Posted: 10 Jun 2006, 00:16
Dont worry... I'm giving up trying to get into engineering soon and looking at a career in estate agency instead, so I'll revert to speaking in English.
In a nutsell, the gases flowing through the turbine of a modern engine are at somewhere between 1300 and 1900K, thats about 1030 to 1630 deg C, or "very ****ing hot" . The melting temperature of said blades is often actually lower and they only dont melt because they are cooled by air bled from the compressor and ejected through little holes in the surface of the blade fed by complex passages inside the blade. This air envelopes the blade and protects most of it from the "full brunt" of the flow from the combustion chambers. Factor in that these blades are cast as single crystals (something thats very hard to do) and its really quite amazing stuff and most of the reason why even the likes of Frank Whittle didnt really think that jet engines could ever be built that large, powerful or efficient!
To a large extent, its the materials and manufacturing technology that have really allowed us to build the sorts of engine that power all the wide body jets of today, but if the slightest little defect in the material or manufacturing slips through, you end up with a situation as in the photos on the first page :sad:
In a nutsell, the gases flowing through the turbine of a modern engine are at somewhere between 1300 and 1900K, thats about 1030 to 1630 deg C, or "very ****ing hot" . The melting temperature of said blades is often actually lower and they only dont melt because they are cooled by air bled from the compressor and ejected through little holes in the surface of the blade fed by complex passages inside the blade. This air envelopes the blade and protects most of it from the "full brunt" of the flow from the combustion chambers. Factor in that these blades are cast as single crystals (something thats very hard to do) and its really quite amazing stuff and most of the reason why even the likes of Frank Whittle didnt really think that jet engines could ever be built that large, powerful or efficient!
To a large extent, its the materials and manufacturing technology that have really allowed us to build the sorts of engine that power all the wide body jets of today, but if the slightest little defect in the material or manufacturing slips through, you end up with a situation as in the photos on the first page :sad: