
Turbomeca plans to reduce the specific fuel consumption (SFC) of its turboshaft engines by 37 percent by 2030, and at the Helitech 2011 show discussed the strategies it is implementing to accomplish that change. While the company plans to make changes to the engine machinery, it expects much of the reduction to come from engine-airframe integration and new practices that make more efficient use of the engine.
In the last 20 years, the engine manufacturer has made relatively little progress in SFC reduction (15 percent), said senior v-p for product and market strategy Charles Claveau. The limited SFC reduction is the result of a scale effect, he explained. “When you want to cut the SFC, you increase the pressure ratio. This means you head for a smaller last stage in the compressor. At some point, you simply cannot manufacture the tiny blades you would like to,” he said.