The Rolls-Royce Trent 500 is a

high-bypass turbofan The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the ''turbo'' portion refers to a gas turbine engine which achieves mechanica ...

produced by

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

to power the larger A340-500/600 variants. It was selected in June 1997, first ran in May 1999, first flew in June 2000, and achieved certification on 15 December 2000. It entered service in July 2002 and 524 engines were delivered on-wing until the A340 production ended in 2011. Keeping the three spool architecture of the Trent family, it has the Trent 700's 2.47 m (97.5 in) fan and a

Trent 800 The Rolls-Royce Trent 800 is a high-bypass turbofan produced by Rolls-Royce plc, one of the engine options for the early Boeing 777 variants. Launched in September 1991, it first ran in September 1993, was granted EASA certification on 27 Jan ...

core scaled down. It produces up to 275 kN (61,900 lbf) of

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that sys ...

at take-off and has a

bypass ratio The bypass ratio (BPR) of a turbofan engine is the ratio between the mass flow rate of the bypass stream to the mass flow rate entering the core. A 10:1 bypass ratio, for example, means that 10 kg of air passes through the bypass duct for ev ...

up to 8.5:1 in cruise.

Development

In 1995,

Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: ' ...

began considering an engine for two new long-range derivatives of its four-engined A340, the A340-500/600. The existing A340-200/300 was powered by

CFM International CFM56 The CFM International CFM56 (U.S. military designation F108) series is a Franco-American family of high-bypass turbofan aircraft engines made by CFM International (CFMI), with a thrust range of . CFMI is a 50–50 joint-owned company of Saf ...

engines. However, the CFM56 was at the limit of its development capability, and would be unable to power the new A340-500/-600. In April 1996, Airbus signed an agreement with

GE Aviation GE Aviation, a subsidiary of General Electric, is headquartered in Evendale, Ohio, outside Cincinnati. GE Aviation is among the top aircraft engine suppliers, and offers engines for the majority of commercial aircraft. GE Aviation is part of t ...

to develop a suitable engine, but decided not to proceed when GE demanded an exclusivity deal on the A340. Certification was applied for on 9 February 1998. The Trent 500 first ran in May 1999. By July 1999, Rolls-Royce had secured $5 billion worth of Trent 500 orders. Flight testing began in late June 2000 on a modified A340 testbed. By July 2000, the test program had amassed 1,750h and 2,00 cycles, and aimed for 15,000h and 4,000-5,000 cycles before introduction. It achieved certification on 15 December 2000. It entered service on the A340-600 with

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and ...

in July 2002 and on the ultra-long range

A340-500 The Airbus A340 is a long-haul, long-range, wide-body passenger airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the Airbus A300, A300, its first airliner, and developed the A340 qu ...

with Emirates in December 2003.

Air Canada Air Canada is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Canada by the size and passengers carried. Air Canada maintains its headquarters in the borough of Saint-Laurent, Montreal, Quebec. The airline, founded in 1937, provides scheduled an ...

had been expected to be the launch customer for the A340-500 in May 2003, but just before this on 1 April 2003 the airline filed for bankruptcy protection which resulted in delivery of its two A340-500s being delayed. This allowed Emirates to be the first airline to operate the type. After production of the

Airbus A340 The Airbus A340 is a long-range, wide-body passenger airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner, and developed the A340 quadjet in parallel wit ...

ended in 2011, a total of 131 A340-500/-600 have been delivered with 524 Trent 500 engines altogether; Lufthansa is the largest operator, with 24 delivered A340-600.

Design

The Trent 500 is a

high bypass turbofan The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the ''turbo'' portion refers to a gas turbine engine which achieves mechanica ...

with three spools: the fan is powered by a 5 stage Low Pressure

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating ...

(nominal speed: 3,900 RPM), the Intermediate pressure spool has an 8-stage axial compressor (9,100 RPM) and the High Pressure spool has an 6-stage axial compressor (13,300 RPM), both driven by a single turbine stage. It has an

annular combustor A combustor is a component or area of a gas turbine, ramjet, or scramjet engine where combustion takes place. It is also known as a burner, combustion chamber or flame holder. In a gas turbine engine, the ''combustor'' or combustion chamber is fe ...

and is equipped with an Electronic Engine Control System. It is

flat rated When an engine is flat rated it means that an engine of high horsepower rating is constrained to a lower horsepower rating. The engine output in this case will always remain the same, but when atmospheric conditions such as high temperatures and h ...

at ISA + 15°C for 248.1-275.3 kN (55,780-61,902 lbf) net

at take-off and has an 8.5:1

in cruise. The Trent 500 is essentially a scaled

, with a 2.47 m (97.5 in) fan with 26 unswept blades like the Trent 700. The IP and HP compressors and scaled-down by 20% from the Trent 892, while the turbines are scaled-down by 90% and are made of

single crystal In materials science, a single crystal (or single-crystal solid or monocrystalline solid) is a material in which the crystal lattice of the entire sample is continuous and unbroken to the edges of the sample, with no grain boundaries.RIWD. "Re ...

CMSX-4 alloy with

thermal barrier coating Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are advanced materials systems usually applied to metallic surfaces operating at elevated temperatures, such as gas turbine or aero-engine parts, as a form of exhaust heat management. These 100 μm to 2 mm ...

s. Fuel burn is 1% lower because of 3D aerodynamics. It was tested up to to establish limits. The Trent 500 powers the A340-500/600. It was certificated at thrust, but derated to as the Trent 553 to power the A340-500, and to as the Trent 556 for the A340-600 and A340-500HGW. However, a version is installed in the A340-600HGW ''(High Gross Weight)'', a higher-performance version of the A340-600. The Trent 500 has the same wide chord fan as the Trent 700, together with a core scaled from the Trent 800.

Applications

Specifications

Iberia A340-600 Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engines

References

External links