New engine technology being developed by Pratt & Whitney is smarter, cleaner and greener, said Graham Webb, chief sustainability officer at the company.

Speaking during the Farnborough International Airshow in July, Webb said the business had a 97-year history of developing engines that have seen significant improvements in thrust and fuel efficiency, which translates into a reduction in carbon.

Innovation over decades

“We’ve been innovating over the decades, continuously reducing the emissions, the fuel burn of the engines,” he explained.

“We’ve recently done that with respect to the geared turbofan engine where we are enabling a 16 per cent reduction by the introduction of a gear that enables the turbo machinery to operate at optimum efficiency.

“We just announced recently a GTF advantage which delivered another 1 per cent, and overall, we’ve saved 800 million gallons of fuel, and over 800,000 tonnes of CO2 from our customers as a result of these innovations.

“We’re now taking that further. We’re continuing to invest in the efficiency of our geared turbofan engines. We think sustainability starts with the gear, that’s one of our prime savings.”

Smarter, cleaner and greener

He added: “We have an overall approach, a three pronged strategy smarter, cleaner and greener.

“The smarter is the technology piece, so we’re working with technologies to improve the efficiency of the core, going to higher pressure ratios and temperatures, while at the same time continuing to leverage the advantage that we have inherently in the geared turbofan architecture, going to larger fan diameters, increasing the bypass ratios that will make that engine even more fuel efficient than it is today.

“That’s the normal part. Now we get into the exciting thing and this is why it’s so exciting to be in my role … is that we’re working on elements of electrification and we have introduced a number of technology demonstrators.”
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