Pratt & Whitney Canada PW308A turbofan engine arrives at Virginia Tech
For more than four decades, Virginia Tech has been a leader in using gas turbine engines for propulsion and power research and education.
The Advanced Propulsion and Power Laboratory (APPL) is home to a number of test engines dedicated to advancing technologies in gas turbine power applications. Now plans are underway to activate the lab's most technologically advanced engine for propulsion research: the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW308A turbofan engine.
The newest engine recently arrived at the university as an in-kind donation from Pratt & Whitney. To support the cost of outfitting the new test cell with instrumentation, Virginia Tech was recently awarded $112,000.00 through the Department of Defense’s Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP). The grant will enable the purchase of the test stand facility and engine digital controls and data acquisition system for the test cell.
As the first fully digitally controlled engine at Virginia Tech, the PW308A will modernize APPL facilities and pave the way for research into fuel efficiency, emissions reduction, noise abatement, and enhanced engine reliability. While this will directly benefit the Department of Defense and Virginia Tech’s industry and government partners, the engine will also be integrated into undergraduate education.
“The PW308A is a 7,000-pound thrust-class engine that operates at a much higher temperature than our existing engines, opening the door for new materials research and sustainability research,” said Todd Lowe, professor of aerospace engineering and co-director of the APPL. “Our vision is that this test bed will help develop technologies to build more efficient engine cores — leading to improvements in fuel economy, lowering environmental impact, or operating more cost-efficiently.”
A premiere site for research
The existing facilities at APPL are equipped with state-of-the-art experimental rigs, diagnostic instrumentation, and infrastructure to support a wide range of applied research for commercial and military aircraft. Faculty and student research groups frequently collaborate with industry partners such as Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce, as well as federal agencies, including the U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Research Laboratory, and NASA.
The enhanced capabilities of the PW308A will directly impact a number of ongoing and proposed sponsored research thrusts, including:
- Turbine engine performance and resiliency to extend engine lifespan
- Laser diagnostics research using a turbofan engine
- Inlet distortion aerodynamics research to enhance efficiency
- Environmental effects such as engine-based particle ingestion
According to Lowe, the new engine and test bed facility will be incorporated into current research measuring engine thrust using a laser imaging technique called filtered Rayleigh scattering. Optical techniques do not disturb the flow and provide spatial details that traditional point sensors cannot give.
The addition of the new test bed marks a major milestone for APPL on their roadmap to revolutionizing measurement practices while giving engine developers new data for improving designs.
Educational pipeline
APPL was established to provide cutting-edge research experiences for students training for careers in propulsion and power technologies. Working with turbine engines in the lab gives them skills that are in high demand in industry.
“In addition to modernizing the facilities, the new engine will have a direct impact on undergraduate education,” said Lowe. “This upgrade will provide hands-on opportunities to undergraduates studying efficiency and sustainability in propulsion and working on system-level modeling. It will also provide a boost to existing undergraduate programs such as the English-to-Engineering (E2E) program within the Pratt & Whitney Center of Excellence at Virginia Tech.”
For a leading research institution collaborating with industry and the federal government, developing a pipeline of workforce-ready engineers is vital. The addition of the PW308A provides students with access to a modern engine for propulsion research, preparing them to become future technical leaders in the field.