What happens if you throw sand into a jet engine?

In this Veritasium deep-dive, Derek Muller and team start by unpacking the basics of jet engines—how they work, why they’re so massive and complex, and what goes on inside every compressor, turbine and combustion chamber. Along the way they tour Rolls-Royce’s precision casting facility, trace the history of the first engines, and get hands-on with animations that reveal edge dislocations and crystal structures in play.

The real star, though, is the materials science: from nickel-based superalloys (γ′ precipitates and all) to single-crystal turbine blades engineered to resist melting at 1,500 °C. After showing why these marvels don’t liquefy, they wrap up with the ultimate durability test—hurling sand straight into a running jet engine to see what happens.

Watch on YouTube