Photo: NASA/Bridget Caswell
Have you ever wondered just how big a jet engine used on a commercial aircraft is? In single-aisle airliners, for instance, the jet engines that dangle from their wings are a little under three meters long. That’s not as big as these things appear to the untrained eye, but certainly a lot bigger than a NASA jet engine tucked away at one of its facilities to advance research in aviation.
Despite its main area of expertise having to do with the space beyond the borders of our planet, the American space agency is deeply involved in aviation research. And one of the avenues it follows is called DART.
In this case DART is not the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft that impacted an asteroid a while back, but DGEN380 Aero-Propulsion Research Turbofan. In simpler words it’s an acronym that stands for one of the smallest jet engines in existence.
The turbofan was created by a French company called Price Induction (you may now know it as Akira, after NASA itself purchased it back in 2017) and it is about half the size of a regular jet engine deployed on commercial planes. At 4.3 feet (1.3 meters) long, it’s a perfect fit for the average kitchen table.
The small-scale jet engine is fully operational, and it is used by NASA to conduct research into new aviation tech. The powerplant is fired up from time to time to test all sorts of innovative technologies, from engine controls to measurement tools.
The engine is installed on a “modestly equipped test stand” located at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The stand is modest on purpose, as its spartan configuration allows engineers to try out as many and as wacky engine components as possible. That also makes it a lot cheaper to use compared to a full-scale rig.
The specifications of the engine (including thrust) are not known, but NASA did reveal the powerplant has a high bypass ratio – that’s the ratio of how much of the air drawn in by the fan is turned into thrust, and how much of it is used for combustion.
Over the years the DART has been used to test a series of potential aviation breakthroughs. NASA looked at new kinds of materials meant to reduce engine noise and make airliners quieter. In the near future, more tests are planned for it.
For instance, NASA will look at ways of making aircraft engines more fuel efficient and have the new tech flying as soon as the 2030s. The new means of propulsion being investigated should also lead to the development of a small-core commercial engine.
Then, the agency will also look into developing new coatings to protect engine parts, sensors, and other components. Any advancements made with the DART could be taken one step further in the near future and tested in wind tunnels.
