General Electric · Case study
General Electric GE90
The most powerful jet engine ever flown, and the one that made composite fan blades mainstream. Built exclusively for the Boeing 777, the GE90 set a thrust record that still stands.
Architecture
The GE90 is a two-spool high-bypass turbofan built around an enormous fan — over three metres in diameter on the largest variant. Its defining innovation was the fan blade itself: swept, wide-chord and made of carbon-fibre composite rather than titanium, a first for a commercial engine and the technology that let the fan grow so large without becoming impossibly heavy.
Behind the fan sits a high-pressure-ratio core with an advanced high-pressure compressor and a cooled high-pressure turbine, giving an overall pressure ratio around forty and a bypass ratio approaching nine.
The cycle
A very high bypass ratio gives the GE90 excellent propulsive efficiency, while the high overall pressure ratio lifts thermal efficiency — the combination behind its strong long-haul fuel economy. The largest member, the GE90-115B, is certified above 110,000 pounds of thrust, a level no other turbofan has matched.
Engineering significance
The GE90 proved that composite fan blades could be safe, durable and manufacturable at scale, a lesson that flowed directly into the GEnx and LEAP. As the exclusive engine on the 777-300ER and 777-200LR, it also tied one of the most successful long-haul twins to a single powerplant family.
Applications
Boeing 777
Explore a representative turbofan cycle for this engine class in the interactive console.
Open the simulator →All figures are public-estimated and approximate, given for a representative variant; exact values vary by sub-model and rating. PropulsionLab is an educational project and is not affiliated with any engine manufacturer. Engine names are the trademarks of their respective owners.