China defense industry faces homemade engine troubles

SINGAPORE -- China can send a man into space and a rocket into lunar orbit but, paradoxically, its defense industry cannot build a top-end aircraft engine. Or an engine sophisticated enough to power advanced surface ships and armored vehicles. But this broad statement requires a caveat: China's defense industry can indeed design, develop and produce propulsion systems for relatively simple military platforms — certain transport aircraft, patrol boats, some types of main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers. But high-performance combat aircraft, destroyers and similarly demanding platforms are another matter.

Only submarines appear an exception to this general rule. Most new types are fitted with locally developed propulsion systems, although the technology's origins are not known.

This technical shortcoming was most recently highlighted in a report in the Russian newspaper Vedomosti stating that Beijing last month bought 123 AL-31FN turbofan engines from Russian manufacturer NPO Saturn. These cost over US$500 million. The order follows earlier tranches that since 2001 have totaled 930 engines.

The AL-31FN currently powers China's J-10 multirole fighter and J-11A/B air superiority fighter, as well as the J-15 carrier-based fighter which is under development. Russia's Klimov RD-93 engine is fitted on the Chinese JF-17 multirole fighter and FC-1 attack fighter. A French engine drives the Z-11 helicopter and an American one powers the civilian ARJ-21 jet airliner.

Indicative of this trend elsewhere in the People's Liberation Army, the navy's Song-class submarine has MTU diesel engines from Germany, while the Luhai-class destroyer has Ukrainian gas turbines and German diesels. Among ground forces, the ZBL-09 8x8 infantry combat vehicle is fitted with a Deutz engine from Germany and the Type 99 main battle tank has a locally produced power plant derived from German technology.

Just a handful of companies worldwide have truly mastered the engineering challenge of developing high-performance engines, and China's dependence on foreign suppliers is deeply problematic for Beijing. But a new report concludes that change may be imminent.

Gabe Collins and associate professor Andrew Erickson, in a comprehensive study published recently by specialist website China SignPost, focus on military jet power plants.

“The Chinese aerospace industry is driven by four strategic imperatives as it pursues the ability to manufacture large volumes of high-performance aircraft engines — parts dependence avoidance, Russian supply unwillingness, aircraft sales autonomy and poor Russian after-sales service,” the authors state.

They say that quality control remains spotty, resulting in problems with reliability, and key weak points include turbine blade production and process standardization. Beyond these issues, “(China) appears to remain limited with respect to components and systems design, integration and management ... and to making logistical and operational plans at the force level based on reliable estimates thereof.”

Progress is uneven but, the authors add, China's dominant aerospace conglomerate — the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), with 10 subsidiaries and 400,000 employees — has now placed a high priority on engine development and plans over the next five years to invest 10 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) in jet engine research and development.

This is particularly significant because Russia looks to be an increasingly reluctant supplier, partly because of production pressures due to heightened domestic requirements, but also because of China's rising international sales competitiveness. Such reticence could seriously impede Beijing's push to upgrade its air force with J-10, J-11, J-15 and J-20 fighters — the last of these a fifth-generation fighter under development, with Moscow seemingly hesitant to provide the 117S engine it needs for sufficient power.

“We estimate that, based on current knowledge and assuming no major setbacks or loss of mission focus, China will need two to three years before it achieves comprehensive capabilities commensurate with the aggregate inputs in the jet engine sector and five to 10 years before it is able to consistently mass produce top-notch turbofan engines for a fifth-generation type fighter,” said the study.

“If China's engine-makers can attain the technical capability level that United States manufacturers had 20 years ago, it will be able to power its fourth-generation and fifth-generation aircraft with domestically made engines. These developments would be vital in cementing China as a formidable regional air power and deserve close attention from policymakers.”

Collins and Erickson characterize China's inability to domestically mass produce advanced jet engines of consistent quality as an enduring Achilles' heel in its military aerospace sector. And there are important strategic and commercial implications inherent in overcoming this problem.

Presumably, if more priorities arise, doing so through AVIC's new initiative may also provide lessons that could be applied to ground and naval platforms.

“...cannot build a top-end aircraft engine.”

I’m a little shocked by this statement. I figured with all the help they received from Bill Clinton, GWB, and Obama, they would have been able to steal or buy a complete set of plans to build one already. /s

China has most of what they have because they stole it from us. So when you look behind the green curtain you notice a lack of ability to innovate and quality control problems. A great deal of Chinese ‘industry’ is literally done in the living rooms of people’s houses.

As a side note, even with all our regulation it’s still cheaper to produce in the U.S., when you consider the cost of rework. Most bean counters won’t deal with that, because moving to China is a bury and forget proposition for them.

You can copy stuff all day long, but if you don’t really understand the engineering and technology that goes into it or know how to stress test the final product, you’re just not going to be able produce something as sophisticated as a jet engine out of the blue.

“China can send a man into space and a rocket into lunar orbit but, paradoxically, its defense industry cannot build a top-end aircraft engine.”

