Why don’t jet engines melt? This Veritasium episode breaks down how compressors, combustors and turbines work, why engines are so massive, and even includes a sand‐ingestion demo to prove those blades survive gritty, high-heat conditions. Plus, Derek Muller tours Rolls-Royce’s precision-casting facility and revisits the first jet engine’s origins.
The real secret is in the metallurgy: nickel-based superalloys packed with gamma-prime precipitates, single-crystal casting, built-in cooling channels and thermal barrier coatings. These crystal-structure and microstructure tricks pin dislocations and boost creep resistance, so turbine blades stay solid even at temperatures hot enough to melt ordinary metals.
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