Sustainable and Green Engines

Propulsion is the major contributor to the environmental challenges set by the SRA: largest noise source, the only source of NOx and a major contributor to fuel burn. The engines of 2020 should be radically different from those in service today. Bypass ratios need to be much higher, engine nacelles may even disappear, power off takes will increase as the size of the core reduces and real time diagnostics will enable engine maintenance to be optimised.
Clean Sky will enable such technologies to be fully validated in a realistic operating environment. If future demands push for more radical solutions to reduce even more aggressively the emissions and noise, the engine ITDs demonstrators would be directed towards radical solutions, closely linked to new vehicle concepts from the Smart Fixed Wing Aircraft ITD and the Green Regional Aircraft ITD. The purpose of the Sustainable and Green Engine (SAGE) ITD is to assess, design, build and test up to five full-scale engine demonstrators. The proposed demonstrations will prepare new solutions for the complete range of the market, with:engines for the narrow body fleet high thrust engines for wide body aircraft regional aircraft engines helicopter engines.

A focus will be put on narrow body aircraft engines where different configurations are possible. Step change technologies and the use of alternative fuels will be tested on the appropriate demonstration.

In the first stage of Clean Sky, studies will be made around the specific concept studies, conducted with airframe manufacturers and system suppliers, on aircraft/engine/system concepts in order to fully define the requirements for enabling technology and demonstration programmes. The principal focus of these studies will be upon radical architectures for aircraft, engine and systems, building on the output of programmes such as NACRE, POA and MOET.

In a second stage, demonstrator vehicles will be selected. Many technologies have the option of being validated in more than one demonstrator vehicle. These will be selected based upon technology maturity and market requirement, and to maximise the technology validation opportunity.