Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

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Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

It is a phrase that we increasingly see as sustainability becomes part of our daily lives. Like many other leading global companies, we have an increasing role to play to unlock opportunities that will reduce the demands on our planet.

So what does reduce, reuse and recycle mean to us?

Reduce

Our products rely on exotic materials that are critical to enabling them to perform in a safe and efficient manner, for instance precious metals that include rhenium, hafnium, nickel and titanium.

By minimising the amount of materials required to manufacture our products, we have a direct impact on our consumption of raw materials. So how do we do this? One way of reducing waste is by ensuring our world-class engineers have the advanced digital tools including virtual reality, that enable them to design, test and optimise in a digital environment without the need to manufacture a single component.

Our design teams work closely with their manufacturing colleagues to ensure that the latest methods of manufacture are considered during the design phase. The result is a sustainability-driven design that enables the production of defect-free components.

We are constantly looking at ways to reduce operational disruption and unnecessary maintenance. We use advanced digital analytics to monitor millions of data points collected whilst the aircraft is flying.

We are also able to use advanced inspection techniques to view components and carry out related measurements whilst the engine is still installed on the aircraft. We can then determine if the engine can continue operation or if maintenance is necessary.

The use of virtual reality enables our engineering teams to visualise engines in three dimensions. Working collaboratively, this technology helps us to find solutions to complex design and manufacturing challenges and contribute to the reduction in use of raw materials.

Reuse

In our own home environments, we reuse items daily that over time may wear out or suffer damage, for example a puncture in a bicycle or car tyre. When this does happen, we would initially look to repair the item and only decide to replace it if the repair is not technically or economically feasible.

At Rolls-Royce we think about reuse very seriously. Our products are designed to operate for decades with minimal intervention and often in some pretty tough operating environments. Our engineers know this and therefore optimise engine designs to balance the operational lifecycles in addition to economic performance on each and every flight. When a component in one of our products is no longer performing as it should, we always look to see what repairs we can make in order to restore its functionality. These repairs can range from stripping and replacing coatings on a seal through to removing and reforming a damaged aerofoil on a compressor blisk using advanced additive manufacturing techniques.

Unscheduled removal of an engine from the airframe results in disruption to our customers, therefore being able to perform repairs or inspection within the engine to avoid removal has significant benefit– we call it ‘key-hole surgery for engines’. Under a project known as REINSTATE, as well as investigating the next generation of in-shop repairs we are also continuing our development of a range of tools to provide deployment systems that can navigate their way through a complex aero-engine safely and repeatably. Once at the desired location they are able to perform accurate inspections using miniature cameras, remove material using lasers or grinders, and in the future perhaps add material or coatings. The team will also develop new inspection and repair methods for components in the shops, and those suitable for future and electrical engines.

Recycle

Did you know that after decades of flying passengers and cargo around the globe, up to 98% of every Rolls-Royce engine, by weight, can be recycled?

For more than a decade we have been developing processes to maximise recycling opportunities. We have partnered with strategic service providers who specialise in waste metal handling and processing. Together we have created new processes to remove coatings, separate alloys and clean up the waste metals.

Every one of our manufacturing and repair facilities, in more than 100 locations around the world, is part of our Revert programme, where we recover, recycle and reuse waste metals. These can then be melted and used again in new aerospace alloys. This reduces our need for new materials, the extraction of which is expensive and has a significant environmental impact.

Unserviceable engine parts and waste metal from machining as well as castings are recovered, and then returned to our material suppliers for re-melting and reuse. Almost half of a used aero engine can now be safely recycled to a standard where the quality of the recovered material is so high the materials can be reused to make new engine components as part of a fully closed-loop recycling system. The remainder is reused as a lower grade alloy for products in other industries with less arduous requirements for materials, such as golf clubs and cars.

Our Revert programme helps us to recycle up to 98% of our gas turbine engines and return the material to a high enough standard so it can be used again within the aerospace or other safety and performance critical sectors.