Rolls-Royce Dedicates Concorde’s Olympus Engine to AE

Aerospace Engineering at Illinois gained a unique part of aeronautics history when representatives from Rolls-Royce visited Thursday (September 4, 2014) to dedicate to the department one of the company’s Olympus engines used on the supersonic Concorde airliner.

Mark Rhodes, Rolls-Royce Vice President of Engineering and Technology, announced the long-term equipment loan to an audience of students, faculty, administrators and company representatives in a ceremony in Talbot Laboratory, the engine’s new home. “This particular engine had just been completely overhauled at the time of the Concorde’s retirement,” Rhodes said. “We think it can be useful here for generating interest in gas turbine engines, Rolls-Royce, and for educational and community outreach through the annual Engineering Open House.”

In conjunction with the loan of the engine, Rolls Royce has donated to the University Library more than 30 books with detailed information about the Olympus engine and Rolls-Royce products and history.

“The Olympus is a two-shaft turbojet with afterburner for takeoff and transonic acceleration, and each Concorde had four,” Rhodes told the audience. “The engine generates 32,000 pounds of thrust dry and 38,000 pounds of thrust with the afterburner operating. These engines provided the thrust which enabled the Concorde to make a typical London to New York crossing in a little less than 3 ½ hours as opposed to eight hours for a subsonic flight. By its 30th flight anniversary on March 2, 1999, Concorde had clocked up to 920,000 flight hours, with more than 600,000 supersonic, much more than all of the other supersonic aircraft in the Western world combined.”

The dedication is one way the company hopes to grow its interaction with the University of Illinois, according to Rhodes.

“We have funded research here on supersonics and are currently funding the development of an integrated engine/thermal/electrical modeling capability,” he said. “We are a customer of the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications), running advanced analyses on the world class computers here on campus. We regularly recruit top-notch talent here for our co-op, intern and graduate development programs, as well as standard full-time positions.

“In addition, we are a Corporate Partner of the Illinois Leadership Center and support making leadership development available to students who are willing to challenge themselves to be better leaders,” Rhodes continued.

Andreas Cangellaris, Dean of the College of Engineering at Illinois, and Philippe Geubelle, AE Department Head and Bliss Professor in Engineering, both thanked Rhodes and Rolls-Royce for the Olympus. Geubelle took the opportunity to announce the creation of a new student organization, the Illini Aerospace Outreach, formed to support AE departmental outreach activities and maintain and improve the Olympus display.

In addition to attending the dedication, Rolls-Royce representatives also visited the National Petascale Computing Facility and the Illinois Leadership Center in the Illini Union while they were on campus.