Rolls Royce Trent 900 powers A380 in India

On Board the A380, May 8 (UNI) Four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines power the Airbus A380. Here are some wow facts about the Trent 900: - At take-off, the A380's four Trents are delivering thrust equivalent to the power of more than 3,500 family cars.

- Each of the 70 high-pressure turbine blades in a Trent 900 produces about 900 horsepower (670 kw). That is more power than a Formula One racing car.

- If you applied the high-pressure turbine blade cooling technology to an ice cube, you could put it in an oven at 200 degree celcius and it would never melt.

- The 116-inch fan operates at nearly 3,000 rounds per minute which means the tip of a blade is travelling at about 1,600 km per hour, or about 1.3 times the speed of sound.

- A Trent 900 has around 20,000 individual components.

The Trent 900 has now accumulated around 10,000 flying hours on four of the five flight test A380s, and completed in excess of 31,000 cycles in ground running and on the aircraft.

During the flight test programme, the engine has been put through its paces in the most testing conditions, including the extremes of cold weather and hot and high performance, as well as taking the aircraft beyond altitudes and speeds it will ever see in service.

Results have been excellent, confirming performance predictions.

The Trent 900 has been developed with seven companies as risk and revenue-sharing partners: Industria de Turbo Propulsores (ITP) of Spain, Hamilton Sundstrand, Goodrich and Honeywell of the United States, Avio of Italy, Volvo Aero of Sweden, and Marubeni of Japan.

In addition, Samsung Techwin of South Korea, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries (IHI) of Japan are programme associates.

UNI