Pratt & Whitney established a “risk and revenue-sharing collaboration agreement” with Kawasaki Heavy Industries, which will manufacture and supply unspecified hardware modules for Pratt & Whitney's PurePower geared turbofan jet engines. It’s the tenth partnership that the jet-engine builder has established with manufacturers concerning different design variants of the GTF engines, which is provided to numerous aircraft builders.
KHI has numerous industrial platforms, one of which manufactures helicopter engines for the Japanese defense ministry, and is a joint-venture participant in other turbofan jet engine program, including Pratt & Whitney’s PW4000, among others, as well as aircraft auxiliary power units (APU).
PurePower is a family of P&W engines, all of which employ a gear system (GTF) separating the engine fan from the low-pressure compressor and turbine, allowing each of the modules to operate at optimal speeds. This allows the fan to rotate more slowly, and while the low-pressure compressor and turbine operate at a high speed, increasing engine efficiency and delivering significantly lower fuel consumption, emissions and noise.
PurePower variants have been selected by Airbus, as an option for the A320neo; Bombardier, for the twin-engine CSeries; Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. for the new Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ); Embraer, for its new generation of regional E-Jets; and as an option on Russia’s United Aircraft Corp. for the Irkut MC-21 narrow-body aircraft.
Currently Pratt & Whitney has ten risk-and-revenue partnerships similar to the KHI agreement with other manufacturers, some of which involve multiple PurePower variants for several different aircraft platforms.
"Our collaboration on the GTF started in 2007 when our great partner, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, selected the PW1200G Geared Turbofan engine for their Mitsubishi Regional Jet and soon after joined the program as a partner,” explained P&W’s Bernard I. Zimmerman, v.p., Group Strategy & Development, which manages the partnerships.
According to P&W, the partnerships have a value in products and services worth over $49 billion over their program life.
Different partners provide hardware modules, assemble components and systems, and perform test services. For example, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Aero Engines performs engine assembly and testing on the PW1200G engine for the MRJ. Another partner, MTU Aero Engines AG assembles and tests PW1100G-JM engines for the Airbus A320neo.
Other partners include Japanese Aero Engines Corporation, Industria Turbo Propulsores, Mitsubishi Corp., Singapore Airlines Engineering Co., IHI Corp., and GE Avio.
Other PurePower collaborations involve Japanese Aero Engines Corp., Industria Turbo Propulsores, Mitsubishi Corp., Singapore Airlines Engineering Co., IHI Corp., GKN Aerospace Engine Systems (formerly Volvo Aero Corporation), and GE Avio.
However, Pratt & Whitney now states that all collaboration partner agreements are in place, and “any further activity will be limited to bringing existing hardware sources into existing or new collaboration agreements.”
