A Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 powerplant, which powers the Boeing 787, has suffered a failure during a routine test at the company’s Derby, UK facility, prompting an investigation into the incident’s cause.

Rolls-Royce says: “We have had an engine failure on a test bed in Derby. We are now investigating in detail and have made good progress in understanding the issue. We do not anticipate any impact on the programme.”

Boeing’s 787 flight test campaign has continued unabated.

Industry sources say the failure, which is believed to have been uncontained, occurred in early August on a production ‘Package A’ model Trent 1000 engine that will power early 787-8 aircraft for launch customer All Nippon Airways, and has been initially traced to the single-stage intermediate pressure (IP) turbine. The IP turbine in conjunction with the IP compressor supplies the electrical power for the 787’s systems.

“A modification is already in place for later engines,” says Rolls-Ro

This entry was posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.