Gas Turbine Engine for Jet Propulsion
Following figure shows of gas turbine engine of an aircraft. In order
to make the flight move forward this engine should produce a force in
forward direction.
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| Fig.1 Jet force required by aircraft is produced by a gas turbine engine |
This force is produced by jet effect of this exit fluid. When a high
velocity fluid is ejected from aircraft engine it will produce a
reaction force which will power the aircraft flight. This force is known
as jet force. By applying Newton’s 2nd law of motion to jet engine
control volume, one can easily deduce magnitude this jet force as
follows.
It is momentum out minus momentum in. So if jet velocity is high it
means high thrust force! This is why exit portion of a jet engine has
decreasing area, assuming the flow is subsonic. Or the exit portion acts
like nozzle which increase jet velocity.
Continuous Production of High Velocity Jet
If we can produce high velocity jet continuously, the engine will be
continuous jet force. We will produce this by a combustion process, by
injecting fuel into air. This will produce flames with very high
velocity.
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| Fig.2 Combustion produces flames at high energy, which is then transformed to high velocity flames |
But for a sustainable combustion process we need the inlet air to the combustion chamber to be at high temperature and pressure.
Use of Compressor
Surrounding air is brought to high temperature and pressure state
with help of diffuser plus compressor arrangement. Air gets into the
engine by forward motion of engine and sucking effect of compressor.
Diffuser increases pressure and temperature of the fluid to some extent
by converting some part of kinetic energy. After that compressor comes
where both pressure and temperature of the air is raised by by energy
supply from compressor.
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| Fig.3 Diffuser and compressor together raise pressure and temperature of the incoming air |
So at outlet of the compressor we will have air at high pressure and
temperature. But compressor requires some power input to do this
compression process.
Turbine - A Source of Power to Compressor
Power required compressor is given by a turbine which is situated
right after the combustion chamber. The turbine absorbs some amount of
energy from the high energy fluid and transmits it to the compressor.
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| Fig.4 The complete gas turbine, which is self sustainable in operation |
Nozzle - Production of High Velocity Jet
Now the fluid with high energy can be expanded in a nozzle section to
produce a high velocity jet.In nozzle air will expand to surrounding
pressure. Thus the process of producing high velocity jet at outlet has
become a self sustainable. We will get continuous supply of high
velocity jet and thrust force to this aircraft, thanks to synchronized
working of all these components.
Thermal Cycle of Gas Turbine - Brayton Cycle
Variation of state of fluid from inlet to exit of gas turbine engine
is shown in Fig.5 in a T-s diagram. Point 1 is the inlet condition of a
gas turbine engine, which is same as state of surrounding air. Due to
diffuser effect pressure and temperature of the fluid increases
slightly, entropy remains same assuming this is an adiabatic reversible
process (1-2). Next in compressor stage also same process continues,
temperature and pressure rise to a level where combustion process is
sustainable (2-3). Now fuel injection and heat addition to the fluid,
this process happens almost at constant pressure, here pressure raises
to very high level (3-4). Right after that, turbine will absorb some
amount energy which is required by the compressor. So here temperature
and pressure of the fluid comes down (4-5). Now the last section, which
produces high velocity jet. This is again a constant entropy process,
where internal energy of the fluid gets converted into kinetic energy.
Here pressure expands to the surrounding pressure (5-6).
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| Fig.5 Variation of state of fluid as it executes Brayton cycle |
It should be noted here that the exit stream never go back to the
inlet condition, at inlet it sucks fresh steam of air in. So this is an
open cycle process, but since both this points are having same pressure
we can assume pseudo constant pressure process (6-1) in between in
order to complete the cycle.
