What Do Jet Engines And LED Light Bulbs Have In Common?

It's not the setup for a joke. Jets and light bulbs really do have something in common now that GE is using jet engine cooling mechanisms inside bright, lightweight, low-energy LED bulbs. You'll just have to wait to buy them.

What do jet engines and LED light bulbs have in common? They both can overheat without proper cooling mechanisms. But while jet engines are highly effective at staying cool, LED technology is still in its infancy. So GE decided to stick jet engine cooling mechanisms inside LED bulbs. The result: a lightweight 1500-lumen LED bulb that produces as much light as a 100-watt halogen bulb while using a third of the energy.



Better cooling mechanisms also lower the amount of LED chips used in a bulb - which in turn, lowers the bulb's cost and weight. "Today, the cost of LEDs constitutes over 75 per cent of the cost of the system," says Mehmet Arik, a mechanical engineer and GE's principal investigator on the LED project. "If we reduce the number of LEDs, the cost will drop."  Arik's 1500-lumen bulb is actually half the size and weight of the 600-lumen LED bulb available today.

GE's jet engine-inspired technology isn't ready for commercialisation - yet. "We'll have more reliability testing in the coming months," says Todd Alhart, a GE Global Research spokesman. "But this is a tech platform that could support a number of LED products in the future."


Trending Stories Right Now