61–70 of 342 posts
They are narrowing a gap measured in decades. The article explains the difficulty well, but it doesn't convince me that China can't eventually (again, given enough time) build good engines, especially for domestic military use.
Same for semi-conductors, IMHO.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Material engineering is the well known blocker for China, same with semiconductors. They basically have to replicate 50 years of trial and error that is well kept under lock in key in the west. China hasn’t mastered chips either yet in the same way it hasn’t mastered jet turbines: they can do cheap (high yields, low maintenance costs per hour of use), they can do high performance, they can’t do both yet at the same t…
“ well kept under lock in key in the west” You’re joking. These have been put on network drives since early 2000s and CCP has hacked and exfil them
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Material engineering is the well known blocker for China, same with semiconductors. They basically have to replicate 50 years of trial and error that is well kept under lock in key in the west. China hasn’t mastered chips either yet in the same way it hasn’t mastered jet turbines: they can do cheap (high yields, low maintenance costs per hour of use), they can do high performance, they can’t do both yet at the same t…
>"50 years of trial and error that is well kept under lock in key in the west." Bollocks. Russia does that as well, single crystal turbine blades in particular so the west is not the sole gatekeeper here. Given the circumstances Russia might as well share the tech for some things in return
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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
Seems they have figured out the single crystal blade tech https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-crystal-...
> DD6 is a second-generation nickel-based single-crystal superalloy developed by the institute with fully independent intellectual property. Its chief engineer, Li Jiarong, said the alloy’s performance matches or exceeds that of comparable second-generation superalloys used in Europe and the United States, at a lower production cost.
US manufacturers have already developed sixth-generation SC superalloys and most Western airlines are on engines with third- and fourth-generation materials.
The technology behind single crystal superalloys is relatively well understood, the problem is getting the process reliable enough to be economical in an industry that requires tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to develop through trial and error. The TFA's point is that unlike EVs or semiconductors, the turbofan industry is between a rock and a hard place that China's other successful industries weren't.
They actually do. The segment of small jet-powered (military) drones is rapidly growing and isn't served by the big jet engine manufacturers.
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 d…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Material engineering is the well known blocker for China, same with semiconductors. They basically have to replicate 50 years of trial and error that is well kept under lock in key in the west. China hasn’t mastered chips either yet in the same way it hasn’t mastered jet turbines: they can do cheap (high yields, low maintenance costs per hour of use), they can do high performance, they can’t do both yet at the same t…
“ well kept under lock in key in the west” You’re joking. These have been put on network drives since early 2000s and CCP has hacked and exfil them
you don't exactly need to hack a network drive when you can just hire the guy who came up with it
Scale doesn't help them much in getting the engines up to quality but it does give them the ability to run dozens of experiments and companies at the same time. And they only need to have a handful of breakthroughs once.
That's a pattern that's already repeated it a few times, China has had trouble catching up in the car market for a long time, on semiconductors. On the first they're now on their way to capture the market, on chips they're catching up, and on military engines you can already see the gap closing. I predict the title of the post will age badly, within 5-10 years there'll be competitive commercial planes in China.
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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.
High speed rail technology is not a secret. We in the US just don’t have the will. Auto technology in China was acquired via tech transfers. In order to open mfg in China foreign concerns were forced into partnerships with local companies; moreover there was an effort to obtain foreign trade secrets. Metallurgy for jet fans isn’t one of the technologies the west has tried to partner with China. At this time the UK, t…
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
You fell for a meme that was tired years ago already (your link is from 2017, after all). The article itself notes, “Relatively low-value items, like ballpoint pens, have not been a priority”, so obviously this says little about higher-priority military and industrial areas to which the CCP devotes greater effort.