BASIC GAS TURBINE

Types of Gas Turbine Engines

TYPES OF

GAS TURBINE ENGINES

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines
TURBOJET ENGINE
If an aircraft gas turbine engine uses only the thrust developed within the engine to
produce its propulsive force, it is a turbojet engine. Because they have no added
feature such as a fan, propeller or free turbine, turbojets are sometimes referred to
as straight jets.
Two kinds: -> Centrifugal flow compressor type
-> Axial flow compressor type
Either type can have one or more compressors and in some engines, both a
centrifugal compressor and an axial flow compressor are incorporated.

Because the efficiency of a turbojet is sustained at high altitude and airspeed,

engine of this type are well suited for high flying, high-speed aircraft that operate
over a sufficient range to make the climb to their best operating altitude
worthwhile.
But, high thrust at low airspeed is not a turbojet characteristics.
To be at their best, turbojets need the ram air pressure at their inlet that comes
only with an appreciable forward speed. Turbojet powered aircraft therefore need
long runways for takeoff.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

Schematic diagram showing the operation of a centrifugal flow turbojet

engine. The compressor is driven via the turbine stage and throws the air
outwards, requiring it to be redirected parallel to the axis of thrust.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

Schematic diagram showing the operation of an axial flow turbojet engine.

Here, the compressor is again driven by the turbine, but the air flow
remains parallel to the axis of thrust.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

An afterburner or "reheat jetpipe" is a device added to the rear of the jet

engine. It provides a means of spraying fuel directly into the hot exhaust,
where it ignites and boosts available thrust significantly; a drawback is its
very high fuel consumption rate. Afterburners are used mostly on military
aircraft, but the two supersonic civilian transports, Concorde and the TU-
144, also utilized afterburners
An afterburner (or reheat) is an additional component added to some jet
engines, primarily those on military supersonic aircraft. Its purpose is to
provide a temporary increase in thrust, both for supersonic flight and for
takeoff (as the high wing loading typical of supersonic aircraft designs means
that take-off speed is very high). On military aircraft the extra thrust is also
useful for combat situations. This is achieved by injecting additional fuel into
the jet pipe downstream (i.e. after) of the turbine. The advantage of
afterburning is significantly increased thrust; the disadvantage is its very high
fuel consumption and inefficiency, though this is often regarded as acceptable
for the short periods during which it is usually used.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines
Turboprop engines are a type
of aircraft power plant that use a
gas turbine to drive a propeller.
The gas turbine is designed
specifically for this application,
with almost all of its output
being used to drive the
propeller. The engine's exhaust
gases contain little energy
compared to a jet engine and
play a minor role in the
propulsion of the aircraft.
The propeller is coupled to the turbine through a reduction gear that
converts the high RPM, low torque output to low RPM, high torque. The
propeller itself is normally a constant speed (variable pitch) type similar to
that used with larger reciprocating aircraft engines.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

Turboprops are very efficient at modest flight speeds (below 450 mph)
because the jet velocity of the propeller (and exhaust) is relatively low. Due
to the high price of turboprop engines, they are mostly used where high-
performance short-takeoff and landing (STOL) capability and efficiency at
modest flight speeds are required. In a civilian aviation context, the most
common application of turboprop engines is in small commuter aircraft,
where their greater reliability as compared to reciprocating engines offsets
their higher initial cost.
Turboprop engines are gas-turbine engines that deliver almost all of their
power to a shaft to drive a propeller. Turboprops remain popular on very
small or slow aircraft, such as small commuter airliners, and military
transports, such as the C-130 Hercules and P-3 Orion.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

