What happens if you toss sand into a jet engine? Derek Muller takes you on a whirlwind tour of compressor stages, burner cans and turbine disks to show how a jet engine squeezes air, burns fuel and spins blades so hot they’d otherwise melt. You’ll peek inside Rolls-Royce’s precision-casting foundry, learn how single-crystal nickel-based superalloys (aka “gamma-prime”) and clever crystal-growth tricks stop edge dislocations in their tracks, and discover why modern turbine blades can survive 1,000 °C+.
Then comes the grand finale: sand meets spinning turbine. Watch abrasive grains gouge protective coatings, fuse into glassy gunk and cripple engine performance in seconds. It’s a crash course in high-tech materials science—plus a dramatic reminder that even the mightiest jet engine has its kryptonite.
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