Engine specialist will use new facility at Villaroche site for trials of 4m-diameter structure.
Safran Aircraft Engines (SAE) is accelerating towards full-scale tests of the low-pressure system – including the 4m (13ft)-diameter composite fan – intended for the CFM International RISE open-fan engine demonstrator.
Initial tests of the fan are expected towards the end of the year or in early 2027 in a newly constructed facility located at SAE’s sprawling campus in Villaroche near Paris, said Pierre Cottenceau, vice-president of engineering, research and technology, speaking to FlightGlobal ahead of the Farnborough air show.
This 8m-diameter test cell “is where we can do ingestion and blade-out of an open-fan-size fan module”, he says, and the first tests of the full fan module will take place “at the end of this year or early next year”.
Several tests of the assembly will take place, building up to the entire low-pressure system, including the reduction gearbox to the rear of the fan.
To support that testing, SAE has been maturing the design of the composite fan blades and outlet guide vanes (OGVs) for the RISE open-fan demonstrator.
Cottenceau says it is now working on the “third or fourth” iteration of the blades, produced with next-generation 3D-woven resin transfer moulding (RTM) technology.
“We have tested several generations of blades and OGVs, and that’s the way we improve the product: we design, we manufacture, we test, we learn lessons and we do that again and again,” he says.
The aerodynamic, acoustic, and weight characteristics of the blades and OGVs have all been targeted for improvement through the development process, he says.
Although Cottenceau does not specify the weight-saving achieved, “clearly one of the big drivers is to keep on reducing the weight of the blade because this has a big knock-on effect on the rest of the engine and the airframe”.
Multiple tests have been performed on the blades, including a windtunnel campaign at an ONERA facility in southesast France, plus icing, mechanical and fatigue tests – and even bird ingestion trials.
SAE has also begun manufacturing the parts for the first front module to test, building on its experience during earlier campaigns.
“Probably we have one example of every component already manufactured to some extent.
“Whether it’s been included in component testing, in module testing, or sub-module testing, we have already manufactured scale-one components of almost everything.”
Much of the work on the fan and OGVs is built on SAE’s experience with RTM technology, which it uses on the fan case and blades of CFM Leap-series engines.
It has also successfully industrialised the technology, with sister firm Safran Aero Composites operating four factories across the globe to support Leap production, building more than 35,000 blades each year.
Cottenceau also confirms that SAE’s responsibility extends to another smaller metallic fan at the front of the compact core, with that section being developed by CFM partner GE Aerospace.
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