For many years, whenever domestic aero engines are mentioned, people will always sigh at the huge gap between China and Western aviation development powers. However, what many people don't know is that with the unremitting efforts of generations of scientific researchers in the mainland, China's AECC has made remarkable achievements.
Today, AECC's production scale has ranked among the top in the world, in terms of annual engine output and total output, second only to General Electric of the United States, has surpassed Pratt & Whitney of the United States, and is three times that of Rolls-Royce of the United Kingdom. This achievement is a testament to Continental's strength in the field of aero engines.
Not only that, the high-performance engine that Continental has accumulated over the years of aviation engine technology - China's first wide-body passenger aircraft C929 supporting the aviation engine CJ2000, with its thrust of up to 343.1 kN, has ranked among the world's top ten commercial engines. In terms of R&D progress, the CJ2000 came out even earlier than its supporting C929 wide-body passenger aircraft, becoming a gratifying phenomenon for rare engines and other aircraft in the mainland.
Not long ago, the official account of AECC proudly announced that the CJ2000 engine, as a strong domestic "Chinese heart" equipped with a dual-aisle long-range wide-body passenger aircraft C929, has a diameter of more than 3 meters and can produce more than 35,000kgf, which is equivalent to a powerful take-off thrust of 35 tons. At the same time, it also has the technical characteristics of low fuel consumption, low emission, low noise, high reliability, long service life and low maintenance cost, and surpasses similar foreign products in a number of key indicators.
Don't underestimate the 35-ton thrust, which is already a rarity in the world. From the list of the world's top ten commercial aero engines in 2024, it can be seen that there are only 8 engines that exceed the thrust of CJ2000, of which there are as many as 5 in the United States alone, which is worthy of being the first power of aviation development. In the UK, there are three engines with greater thrust than the continental CJ2000, all of which are products of Rolls-Royce.
In general, the theoretical thrust of a large bypass ratio turbofan engine is proportional to the area of the fan. Compared with these ten engines, the CJ2000 has a fan diameter of 119 inches, ranking third in size, behind the 134 inches of General Electric GE9X and 128 inches of GE90-115B.
However, the CJ2000 only ranks 9th in terms of thrust, and many of the engine fans of General Electric, Rolls-Royce, Engine Alliance and Pratt & Whitney are smaller than the CJ2000, but the thrust is greater. This situation is most likely caused by the fact that the pre-vortex temperature of CJ2000 is not high enough. The pre-vortex temperature is a key indicator to measure the combustion efficiency and thermodynamic performance of the engine, which directly affects the thrust output of the engine.
In aero engine design, increasing the pre-vortex temperature can enhance thrust, but it also brings challenges in materials and processing technology. The relatively low vortex front temperature of the CJ2000 engine may be due to the fact that there is still room for improvement in processing and manufacturing technology, and the nickel-based alloys, cobalt-based alloys, and ceramic matrix composites used in the combustion chamber cannot withstand higher temperatures.
However, the pre-vortex temperature is not the only factor that determines thrust. The thrust of the engine is also affected by factors such as fan diameter, combustion chamber efficiency, turbine efficiency, etc.
The CJ2000 engine increases the amount of air intake by increasing the fan diameter, thereby improving the intake air flow and combustion efficiency of the combustion chamber. This approach also helps to increase the overall thrust of the engine, even at relatively low pre-vortex temperatures. In addition, the increased fan diameter improves the engine's fuel efficiency and noise levels, further optimizing overall performance.
With the rapid progress of China's material industry and high-end processing technology, AECC optimizes the structural design of the CJ2000 combustion chamber and turbine, which will once again improve the pre-vortex temperature, combustion efficiency and turbine efficiency, and can fully reach the thrust level of the fourth largest engine, Rolls-Royce's Trent XWB-97. With the CJ2000's existing fan diameter, the theoretical thrust can even be increased by 26% compared to the XWB-97 engine, reaching 44.1 tons.