Rolls‐Royce ‘Transparent Engine’ System

SINCE the start of jet engine development, one problem has hampered designers and development engineers: the opaque walls of the engine casings. They wanted to ‘look’ through the walls and be able to see and measure the movements of the compressor and turbine tip seals. This would reveal the combustion gas loadings and thermal growths of the components and allow them to configure the seals to reduce gas leakages and increase the efficiency of the engines. If it were possible to see the components moving as an engine and running on a test bed, then the mechanical integrity could be improved to make the engine safer and maintain performance for a longer period.