CMC Testing in jet engine environment (Rolls Royce)

Aerospace companies are looking at a range of options to meet Net-Zero targets, including using sustainable aviation fuels, using Ceramic Matrix Composites to run existing engines hotter and lighter, and developing engines to use liquid hydrogen as a fuel, each of these options need both existing and new materials and systems to be validated for safe use in operational aircraft.

The effect of high pressure, high temperature steam on CMC materials in a jet engine are unknown, Darvick engineers designed and built a test machine to simulate these conditions, including feeding high pressure super-heated steam into the test chamber around the sample while it is undergoing cyclic loading. It's impossible to buy off the shelf parts to feed high pressure, high temperature steam into a test chamber at controlled flows and levels, Darvick engineers had to design the hardware to generate steam, do the maths and write the software to generate, measure and record the right conditions. These tests are run for up to 2000-hours, so they'll run for three months to do a single long-term testing. This is a unique service provided by Darvick.

"The development of this testing capability has allowed Rolls-Royce to understand and de-risk one of the key materials technologies for implementation into the latest generation of aerospace gas turbine engines. From our knowledge this testing capability is unique within Europe in terms of the ability to mechanically test specimens and control these environmental conditions.” Adam Kent, Materials Engineer