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Why jet engines aren't made in China

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Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#31

Post by hdz »

Lerc wrote: post #16

While I think the scale of American decline is overstated, I think there is a degree of Hemingway's law of motion. A desired task that requires the most skilled makes those skilled people in demand. If a power has significantly more resources then they have more to offer those most skilled people. It isn't at all disputed that there are a huge number of scientific discoveries that have occurred in The USA by people b…

“America is in decline” is the consensus view. America dominating on all fronts is the contrarian view. I expect these views to swing like a pendulum in public discussion until something meaningful happens or until it’s clear in the rearview that America is in fact is more like UK, Japan, or Germany.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#33

Post by OneDonOne »

dmitrygr wrote: post #3
ivell wrote: post #2

This is a strange article. I did not find anything that is a blocker for China. China is a relative new comer to jet engines and this technology is tightly guarded by incumbents and needs time to mature. If China can master nuclear, space, chips, it seems a bit stretch to say they it is the Jer engines where they fail.

Material sciences needed for modern jet engine blades are a closely guarded secret, and thanks to not manufacturing them in china, those secrets have managed to remain not stolen. Fun story: it is not just jet engines - it is only recently that china was able to actually make indigenous ballpoint pens https://www.bbc.com/news/business-38566114

It is not the pen, it is the pen tip. Ballpoint pen tips are microscopic tungsten carbide ball held inside ultra-thin steel sockets. So you need cutting tolerances precise to 0.001 millimeters. If the socket is a fraction of a micron too loose, the ink leaks. Too tight, and the pen won't write.

Source from al-Arabiya: https://english.alarabiya.net/variety/2017/01/14/At-last-Chi...

The point (no pun intended) is that China was beginning to crack the processes for making the precision machine tools that make machine tools.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#34

Post by dv35z »

You can read about China's modern carrier-based, stealth fighter here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-35

There is a section about its engines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-35#Engines

The first engine they used for the J-35 was the RD-33 (designed/built in Russia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klimov_RD-33#RD-93 - It was not efficient enough for the J-35 and generated black smoke trails. China decided to design & build a China-based engine.

This is the engine for the early J-35 prototype, WS-13 built in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizhou_WS-13

This is the production engine for J-35, the WS-19: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizhou_WS-19

China has built 50+ J-35 aircraft, and is scaling up production to support their domestic military, and also export orders to other militaries (including Pakistan, and possibly Russia).

Interesting: This is China's latest aircraft carrier, which has electromagnetic catapults, instead of steam-based: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Fujia...

You can see videos of the J-35 aircraft here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLdCNAUjuRI

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#35

Post by toast0 »

SecretDreams wrote: post #19
Grombobulous wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I even thought that the example of automobiles proved the jet engine analogy wrong. Sure, automobiles aren’t as complex as a jet engine, but they’re still complex, especially the internal combustion variants. Something like 10 years ago we were laughing at videos of Chinese cars spectacularly failing crash tests, and now China is selling to very heavily regulated markets. Same deal with things like high speed rail.

> but they’re still complex, especially the internal combustion variants. I'm not sure China is known for their ICE designs. Like Korea, I suspect China partially pushed hard for EV specifically because the complexity in a battery + motor system is meaningfully simpler than the ICE equivalent and there's relatively little overlap in many facets outside of some first principles. Jet engines are like ICE, but with a ve…

Chinese automakers do (or did) make ICE and hybrid cars, too.

I suspect it's wouldn't have been good strategy to try to build those cars for the US, CA or EU markets. An ICE engine is relatively straightforward, but hitting emissions and fuel efficiency targets is complex. [1] And the future of ICE cars, especially in those markets, is limited... why build out emissions expertise, when you can get your foot in the door with EVs?

[1] I recently bought a 1981 VW Vanagon which I try to maintain. That's a perfect time period to see how emissions control forces engine design. My engine has fuel injection and EGR, but a few years back has the same engine block with a carburetor; california emissions uses the same engine, but adds electronic ignition and an o2 sensor in the exhaust for closed loop injection control. A couple years later and they added water cooling. Every so often emissions and efficiency standards got harder to meet and you have to do more stuff.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#36

Post by colechristensen »

dylan604 wrote: post #29
justincarter wrote: post #27

I work in the aviation industry. This was a good read. The article hinted at the oligopolies that exist in aviation and in practice the industry is incredibly conservative and slow to change (particularly commercial aviation). While new technology is developed all the time, the extreme regulatory oversight combined with so much of the industry relying on long-standing relationships makes it difficult for any new entr…

Is aviation encumbered with patents like software development is?

For aerospace it's more like asking if Google, Meta, and Apple are encumbered by patents, because they're all big players. The smaller players tend to do one hyper-specific thing for a big player.

Also for aerospace the patents are more legitimate. Software is encumbered by stupid patents but on a computer! whereas aerospace patents are more legitimately about hardware that indeed took years and millions to develop and optimize.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#37

Post by userbinator »

toast0 wrote: post #35
SecretDreams wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they’re still complex, especially the internal combustion variants. I'm not sure China is known for their ICE designs. Like Korea, I suspect China partially pushed hard for EV specifically because the complexity in a battery + motor system is meaningfully simpler than the ICE equivalent and there's relatively little overlap in many facets outside of some first principles. Jet engines are like ICE, but with a ve…

Chinese automakers do (or did) make ICE and hybrid cars, too. I suspect it's wouldn't have been good strategy to try to build those cars for the US, CA or EU markets. An ICE engine is relatively straightforward, but hitting emissions and fuel efficiency targets is complex. [1] And the future of ICE cars, especially in those markets, is limited... why build out emissions expertise, when you can get your foot in the do…

Chinese automakers do (or did) make ICE and hybrid cars, too.

Mainly copies of Japanese and US designs.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#38

Post by eth0up »

azan_ wrote: post #11
dmitrygr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Material sciences needed for modern jet engine blades are a closely guarded secret, and thanks to not manufacturing them in china, those secrets have managed to remain not stolen. Fun story: it is not just jet engines - it is only recently that china was able to actually make indigenous ballpoint pens https://www.bbc.com/news/business-38566114

Isn't China currently among the leaders of material science with lots of top 10 universities located in China? [0] (in rankings that do not incorporate prestige but actual scientific output) [0] https://scholars-stage.org/china-and-the-future-of-science/

All I know is that they produce a lot of engineers, while the US produces a lot gender studies majors. I rarely say it, but I do not foresee much that they won't be leaving us sharply behind on soon, other than poverty and homelessness, which we have pretty well covered.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#39

Post by usernametaken29 »

justincarter wrote: post #27

I work in the aviation industry. This was a good read. The article hinted at the oligopolies that exist in aviation and in practice the industry is incredibly conservative and slow to change (particularly commercial aviation). While new technology is developed all the time, the extreme regulatory oversight combined with so much of the industry relying on long-standing relationships makes it difficult for any new entr…

Honestly this is a good thing. I can endure buggy software but I don’t want to deal with buggy planes. Regulatory pressure is a market force and a useful one too. There’s a huge difference between ship fast and ship right - the latter one requires deep pockets and willingness to commit to ongoing risk. People always say big Pharma and aviation and such are oligopolies, and that’s bad, but they rarely see the capital intensiveness of the whole process. Some things are slow and deliberate and restricted to big corporate only for good reasons
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