Advanced aircraft engines

Jet, ramjet and detonation engines for aircraft.

China leads advanced aircraft engines research, with 64.6% of the 10% most cited papers published 2021–2025; the United States is second with 4.9%.

FirstChina64.6%

SecondUnited States4.9%

13.1×lead, by share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025

Highlight a country

Standings

1CNChina64.6%2USUnited States4.9%3GBUnited Kingdom4.3%4INIndia2.8%5–6TRTurkey2.0%5–6DEGermany2.0%7–11FRFrance1.3%7–11PLPoland1.3%7–11KRSouth Korea1.3%7–11CACanada1.2%

Share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025; 340 papers. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Year by year

About 68 papers a year. Single-year moves are noise.

China

Everyone else, on a larger scale

Share of the 10% most cited papers published in each year. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Inside the field

Always the top 10%Pilot

Each paper sorted into one sub-area by an AI model reading its title and abstract, then credited as usual. On 200 hand-labelled papers it chose the same sub-area, or a defensible second, 92% of the time.

Sub-area	Papers	First	Second	Third
Rotor dynamics, blade vibration and structural integrity	63	CNChina86.1%	GBUnited Kingdom1.7%	INIndia1.6%
Rotating and oblique detonation engines	62	CNChina82.1%	USUnited States8.1%	JPJapan3.2%
Thermal barrier and protective coatings	34	CNChina77.1%	PLPoland5.0%	TRTurkey2.9%
Hydrogen, sustainable fuels and emissions (incl. contrails)	31	DEGermany14.6%	GBUnited Kingdom12.3%	CHSwitzerland10.1%
Superalloys and high-temperature engine materials	27	CNChina73.8%	INIndia11.1%	GBUnited Kingdom4.1%
Engine control, health monitoring and performance modelling	26	CNChina72.3%	TRTurkey14.1%	IRIran6.7%
Combustors and combustion instability	25	CNChina44.3%	USUnited States12.7%	NZNew Zealand9.2%
Turbine cooling and heat transfer	17	CNChina76.6%	VNVietnam2.4%	KRSouth Korea2.4%
Propulsion integration and hybrid-electric aircraft	15	CNChina40.0%	GBUnited Kingdom28.9%	CACanada7.8%

Share of each sub-area's papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Earlier and recent

The same top 10%, split into 2021–2023 and 2024–2025.

FallingRising2021–20232024–2025Change

CNChina 62.6%66.6%+4.0 pts

USUnited States 7.0%2.8%−4.3 pts

GBUnited Kingdom 5.0%3.5%−1.6 pts

INIndia 4.5%1.1%−3.5 pts

TRTurkey 2.8%1.2%−1.6 pts

DEGermany 1.6%2.5%+0.9 pts

FRFrance 0.5%2.2%+1.7 pts

PLPoland 0.6%2.1%+1.5 pts

Greyed rows rest on fewer than five papers of credit in one period.

Share of the 10% most cited papers: 173 papers in 2021–2023, 167 in 2024–2025. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

2026 so far: a different count

Not the most cited papers: every 2026 paper matched so far (865), and a paper counts in full for each country on it. This year's papers are too new to rank by citations, so these shares cannot be compared with the ones above.

CNChina72.3%of 2026 papers have an author here
USUnited States6.4%of 2026 papers have an author here
GBUnited Kingdom4.2%of 2026 papers have an author here
DEGermany2.5%of 2026 papers have an author here
KRSouth Korea2.0%of 2026 papers have an author here

With home citations removed

Home bias removed

Removes only the home citations above what the country's share of the field predicts. This is the fair test.

All citationsBias removedAll citationsBias removed

CNChina 64.6%63.4%

USUnited States 4.9%3.4%

GBUnited Kingdom 4.3%4.1%

INIndia 2.8%2.5%

TRTurkey 2.0%2.3%

DEGermany 2.0%1.6%

Every home citation removed

Removes all citations from a paper's own countries. A country that writes most of a field loses most, whatever its habits.

All citationsForeign onlyAll citationsForeign only

CNChina 64.6%19.4%

USUnited States 4.9%10.8%

GBUnited Kingdom 4.3%9.9%

INIndia 2.8%4.3%

TRTurkey 2.0%4.2%

DEGermany 2.0%5.8%

Share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025; 340 papers in each version; both panels on the same scale. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Who cites the top papers

How much more often a country's top papers are cited from home than its size predicts. Expected is the country's share of all papers in the field; the bar is the excess, in percentage points. Home citers include authors citing their own earlier work.

