U.E.C.- Russian aircraft engines

The PD-35 aircraft engine demonstrator sample has passed the first stage of testing, 10.23.2024.

The prototype of the PD-35 aircraft engine - technology demonstrator - has successfully completed the first stage of testing. This was reported to TASS by one of the enterprises participating in the engine development.

“The engine demonstrated stable operation in accordance with the specified parameters and is being prepared for the next stages of testing,” the company noted.

The development of the PD-35 engine began in the summer of 2016 at two plants: Perm's Aviadvigatel and Rybinsk's Saturn (both are part of the United Engine Corporation). It is assumed that the PD-35, unlike its previous modification, the PD-14, will have a thrust of 16 tons more (up to 35 tons). The Russian aviation industry needs the PD-35 engine to create new wide-body aircraft.

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/163835/#cut

This is a great success. Although the AL 51 is probably more complex. It's important to remember that only four countries in the world produce their own aircraft engines. Maybe five, including China.

The PD 35 will be one of Russia's greatest successes in terms of aircraft engines. Although the AL 51 is more advanced ?- the PD 35 may have more applications.

PAK DA will not have modified engines from Tu 160? In tactical aviation everything in the future will be based on AL51. MiG 31 successor as well.

To these new engines, we must add the resumption of production of modified NK-32 for the Tu 160M, which is a huge feat.

lancelot wrote:I still think Russia has way too much duplication of resources on engine development and production.

First, you can't compare old and new designs. Refitting completely different engine to existing airframe is tedious task and may lead Boeing 737 MAX disaster. Cost benefit ratio needs to be affordable to do that.
Second, different applications requires totally different parameters to be optimized. You are comparing static powerplant to flying engine. First one does not care how fat it is and propably does not require significant thrust adjusting neither. It operates always fairly constant air pressure and in still air. Latter one needs to operate still and flowing air and altitudes from 0m to 14 km. It needs to be light and silent.

F35 and NASAAM are my favourite examples what happens when one size fits all ideology has been used too much. The F35 one does not fly well, does not carry much internal ordinance, is not protected from ground fire and certainly is not cheap. It was meant to replace air superiority aircraft, land attack aircraft, carrier based aircraft, being SEAD aircraft, etc. How well it handles any of those?
NASAAM uses AIM missile as an interceptor. It may be adequate for aircraft but certainly lacks kinetic performance required for ballistic targets, because it was not even designed to be able to shoot down those kind of object. If it could do that I would call it bad engineering where system is over specified and therefore more complex and expensive it supposed to be.

lancelot wrote:I still think Russia has way too much duplication of resources on engine development and production.

They now have the NK-36, NK-25, Izdeliye RF, D-18T, and the PD-35 at roughly the same power level. That is five engines from three companies (Kuznetsov, Ural Turbine Works, and Aviadvigatel). This is just horrible.

The most technologically advanced of all of them would be the PD-35 once it is available.

They should just finish development of the PAK DA and replace the older bombers with it.

NK-32 and NK-25 are already existing and fit to a specific bomber airplane. You can adapt the core engine to another aircraft, but it will cost significantly in terms of time and money if it has a completely different installation.
It was considered a few years ago to make an engine for the An-124 based on the core of the NK-32, but in order to keep the same fan sizes and installations (to avoid needing to remake also a part of aircraft testing) the planned performances were worse than the old D-18T.

As far as NK-25 of the Tu-22M, yes it is in the same thrust range as the NK-32 of the Tu-160 but since there are probably no plans to build new Tu-22M, there is no point in spending a lot of money and testing to adapt the NK-32 to it. They just need spare parts replacements and possibly some spare engines.

Also, the PD-35 is optimised for subsonic flight, while the NK-32 needs to be capable of efficient enough subsonic flight, but also to be able to fly at mach2.

Possibly a new version of it could share some of the core with the PD-35 (or at least the technology improvements and some design solutions), but they have also a different set up (3 shafts for the NK-32 (like the rolls Royce trent engines and the D-18T vs 2 shafts for the PD-35 (like GE engines and PS-90)).

As far as the civilian passenger size, for the Airbus A350 there are two engine version there, one with the Trent XWB 84k (38 tons of takeoff thrust) and the Trent XWB 97K (44 tons of takeoff thrust). They have several similarities but practically are different engines. It is better for Russia to concentrate first on the engine for an aircraft of Airbus A330/ Boeing 787 size, requiring about 77000 pounds (circa 35 tons) of takeoff thrust.
This would be equivalent of a 2 engine derivative of the il-96-400 or of the C-929.

Further development can come later

And finally, concerning the D-18T, it is one of the few engines in the 23-25 tons takeoff thrust range (others are the American GE CF6 and the Rolls -Royce Trent 500 (which production stopped in 2012) of the Airbus A340).

Restarting production of the D-18T will make it immediately available for An-124, without having to wait for development of a next generation engine of that thrust size based on the PD-35 technology and subsequent tests (including many aircraft tests).

After they will have the basis covered, they will be able to work on something more modern, but it is not always possible to skip the present (or the not so recent past) to go for the next technology, especially if you are not able to produce anymore what you need right now and you can't or do not want to import a foreign alternative).

As far as the izdelie RF of the PAK DA I do not have a clue about it. It could also be a modern derivative of the NK-32 optimised for subsonic flight and with nacelle and powerplant made specifically for a flying wing body.

Of course in an ideal world you do not need to recreate what you had already in the past (because you lost half of the civilian aircraft engine industry and a lot of the supply chain), but aiming only to the future without consolidating present and past technologies is dangerous, also because in aerospace most projects run late.