# GE9X Turbine Engine

How GE9X jet engine's giant fan, bypass airflow, compressor, combustor and turbines work together to produce thrust\.

By merry\-heron\-ae998a1e

Topic: Machines

[Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/ZXrJ4SRjIHXD)

## Transcript

### 1. Meet the GE9X

This is the GE9X, the biggest and most powerful jet engine ever flown\. Two of them carry a Boeing 777X across oceans\. Drag anywhere to walk around it\.

Its fan is 3\.4 metres \(134 inches\) across, wider than the body of a Boeing 737\.

### 2. A fan with just 16 blades

Up front, a giant fan does most of the work\. Its 16 blades are made of carbon\-fibre composite, light and strong, with steel along their front edges\. Fewer, wider blades keep the fan light\.

The older GE90 engine used 22 fan blades\. The GE9X needs only 16\.

### 3. Most air goes around

Part of the engine is cut away so you can see inside\. Blue streaks are air the fan pushes around the core\. Orange streaks are air that goes through the hot core\. About ten parts go around for every one that goes through\.

This 10 to 1 bypass ratio is why the big fan makes most of the push, quietly and with less fuel\.

### 4. Squeezing the air

Air that enters the core is squeezed by a 3\-stage booster and then an 11\-stage compressor\. Each ring of small blades pushes the air tighter, like a pump\. The compressor alone squeezes it about 27 times\.

Counting the fan and booster too, the air ends up more than 60 times its starting pressure\.

### 5. Fire in the middle

In the combustor, fuel sprays into the squeezed air and burns in a steady ring of flame\. Its walls use a ceramic matrix composite, a material that stays strong where metal would weaken\. Fuel and air mix well first, so it burns cleanly\.

Its nitrogen oxide pollution is about 55% below the limit set by the rules\.

### 6. Turbines turn the shafts

The hot gas rushes through turbines, rows of blades that work like windmills\. A 2\-stage high\-pressure turbine spins the compressor\. A 6\-stage low\-pressure turbine turns the fan and booster through a long shaft\.

The two shafts sit one inside the other, and the fan turns more slowly than the core\.

### 7. Full power

Press Full power to open the throttle\. The fan and core spin faster, more air rushes through and the flame brightens\. Thrust is the push that moves the plane forward\.

In a test, one GE9X pushed with 134,300 pounds of force \(597 kN\), a world record\.

### 8. Lighter, cleaner flying

A huge fan, light materials and hot, clean burning make the GE9X about 10% more fuel\-efficient than the GE90\-115B before it\. Drag to look around, or revisit any step\.

One GE9X weighs about 9,600 kg \(21,000 lb\) and is about 5\.7 metres long\.