Apr 21st 2012 by The Economist
IT IS SMALL enough to be held in your hand and looks like an unremarkable chunk of metal perforated with tiny holes, but it is fiendishly hard to make. That is because it must spin 12,000 times a minute under high pressure at a temperature of 1,600°C, 200°C above the melting point of the material it is made from. And it must survive that twisting inferno long enough to propel an airliner for 24m km (15m miles) before being replaced. In all, 66 of these stubby blades are used in the rear turbine of a Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine, and the British company makes hundreds of thousands of these blades a year.
American and European firms have sought salvation in high-end manufacturing from the onslaught of low-cost producers. That increasingly involves becoming more inventive with materials. This article will look at a number of such innovations, including the special casting system for the Rolls-Royce turbine blades as well as the use of carbon fibre, recycled plastic waste, new battery technology and others.
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