heavy logistics system which saw developments from lockheed boeing and douglas which went on to create the c5 galaxy from lockheed the winner of the competition and the much more successful loser of the competition that became the boeing 747. other wide-bodied aircraft developed in the late 1960s and driven by demand from the airlines were the douglas dc-10 and the lockheed l-1011 tristar these also required three engines instead of the usual two for redundancy for long flights over water with such large aircraft there was a need for large engines with ge supplying the cf6 the largest civilian version of the tf-39 from the c5 galaxy and pratt whitney supplying the jt9d developed for boeing 747 key to these engines was the newly developed high bypass concept which used a much larger fan this provided extra thrust by completely encircling and flowing around the outside of the engine core the large fan also ran at a higher pressure ratio of about 1.5 which acted like a supercharger to the core as well these new engines needed to be both powerful and lightweight for their size with thrust outputs in the 000 pound range rolls wanted to be a part of this new and expanding market and thought that they had an advantage over the others because they'd been developing the world's three spool high bypass engine in this configuration three sets of turbines spin on three concentric shafts which drive the compressor sections at different speeds allowing each one to work more efficiently than a typical two-spool engine rolls had also been developing carbon fiber high fill fan blades the combination of this and the 3 spool design would give them a greater power to weight ratio than anything else on the market rolls developed the first turbofan engine to enter service for conway in the early 1950s and in 1961 they started work on a high bypass engine to replace the conway this led to the development of the rb178 but they were in a more difficult position with smaller budgets than their u.s counterparts the development budget for the rb-178 was just 2.6 million pounds compared to 20 million dollars development funding that ge and pratt whitney received from the us department of defense instead of designing a finalized engine roles developed their engines in stages so they would be varying power outputs up to the final specified product this continuous development work meant that there were a large number of people involved with the project as it went on and at its peak 770 people worked on the design this also created a lot of expensive stock and spares which had to be managed and stored as any changes to any parts could happen at almost any time during the development process the u.s firms also had much greater running experience with u.s airlines something that rolls normally got with military contracts and testing programs first but these engines would go straight to the civilian sector in the uk the raf didn't get their first rb-211s until 1983 and they were second-hand ones from british airways rolls lost out to pratt whitney when boeing refused to use the rb178 for their boeing 747. this led to the cancellation of the rb178 but in its place they came up with the ate or advanced technology engine family that would go from the rb 203 with 10 000 pounds of thrust to brb 207 at 60 000 pounds of thrust for the airbus a300 but another blow came when the uk pulled out of the airbus program leading to the cancellation of the rb 207 which was dropped in favor of this smaller rb 211 and it was this engine but rolls targeted the lockheed tri-star with lockheed could see that the rb211 was a superior engine and gave them the edge over very similar douglas dc-10 in 1968 rolls agreed on a performance guarantee with lockheed that the new engine would be delivered by september 1971 and will produce a stated 42 thousand pounds of thrust even though the new engine only existed on paper and they knew the issues around launching a new engine with untried technology rolls soon found themselves in a difficult position everything about the rb-211 was bigger than they'd ever dealt with before the fan was over seven foot or 2.1 meters across as were the casings and rings which were on an equally large size the operating temperatures and pressures were also higher than anything they'd done before one of the main features of this engine was the carbon fiber high fill fan blades these will be considerably lighter than titanium ones this also translated into a lighter hub bearings and frame but this new technology had cost a huge amount of money not only in the development but also making the tooling for mass production in tests the new blades worked well but when it came to the obligatory bird strike when a four pound chickens from the local supermarket were fired at high speed into the blades at takeoff speed the resin on the thin leading edge of the blades failed in a stroke the power to weight ratio advantage against the competition that the high field blades gave was wiped out and so was the time and money that had been invested as a fallback rolls had also developed titanium blades for such an eventuality but even here there were problems the derby factory where the rb-211 was being developed had pioneered air-cooled turbine blades of a conway bypass jet in the mid-1950s these were forged from mnemonic high nickel alloys which would keep most of their strength up to 900 degrees c in the conway peak gas temperature was 1100 degrees c so the cooling holes would need to keep them 200 degrees cooler than the surrounding gas but in the rb 211 the gas temperature would be 1250 degrees c which at first doesn't look like much of an increase but the strength of the blades decreased by 25 percent each 25 degrees over 1100 celsius making the blades was also very costly and an engineer's nightmare each blade would be made from a rough bar which had many small but long cooling holes drilled in them this rough blank would then be heated until it was white hot and then squeezed between two dies to achieve the final shape they would then be machined to precisely the correct size and profile but the microscopic variations in the cooling hole size between different fan blades could cause uneven cooling at bristol sidley they'd stopped making forged