Turboprops have a fairly strict sweet spot at speeds below about 450 mph
(700 km/h). The reason is that all propellers lose efficiency at high speed,
due to an effect known as wave drag that occurs just below supersonic
speeds. This powerful form of drag has a sudden onset, and led to the
concept of a sound barrier when it was first encountered in the 1940s. In
the case of a propeller, this effect can happen any time the prop is spun fast
enough that the tips of the prop travel near the speed of sound, even if the
aircraft is sitting still.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines
A turbofan is a type of aircraft gas turbine engine that provides propulsion
using a combination of a ducted fan and an jet exhaust nozzle. Part of the
airstream from the ducted fan passes through the core, providing oxygen to
burn fuel to create power. However, the rest of the air flow bypasses the
engine core and mixes with the faster stream from the core. The rather
slower bypass airflow produces thrust more efficiently than the high-speed
air from the core, and this reduces the specific fuel consumption.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines
Turbofans have a net exhaust speed that is much lower than a turbojet.
This makes them much more efficient at subsonic speeds than turbojets,
and somewhat more efficient at supersonic speeds up to roughly Mach1.6,
but have also been found to be efficient when used with continuous
afterburner at Mach 3 and above. However, the lower speed also reduces
thrust at high speeds.
All of the jet engines used in currently manufactured commercial jet aircraft
are turbofans. They are used commercially mainly because they are highly
efficient and relatively quiet in operation. Turbofans are also used in many
military jet aircraft.
The difference between a turbofan and a propeller, besides direct thrust, is
that the intake duct of the former slows the air before it arrives at the fan
face. As both propeller and fan blades must operate at subsonic inlet
velocities to be efficient, ducted fans allow efficient operation at higher
vehicle speeds.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines
If the turboprop is better at moderate flight speeds and the turbojet is better
at very high speeds, it might be imagined that at some speed range in the
middle a mixture of the two is best. Such an engine is the turbofan
(originally termed bypass turbojet by the inventors at Rolls Royce). Another
name sometimes used is ducted fan.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

Schematic diagram illustrating a 2-spool, low-bypass turbofan engine with a mixed

exhaust, showing the low-pressure (green) and high-pressure (purple) spools. The fan
(and booster stages) are driven by the low-pressure turbine, whereas the high-
pressure compressor is powered by the high-pressure turbine

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

An unducted fan or propfan is a modified turbofan engine, with the fan

placed outside of the engine nacelle on the same axis as the compressor
blades. Propfans are also known as ultra-high bypass (UHB) engines and,
most recently, open rotor jet engines. The design is intended to offer the
speed and performance of a turbofan, with the fuel economy of a turboprop.
The propfan concept was intended to
deliver 35% better fuel efficiency than
contemporary turbofans, and in this they
succeeded. In static and air tests on a
modified DC-9, propfans reached a 30%
improvement. This efficiency comes at a
price, as one of the major problems with
the propfan is noise, particularly in an era
where aircraft are required to comply with
increasingly strict Stage III and Stage IV
noise requirements.

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 Basic Gas
BASIC Turbine
GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

A turboshaft engine is a form of gas turbine which is optimized to produce

shaft power, rather than jet thrust. In principle, a turboshaft engine is similar to
a turbojet, except the former features additional turbine expansion to extract
heat energy from the exhaust and convert it into output shaft power.
Turboshaft engines are commonly used in applications which require a
sustained high power output, high reliability, small size and light weight. These
include helicopters, auxiliary power units, boatsand ships, tanks, hovercraft,
and stationary equipment.

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 BASIC GAS TURBINE
Types of Gas Turbine Engines

In most designs the gas generator and power section are mechanically
separate so that they may each rotate at different speeds appropriate for the
conditions. This is referred to as a free power turbine. A free power turbine can
be an extremely useful design feature for vehicles, as it allows the design to
forego the weight and cost of complex multi-ratio transmissions and clutches.
The general layout of a turboshaft is similar to that of a turboprop. The main
difference is that a turboprop is structurally designed to support the loads
created by a rotating propeller, as the propeller is not attached to anything but
the engine itself. In contrast, turboshaft engines usually drive a transmission
which is not structurally attached to the engine. The transmission is attached
to the vehicle structure and supports the loads created instead of the engine.
However, in practice many of the same engines are built in both turboprop
and turboshaft versions, with only minor differences.

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