Sheffield-based Mechan has provided the heavy handling equipment for the latest engine test bed at the Rolls-Royce facility in Derby through a £1.6m contract with Cullum Detuners.
Mechan was the chosen supplier of an overhead, automated jet engine transportation system for the new test bed 58.
The new transportation system comprises a series of hoists, monorail installations and a travelling bridge to the test-bed, where a roof-mounted turntable permits rotation of the engine. A refined control system ensures safe and efficient operation.
The range of tests to be carried out on test bed 58 will include fan blade containment, bird ingestion and cold start performance.
‘In the 1990s, Mechan manufactured and installed a 35-tonne capacity overhead handling system at Derby to transfer Rolls-Royce Trent series engines between the preparation area and test bed 57,’ says Mechan managing director, Richard Carr. ‘We were therefore well placed to bid for the test bed 58 contract.
‘The latest variants of the remarkably successful Trent series have just got bigger and bigger. Trent 900 engines for the Airbus A380 super jumbo are the largest engines ever built by Rolls-Royce at almost three metres in diameter and they weigh in at 14,190 pounds.’
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