Sean McKenney

English 3302
Thomas Akbari
Unit 3 Rough Draft
2/29/2016
How a Jet Engine Works
At any given time there are over three thousand planes in the air carrying over fivehundred thousand passengers. You may have noticed the huge turbofan engines underneath the
wings of the plane as you bordered a recent flight; lets explore what makes them work and how
they get you to your destination.
The basic steps of how a jet engine generates thrust to power a plane can described in a
simple, and cheeky, mnemonic commonly used in the industry to familiarize newcomers: Suck,
Squeeze, Bang, Blow. Air is initially pulled into the intake of the engine by the spinning
compressor blades. There is a series of compressor blade stages that compress air to very high
pressure and energy. These can be looked at like a series of fans working together to pull in air
and drive it into a smaller and smaller space, increasing the pressure. This compressed air then
enters a combustor where it is mixed with fuel and ignited. Combustion adds a significantly large
amount of energy to the air, and this high energy air passes through a series of turbines at very
fast speeds. The turbines extract usable energy from the air as torque; a shaft runs the length of
the jet engine that holds both the turbine stages and the compressor stages of fan blades. Think of
turbines like pinwheels, when you pass air through them they spin, and the more pinwheels you
have in series the more energy youll be able to extract. The torque extracted by the turbine is
then used to drive the compressors at the front of the engine allowing it to continue running.

Finally the excess air is expelled from the back of the engine and provides thrust, like a rocket

You may have a few questions at this point. One obvious one, if the turbine powers the
compressor, but the turbine needs compressed air from the compressor to acquire that energy,
then how does this even begin work? To initially get a jet engine started an external power source
must power the shaft to kick start the magic balance of compression and turbine energy
extraction. Combustion kicks off around 15% of engine running speed and works with the
external power source to continue powering the jet engine. At roughly about 60% of running
speed is when the engine becomes self-sustainable to power itself purely on the fuel used to
ignite the compressed air inside.
The other question you may be wondering is, why does the air flow from intake to
exhaust, whats stopping the air from going backwards towards the lower pressure areas of the
compressor? So long as there enough air intake and fuel combustion is controlled properly then
the engine should function smoothly without this occurring. It is called a stall when this does
occur; this can occur within small subsections of the engine and usually fixes itself through

continued flow without any impact. Its when an entire section of the engine has a reverse that
seriously damaging stalls can occur. When incredibly high pressure and temperature fights
against the mechanical flow of the system it usually wins, crumpling any blades that impede it.
Two ways this occur is from a lack of air intake, such as if a plane dives or climbs at too hard of
an angle, or by not properly controlling fuel input, rapid changes in temperate will rapidly vary
pressure levels and disrupt the natural flow. Modern control systems, both electronic and
mechanical for fuel input and engine control virtually eliminate the occurrences of stalls in
modern engines.
Engines some in different design as well which are used in different applications. The
first type of engine is a Turbojet. These engines generate thrust through the incredibly fast air
exhausted from the back of the engine out of the turbine. These engines are used very often
outside of the military because they are very fuel inefficient, however their small form factor
allows them to power small jetfighter aircraft such as the Navys Super Hornet.

Engines more commonly seen are the type of engines most people are used to seeing at
the ones that power the planes they would take for a flight. These types of engines are what are
called High By-Pass Turbofans. These engines are very large in diameter and rely on thrust
generated from a large volume of air rather than incredibly fast air. More volume at a lower

speed generates the same thrust with much less fuel input. Additional mechanical energy
acquired from the turbine drive a series of fan blades in front of the compressor. The additional
air is pulled into the outer diameter by the fan blades and bypasses the compressor, combustor,
and turbine which why the engine is named as such. Low-Bypass Turbofan exists as well, but is
used primarily in military applications where a smaller form factor is needed and optimal fuel
efficiency isnt as imperative.

A Turboprop is another large form factor engine that uses the additional energy of the
turbines to drive a propeller at the front of the engine, essentially bypassing the entire engine;
these types of engines are very fuel efficient much like the larger Turbofans. Jet engines also
power helicopters, using a design called a Turboshaft. The shaft, driven by the turbines, drives
not only the compressor blades but also a gear box that then drive a propeller much like a

Turboprop engine. Turboshaft are usually a smaller form factor like Turbojets, due to the
applications they are used in.
As you can see, jet engines are quite complicated feats of engineering that are used in a
variety of different ways, each designed based around what is needed. Jet engines physics really
stretch the limits of fluid dynamics and material sciences; hopefully this article piqued your
interest to delve further into the matter behind it all.

References
Mattingly. Elements of Gas Turbine Propulsion. McGraw-Hill Education; 2005.
Traeger, Irwin. Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Technology. McGraw-Hill Education; 1995.