Rolls-Royce plc has leased the former Texas Aero Engine Services LLC center (TAESL) at the Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, Tex., which includes a jet-engine testbed. It will use the testbed to conduct endurance tests on its Trent engine series.
The terms of the lease with the City of Fort Worth were not announced.
The 440,000-sq.ft. TAESL is a former engine maintenance/repair/overhaul (MRO) center that Rolls operated jointly with American Airlines. It was idled early in 2016.
An engine testbed or test stand is a workshop set up to develop and test engines in operating conditions, typically capable of measuring various physical and other variables. A testbed typically will have available various sensors, actuators, and other data acquisition capabilities.
Rolls-Royce stated it expects the TAESL testbed to be operating again “in a few months,” with approximately a dozen workers.
“This additional testbed helps us improve the capability and flexibility of our global test network and will provide us with additional capability to run endurance analysis, accruing valuable data on our latest engine programs,” stated Gareth Hedicker, who heads the Rolls-Royce, Experimental - Civil Aerospace division.
Rolls-Royce is introducing three large jet engines for civilian aerospace: The Trent 1000 TEN entered service in November 2016 for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The Trent XWB-97 and Trent 7000 will enter service this year on the Airbus A350-1000 and Airbus A330neo, respectively.
Recently, Rolls-Royce announced it also is developing of a new testbed at its engine development center in Derby, England, supporting its rising volume of jet-engine deliveries in the coming years.
