Rolls-Royce Welland
| Welland | |
|---|---|
.JPG) |
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| A Rolls-Royce Welland restored by Aero Engines Carlisle, exhibited in Solway Aviation Museum | |
| Type | Turbojet |
| Manufacturer | Rolls-Royce |
| First run | 1942 |
| Major applications | Gloster Meteor |
| Number built | 167 |
The Rolls-Royce RB.23 Welland was Britain's first production jet engine. It entered production in 1943 for the Gloster Meteor. The name Welland is taken from the River Welland, in keeping with the Rolls-Royce policy of naming early jet engines after rivers based on the idea of continuous flow, air through the engine and water in a river.
The engine was originally developed by Frank Whittle's team at Power Jets and known as the W.2, Whittle's second design and the first intended for eventual production. Power Jets was working with Rover who referred to it as the W.2B/23. The relationship between the companies was strained due to Rover's inability to deliver working parts, and broke when Whittle learned that a team of Rover engineers led by Adrian Lombard and John Herriot had designed their own version, the W.2B/26. Fed up with Whittle, Rover handed the project to Rolls-Royce, where Stanley Hooker joined the team from Rolls' supercharger division. Hooker's experience in the design of centrifugal superchargers, along with improved metals and combustion systems, put the engine back on track and it soon entered production.
The Welland was used only for a short time. Hooker continued development of the W.2B/26, which featured an improved layout. This soon entered production as the Rolls-Royce Derwent with higher thrust ratings, and Welland-equipped Meteors were either re-engined or retired.
The W.2 was a larger version of Whittle's original design, the Whittle Supercharger Type W.1, or W.1, which flew in 1941 in the Gloster E. 28/39 experimental testbed aircraft. The centrifugal compressor used a double-sided impeller. Both engines used Whittle's "reverse flow" design, in which the combustion chambers were placed around the turbine to produce a shorter engine. This required the heated air to flow forward before reversing its direction to pass through the single-stage axial-flow turbine. For the W.2, the impeller was 19 inches (480 mm) in diameter and there were ten combustion chambers. The front face of the turbine disc was cooled with air drawn in by an auxiliary fan. The engine weighed about 850 pounds (390 kilograms).
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