After the J-20 fighter jet is equipped with a turbofan 10C engine and realizes national production, when it will be equipped with a WS15 engine will become the focus of everyone's attention. The latest news is that the WS-15 has been mass-produced, and the J-20 is about to achieve mass production in a complete state.
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At the 3rd China Aviation Investment Summit and the 7th Aviation Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Finals held recently, the technicians gave exciting news that WS-15 has broken through technical difficulties and achieved mass production. There are already no technical problems in going into series production in a complete state before 2025.
[Barring against the United States is the strongest]
The WS-15 engine is the fourth-generation military turbofan engine developed by China. Its technical level is directly comparable to the American F-119 turbofan engine. The latter is the engine of the F-22 fighter jet, with an afterburner thrust close to 17 tons. With the powerful thrust of the engine, the F-22 fighter jet has achieved supersonic cruise capability, and its combat effectiveness has been greatly improved.
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F-22 fighter with F-119 engine
The powerful performance of the F-119 engine comes from the advanced technologies, materials and processes it uses, including three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics, single crystal materials, integral turbine disks, high-strength flame-retardant titanium alloys, a new generation of powder superalloys, and advanced manufacturing technologies and craftsmanship etc.
Due to the adoption of a series of advanced technologies, the performance of the F-119 engine has been greatly improved. The most obvious example is that the temperature in front of its turbine is as high as 1900K, which is nearly 300K higher than that of the F-110 engine. It can be said that this index has approached the material And the limit of the cold process. The thrust of modern engines comes from the energy generated by the thermal expansion of air, so the thrust of the engine is positively correlated with the temperature difference between the intake and exhaust. For modern aero-engines, the most direct way to increase thrust is to increase the temperature before the turbine. Under the condition of certain afterburner thrust, increasing the temperature before the turbine will help to increase the thrust without afterburner, which is one of the important conditions for the fighter to have supersonic cruise capability.
[It is too difficult to catch up with F119, and it even raises doubts]
Due to the extremely difficult technology of the F-119 turbofan engine, even the United States took nearly 20 years to successfully develop it and achieve mass production.
Therefore, when we decided to benchmark the WS-15 against the F-119 turbofan engine, it caused controversy in the industry. But after discussion, technicians can only guarantee the performance of WS-15 by benchmarking against F-119, so that J-20 can have supersonic cruise capability and achieve the goal of competing with F-22 fighter jets.
In order to achieve this goal, China's aero-engine front has made arduous efforts and conducted long-term research. Taking deformed superalloys as an example, the F-119 turbofan engine uses up to 40% titanium alloy and has an operating temperature of 600 degrees. The proportion of domestic turbofan-10 titanium alloy is only about 20%, and the working temperature is close to 500 degrees. There is a big gap between the two. Through hard work, the technicians of relevant units have developed a new generation of domestic deformed superalloy, which has been successfully applied to WS-15, clearing the way for WS-15 to surpass F-119.
[J-20 achieves super patrol, and can "reciprocate with F-22"]
After the J-20 fighter jet is installed with the WS-15 engine, it will have supersonic cruise capability, and now only the F-22 fighter jet has such a capability.
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Long-term supersonic flight without afterburner can gain huge tactical advantages
Because the J-20 fighter avionics system is superior to the F-22 fighter, for example, the J-20 fighter is equipped with a distributed optical aperture system, and its ability to detect stealth targets is better than that of the F-22. If it has supersonic cruise capability, it will have an advantage in air combat.
In order to cooperate with the performance upgrade, the J-20 has also optimized the design. For example, its cockpit has added an obvious bulge to fill the flight negative pressure area, thereby reducing flight resistance, especially the resistance under supersonic and transonic speeds. After such improvements, the supersonic cruise capability of the J-20 has been effectively enhanced, further improving the performance of the aircraft under supersonic conditions.
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Compared with the F-22 in the 1990s, the J-20 has a latecomer advantage in electronic systems
[Domestic aviation development is in its early stages, ushering in a hundred flowers blooming]
From the current point of view, the successful development of WS-15 not only realizes the complete assembly of J-20 fighter jets, but also achieves a series of technical achievements that can be used to improve existing engines and pave the way for the development of the next generation of high-performance propulsion systems.
It is reported that turbofan 10 and turbofan 20 engines use counter-rotating turbine technology, which is one of the characteristics of the fourth-generation turbofan engines. Reduced shafting length and weight due to turbine alignment, reducing engine weight. From this point of view, the technical level of domestic turbofan 10 and turbofan 20 engines is better than that of F-110 and CMF-56 engines.
In terms of the next-generation high-performance propulsion system, it has greater thrust and a higher thrust-to-weight ratio, and has higher requirements for design, materials, manufacturing, and craftsmanship. We can continue to develop on the basis of the WS-15 project and provide a new generation of domestic Create favorable conditions for the development of high-performance propulsion systems.
In the future, AECC will also improve the WS-15 with the results of the development of a new generation of engines. On the one hand, the WS-15 engine can be improved, and on the other hand, the technology of the new engine can also be verified.
The outside world speculates that China's 6th generation fighter jet may continue to follow the J-20's development ideas, first use the WS-15 engine or an improved version to test the aircraft design, and even use the WS-15 improved engine in the early stage. In this way, time can be bought for the development of the fifth-generation engine. After the fifth-generation engine matures, the sixth-generation fighter will be equipped to make it fully operational. The research and development of a new generation of fighter jets between China and the United States stood on the same starting line for the first time, and the technological gap was finally basically equalized.