HomeExpectedExcess

CNChina 82.2%58.6%+23.6

USUnited States 34.7%7.1%+27.6

GBUnited Kingdom 32.9%7.2%+25.7

INIndia 24.7%4.0%+20.7

TRTurkey 27.4%2.0%+25.4

DEGermany 58.5%5.4%+53.1

PLPoland 17.7%1.7%+16.0

Every paper in the top 10%, counted once per citing paper. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Behind the share

Institutions with the most credit

1CNNanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics6.1%
2CNBeihang University5.0%
3CNNorthwestern Polytechnical University4.6%
4CNNortheastern University4.2%
5CNXi'an Jiaotong University3.7%
6CNNational University of Defense Technology2.6%
7CNPeking University2.5%
8CNShanghai Jiao Tong University2.3%
9CNHarbin Institute of Technology2.0%
10CNChinese Academy of SciencesGovernment lab1.9%

Share of the top 10%. Institutions across all 45 technologies

Who does the work

Sector	All	CN	US	GB
Universities	81.9%	85.5%	79.4%	86.0%
Research facilities	11.0%	7.5%	14.6%	0%
Government labs	3.9%	4.1%	0.1%	0%
Companies	3.1%	2.9%	5.9%	14.0%

Share of credit by type of institution, overall and for the three leading countries.

Across borders

16.5% of the top 10% have authors in more than one country.

CNHKChina with Hong Kong6
CNUSChina with United States5
CNNZChina with New Zealand4
CNGBChina with United Kingdom4
CAUSCanada with United States3

Most frequent pairings, by number of shared papers.

The papers behind the numbers

The five most cited papers this definition catches. If one looks out of place, the definition needs work.

Progress in ceramic materials and structure design toward advanced thermal barrier coatings
Journal of Advanced Ceramics, 2022CN
444citations
Hydrogen-powered aircraft: Fundamental concepts, key technologies, and environmental impacts
Progress in Aerospace Sciences, 2023US
328citations
An overview on welding of Inconel 718 alloy - Effect of welding processes on microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of joints
Materials Characterization, 2021IN
221citations
Rare-earth tantalates for next-generation thermal barrier coatings
Progress in Materials Science, 2024CN
170citations
Combustor technology of high temperature rise for aero engine
Progress in Aerospace Sciences, 2023CN
165citations

How this technology is defined

A paper counts if its title or abstract matches the search below. Articles in core journals and proceedings only; retracted papers are excluded.

aeroengine OR "aero-engine" OR "aircraft engine" OR turbofan OR turbojet OR ramjet OR "jet engine" OR "detonation engine" OR "combined cycle engine"

and its main topic in OpenAlex is one of: Turbomachinery Performance and Optimization; Combustion and Detonation Processes; Combustion and flame dynamics; Bladed Disk Vibration Dynamics; High-Temperature Coating Behaviors; Advanced Aircraft Design and Technologies; High Temperature Alloys and Creep; Aerospace Engineering and Applications; Aerodynamics and Acoustics in Jet Flows; Computational Fluid Dynamics and Aerodynamics. The topic check removes papers that only mention the technology.

Papers matched, 2021–2025: 3,383
In the top 10%: 340
In the top 1%: 37
Countries with credit: 47
Credit with no known country: 5.0%

Every one of the 443 most cited papers was checked for relevance; 29 were left out as not about advanced aircraft engines

The most cited of those left out:

The More-Electric Aircraft and Beyond221 citations
Structure and dynamics of highly turbulent premixed combustion109 citations
Global aviation contrail climate effects from 2019 to 202199 citations
Characterizing modal exponential growth behaviors of self-excited transverse and longitudinal thermoacoustic instabilities93 citations
The Portevin-Le Chatelier effect in nickel-base superalloys: Origins, consequences and comparison to strain ageing in other alloy systems92 citations
Effect of Re on mechanical properties of single crystal Ni-based superalloys: Insights from first-principle and molecular dynamics66 citations
A review and progress of multiphase flows in atmospheric and low pressure plasma spray advanced coating61 citations
Review of Microstructure–Mechanical Property Relationships in Cast and Wrought Ni‐Based Superalloys with Boron, Carbon, and Zirconium Microalloying Additions59 citations
On the detailed morphological and chemical evolution of phases during laser powder bed fusion and common post-processing heat treatments of IN71859 citations
Effect of Co on creep and stress rupture properties of nickel-based superalloys – A review59 citations
High-temperature oxidation and erosion of HVOF sprayed NiCrSiB/Al2O3 and NiCrSiB/WC Co coatings58 citations
Tension-compression asymmetry of nickel-based superalloys: A focused review57 citations

Definition version 0.5, pilot. It is a plain text file: copy it, change it, rerun it.

Read the method