Berlin - Brandenburg Branch Lecture: The Rolls Royce Power Gearbox

Watch the recording of the Berlin - Brandenburg Branch's April lecture, which was given on 11 April 2024 by Sonja Nachtigal.
The Rolls Royce UltraFan engine - the largest in the world - containing new technologies that deliver greater fuel efficiency, which in turn means lower emissions and greater sustainability. UltraFan engine offers a 25% fuel burn improvement on the first generation of Rolls-Royce Trent engines.
UltraFan testing Phase 1 has been completed, with the engine running to full power, 85,000lbs of thrust. The technologies in the UltraFan engine are scalable, capable of being developed to create an engine with a thrust range of 25,000lb to 110,000lb, for narrowbody or widebody aircraft that may be developed from the 2030s.
The Power Gearbox (PGB) is at the heart of the geared system that delivers UltraFan’s high bypass efficiency - enabling the demonstrator core to drive the large fan blades. On test, the PGB has reached 64MW (87,000 horsepower) an aerospace record and equivalent to the power requirements for a city the size of Bath, UK.
This lecture will explain the relevance of the PGB in an aeroengine, it’s possible architectures and the current Rolls-Royce chosen design, as well the technical challenges and solutions were shown highlighting the impressive achievement of inventing and designing a new PGB, afterwards achieving high power run with a world’s new design for aeroengines. The Rolls-Royce team has shown full validation and confirmation of design methods, manufacturing and assembly novelties, moving from a development to possible production PGB. Future PGB configurations are currently worked for the whole UltraFan thrust range to enable narrow- and widebody application.
Sonja Nachtigal is Chief Project Engineer for the Power Gearbox. She works for Rolls-Royce Deutschland in Dahlewitz, near Berlin, and previously covered a number of roles in Systems Design.