blades in 1960 in favor of cast ones using materials that were stronger than mnemonics and too hard to be forged or machined they could produce blades with a mirror finish that only required machining of the root using lost wax casting a technique for making precision casts that date back thousands of years this is where the top engineers come in these highly skilled people sometimes move from one company to another and were in great demand like stanley hooker hooker had started in roles in 1938 and worked on all the major roles engines of the war he then went on to bristol sydney before retiring but he was coaxed out of retirement when roles bought out bristol sydley and to help sort out the rb211 however things that rolls were about to get a lot worse the three spool design had problems with oil leaks and bearing failures but it was when the rb211 was first run that they came into sharp focus the performance was way down on what was expected coming in at just 34 000 pounds of thrust instead of near a 42 000 pounds when hooker looked at the engine he found that the high pressure turbine efficiency was very low at 65 percent and the speed of the three spools was way off design values these things should not have been allowed to happen but in 1967 rolls had lost one of the best troubleshooting engineers in the world with the death of adrian lombard without his leadership the project was coming apart at the seams development costs had doubled to 170 million pounds from the original estimate and the cost of making each engine was now more than their sale price of 230 000 pounds each hooker set to work at fixing the issues and within a matter of weeks had not only regained most of the missing performance but have been able to go way beyond it in february 1971 just before the engine could be put on test the shock announcement came but rolls was insolvent after years of huge outgoings on the rb 211 and no sales because of the delays it had broken the company as stanley hooker said for once the british government moved at lightning speed to buy rolls royce overnight before the creditors could claim its assets and because of its strategic importance but they wouldn't buy the rb 211 and neither would anyone else but the engine was well on its way to achieving its stated performance and more lockheed's boss dan horton who had refused to change the contract before to help out roles was now in a bad situation himself because if they couldn't get the engines the tristar project and lockheed itself was in danger of collapsing the uk government put pressure on the u.s government to guarantee bank loans to lockheed to keep them from going bust a new contract with lockheed was negotiated with the penalties for late delivery dropped and the price per engine went up by a hundred and ten thousand pounds each hooker was appointed technical director and brought in a team of retired engineers from rosie's past including cyril lovesley and arthur rubra both of whom were over 70 at the time to use their vast experience which dated back to the merlin days to make the rb-211 reliable and produceable in numbers and to keep costs under control hooker was also given the power to bring in the best engineers as he saw fit from other engine projects which totally transformed the rb-211 program the first rb-211 was certified although it was a year late on april 14 1972 and the first tristar entered service on april 26 1972 the initial engine still had teething problems but within a few years a program of mods made things much better and the engines became highly reliable hooker knew the limitations of the rb-211 and to keep up with the competition started working 1973 on the rb211 524 with 50 000 pounds of thrust and greater fuel efficiency the efficiency of the new engine was shown in 1980 when qantas who had access to all three of the big fan engines said that when used with a boeing 747 it used about seven percent less fuel than the jt 9d a saving of about a million dollars per year per aircraft this was the turnaround for rolls-royce the engine which had very nearly sunk the business was now becoming a world leader in power and efficiency the rb 211 535 e4 the last vrb 211 line was the first to be used on the launch of the new boeing 757 and going into service in 1983. many vrb2115535e4s are still in service having clocked over 40 000 hours over nine years more time on the wing without removal than any other engine equal to over 18 million miles flown and accounting for 58 of all engines fitted to the boeing 757 from the basis of the rb 211 came its spiritual success of a trent range of turbo fans which launched in 1988 which today ranges from 61 to 97 000 pounds of thrust rolls made the decision to offer an engine for every large civilian airliner using a common three spool core to keep down costs and also became masters of titanium blade manufacturing and now carbon fiber blades the technology which let them down at the start of the rb-211 rolls-royce is now the second largest maker of turbo fans in the world after ge and next up from pratt and whitney a success built on the rb 211 and the trials and tribulations that came from its difficult birth and all that was down to the determination of the engineers brought back from retirement and in some cases who spent their final days still at rolls royce to make it happen quite a turnaround indeed so i hope you enjoyed the video and if you did then please thumbs up subscribe ring the bell and share and as always i'd like to say a big thank you to all of our patrons out there for their ongoing support you

Channel: Curious Droid

Views: 345,736

Keywords: rolls royce rb211, rb211, rb211-524, rb211 535e4, lockheed tristar, douglas dc-10, boeing 747, boeing 757, airbuss, boeing, l-1011 tristar, paul shillito, curious droid, rolls, rolls royce derby, stanley hooker, arthur rubbra, adrian lombard, cyril lovesley

Id: xKII7q6bWf8

Length: 16min 26sec (986 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/sitdeepstandtall]

The RB-211 really is an incredible machine. It still holds the record for on-wing life without removal: 40,000 hours! That’s 18,000,000 miles, or 37 return trips to the moon!

It also has the lowest in-flight shutdown rate and shop visit rate in the industry.