New Technology of General Electric Jet Engines

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How many times a day do you hear a jet airplane roar over the top of your house, leaving a trail of dark, black smoke behind? People all around the world are complaining about the noise and contamination that jet aircraft produce as they fly over densely populated cities. Airplanes are flying around the clock consuming thousands and thousands of gallons of fuel a minute. So many jet engine manufactures have tried time and time again to reduce the noise and contamination that their engines produce yet so many times to no avail. General Electric is now incorporating new technology into their engines that will reduce not only the fuel consumption and contamination produced by the jet engines, but increase their thrust output.
General Electric has been able to reduce some of the fuel consumption of their jet engines by incorporating composite fan blades. One of the biggest factors that affect the efficiency of aircraft jet engines today is component weight. If you were to weigh a single fan blade from a fairly large jet engine you would be very surprised at how much it weighs. Each one of those blades has to be propelled, using energy from the fuel that is burned in the combustion chamber, creating high fuel consumption. General Electric is trying to reduce the weight of the fan blades that they use on their engines by manufacturing them from different lightweight materials. The original blades were made out of very heavy metal, in order to increase their strength and durability. In an article about the new GE9X turbine engine, Bill Millhaem is quoted to say: “The GE9X fan blade will feature new high-strength carbon fiber material and a steel alloy leading edge.” These blades have been installed in engines that are being used in flig...

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...ing scarce. Oil, from which jet fuel is derived, is becoming so valuable because of its so many usages, yet the supply is getting lower everyday and not being replenished. This situation must drive us to the wise use of the oil that is still available and develop technology that can derive the maximum amount of energy from the minimal amount oil used. General Electric has been able to not only reduce the amount of fuel consumption but increase the amount of thrust at the same time. It is encouraging to see the new technology that GE is developing to reduce fuel consumption and contamination produced by their jet engines.

Works Cited

GE Aviation. http://www.geaviation.com/press/ge90/ge90_20130821.html. 21 August 2013. 23 March 2014.
Warwick, Graham. http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_06_17_2013_p0-588827.xml. 17 June 2013. 23 March 2014.

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