Ironic, given the utter amount of tech espionage they have done. Reverse engineering failure or simply karma finding its way back to biting their collective asses? /s =.=

““The Chinese aerospace industry is driven by four strategic imperatives as it pursues the ability to manufacture large volumes of high-performance aircraft engines — parts dependence avoidance, Russian supply unwillingness, aircraft sales autonomy and poor Russian after-sales service,” the authors state.

Re: “parts dependence avoidance”. Why then is the US contracting out many vital, strategic computer components as well as certain metals and vital electronic components to the ChiComs? Why are we not doing the same as they?

The culture of the ‘producer’ has everything to do with the quality they create. For instance, look at firearms produced by Germany.

I’ve never been to China, but if Harbor Freight’s tools are examples of Chinese superiority...

I was in a project meeting in the early 90’s which started out with the project manager saying, “This is not to go out of this room.” The topic was about the inability of an American manufacturer to deliver a large gas turbine whose blades had the necessary life expected by the customer.

Project management made the decision to ship the engine with faulty blades. The ceramic coating that protected the blades failed testing. We were told any problems, surprise, surprise would be taken care of by the warranty. That was for a 200 megawatt industrial engine. That was with world class managment and quality control. Now imagine that scenario with an aircraft engine. Can you imagine telling a pilot don’t worry about the engine coming apart. It’s covered by warranty? That’s where the Chinese are.

Quite true. Designing and manufacturing first rate modern military jet engines is notoriously difficult and requires a range of sophisticated skills and technologies that depend on accumulated shop expertise.

Despite wide scale theft and copying of foreign military technology, China will have to spend substantial money and years to catch up to the current state of the art. By then, we are likely to have developed new technologies and higher levels of performance.

Even Russia can help little as their military technological base is disintegrating due to corruption, mismanagement, and lack of investment and sales.

There are photographic evidences of J11-B, J15 being powered by China's indigenously developed WS-10(which is not a knock-off of AL-31). And many believe that the engine being used in J20’s test flights is indeed a variant of WS-10(WS-10B?), although this claim remains controversial. It's also said that later batches of J10-B will be powered by WS-10, which remains to be seen.

The next generation of high performance turbofan engine WS-15 is already in the pipeline and is on schedule to enter service in line with J20.

The latest import of Al-31 is used as 1)replacement for worn-out ones on J10-A. J11-A, and Su27/30; 2)make up for the production shortfall of WS-10, of which the production volume is still constrainted by certain bottle necks.

WS-10 has had its fair share of problems, at the height of its trouble all the J11-B built to accommodate the engine had to be grounded, and hence bestowed upon them the dubious honour of being China's hangar queen. But WS-10’s darkest days is already behind it, as per its current wide application on chinese military aircrafts. Despite its tumultuous beginning, the development of WS-10 is consistent with the bathtub curve and not dissimilar to the early troubles encountered by the F-100 series.

In WWII, the Americans licensed the Rolls Royce Merlin engine for the P-51 Mustang. Not that we couldn't build it here, but the home grown engines didn't result in the superior performance of the British design.

That being said, China's issue with the construction of such engines is a function of time, not will. They don't care about licensing or other "formalities".

Having lived and worked in the Orient I also have to note that the culture of “saving face” ultimately works against efficiency and safety, as it isn’t considered acceptable to openly discuss problems and failings. If you can’t name the problem, you can’t come up with the solution. We see that in play right now in Japan’s nuclear catastrophe—nothing but failure to address problems and covering up the degree of damage. It extends down to the family level with story after story of families not even telling the children when one of the parents has died!

<<< I figured with all the help they received from Bill Clinton, GWB, and Obama, they would have been able to steal or buy a complete set of plans to build one already.>>>

:) When you are filthy rich, why steal, or copy, when people from all corners of the globe are practically “kneeling and begging”, yes “literally keeling and begging”, in front of your door step with the hopes of being picked the one to strike a business deal with you?

The purchase doesn’t necessary mean anything. All it mean is that [while Medvedev gets his wish (putting Russia’s hands in some of that RMB) fulfilled]; the ChiCom’s on the other hand likely took advantage of the situation [to speedy d’Gonzales up their “JL-15” advance jet trainers program] meaning: the “JL-15” is likely heading into the serial production phases and from there — “the revenue generating export phases”.

Bottom line: the ChiComs as well as the Americans, they are neither commies nor are they capitalist pigs, they are, in all truth, but just filthy business people. And, as business people, their principle object is the bottom line and, and [I don’t see any fine line in the that bottom line] which says this sum or product has to be, or must be, of a certain source!”

True. But still, the gap will be closed, and I don't think anybody really doubts it (even those who are openly sceptical). If you look at the whole spectrum of industry, China is ahead of Russia. Except in military. This is due to the arms embargo on China. This doesn't prevent China from catching up with Russia or even the West, it just means it'll take longer.

Short of going to war, the embargo might actually turn out to be a blessing in diguise as it forces China to put the R&D infrastructure in place. Albeit, at the moment, requires help from Russia. And Europe may someday lift the embargo and have access to European technology. And it may have been beneficial, in hindsight, to have that embargo in place first.

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