Rolls-Royce announced that its Derby facility in England will be the main production centre for the new Trent XWB turbofan engine that exclu...
Rolls-Royce has invested around £30 million to expand and install new equipment at the Assembly & Test Facility at Derby to meet the demand for the new engine. Over 1,500 engines has been sold to 40 customers.
RR expects the demand for the engine over the next three to four years, to be over 300 engines a year and will sustain at that level for several years. The majority of the engines will be built in Derby.
Work on the engine began in 2006 and it is ready to power the first A350 XWB aircraft to be delivered to launch customer Qatar Airways on 23 December.
The Derby facility has a workforce of about 11,000, and already manufactures engines like the Trent 900 for Airbus A380, and the Trent 1000 for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
Developed from the Trent 1000, the Trent XWB is a three-shaft turbofan with a high bypass ratio of 9.3 and its take-off thrust range varies from 75,000–97,000 lbf (330–430 kN) across the three A350-800,-900 and -1000 variants.
