British engineering group Rolls-Royce and Germany’s Liebherr-Aerospace have entered a 50:50 joint venture to develop gearboxes for next generation aircraft.
The pair will produce a power gearbox for Rolls-Royce’s new UltraFan aircraft engine, which they say will offer at least 25% less fuel burn compared with first-generation Rolls-Royce Trent engines.
The majority of the design expertise for the new power gearbox resides within Rolls-Royce Germany, which has already begun building a $90.9m gearbox test centre at Dahlewitz, just south of Berlin.
Dr. Rainer Hönig, MD for Rolls-Royce Deutschland, commented: “There are already more than 100 engineers working on this project, and we will be ready for testing to start in late 2016.”
Josef Gropper, MD of Liebherr-Aerospace, added: “We are thrilled to be participating in this programme, which gives us the opportunity to significantly enlarge our scope of activities.
“Due to our longstanding success in aviation gearboxes, and the Liebherr Group’s extensive competencies in gears for other applications, we have a substantial contribution to make towards the development of the manufacturing capability and capacity for the power gearbox.”
Located in Friedrichshafen, Germany, the joint venture will provide production engineering for the power gear drivetrain components – with the manufacturing initially taking place in existing Liebherr facilities.
As production volume increases, however, “the joint venture will look for options for creating a standalone manufacturing infrastructure,” the companies said.
Rolls-Royce has noted that the technology could be used to power aircraft from as early as 2025.
