Pratt & Whitney GTF™ engine

The Pratt & Whitney GTF™ engine family powers next-generation commercial aircraft. The new engines offer double-digit percentage reductions in fuel consumption, pollution, noise emissions, and operating costs. The reduction gearbox located between the fan and low-pressure compressor—on which the low-pressure turbine that drives the fan is mounted—allows the fan to rotate more slowly. At the same time, the low-pressure compressor and turbine can run faster. This helps achieve lower fan pressure ratios, and thus higher bypass ratios, and lets all components achieve their optimum performance. Consequently, the geared turbofan has very high overall efficiency, substantially reducing fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions and significantly decreasing noise footprint. Compared to the previous engine generation, the GTF engine family represents a reduction in CO₂ emissions of 20 percent with a noise footprint that is 75 percent smaller. A further advantage is that its fewer compressor and turbine stages make for a lighter engine.

The GTF engine family can be found in a variety of aircraft types: Airbus offers the GTF engine family for its A320neo and A220, while Embraer has made it the only option for its second-generation E-Jets.
 

MTU’s involvement in the GTF engine family

MTU’s share in the GTF engine family is as much as 18 percent, depending on the application. In addition to being responsible for the high-speed low-pressure turbine and the first four stages of the high-pressure compressor, MTU also manufactures brush seals and nickel blisks for high-pressure compressor components that fall outside its design responsibility. Moreover, MTU in Munich is responsible for the final assembly of one-third of the production PW1100G-JM for the A320neo.

To date, the GTF engine family has saved nearly 6 billion liters of fuel and avoided 17 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions. Pratt & Whitney will launch the GTF Advantage™ engine configuration, unveiling a technologically improved geared turbofan engine for the A320neo family.