Turbofan – Introduction


1 – Introduction 

2  – Aerodinamic for compressible gas  – Basic principles

3  – Performance of Jet Engine 

4  – Turbogas cycle 

5  – Turbofan 

    5.1 Turbofan with separated flows 

    5.2 Turbofan with associated flows

6 – Combustion chamber

7 – Inlet

8 – Nozzle 

9 – Turbine Engine

 

 

1 – Introduction

Most modern jet engines are turbofans. The low pressure compressor(LPC), usually known as a fan, compresses air into a bypass duct whilst its inner portion supercharges the core compressor. The fan is often an integral part of a multi-stage core LPC. The bypass airflow either passes to a separate ‘cold nozzle’ or mixes with low pressure turbine exhaust gases, before expanding through a ‘mixed flow nozzle’.

In the 1960s there was little difference between civil and military jet engines, apart from the use of afterburning in some (supersonic) applications. Today, turbofans are used for airliners because they have an exhaust speed that is better matched to the subsonic flight speed of the airliner. At airliner flight speeds, the exhaust speed from a turbojet engine is excessively high and wastes energy. The lower exhaust speed from a turbofan gives better fuel consumption. The increased airflow from the fan gives higher thrust at low speeds. The lower exhaust speed also gives much lower jet noise.

Thus civil turbofans today have a low specific thrust (net thrust divided by airflow) to keep jet noise to a minimum and to improve fuel efficiency. Consequently the bypass ratio(bypass flow divided by core flow) is relatively high (ratios from 4:1 up to 8:1 are common). Only a single fan stage is required, because a low specific thrust implies a low fan pressure ratio.

Military turbofans, however, have a relatively high specific thrust, to maximize the thrust for a given frontal area, jet noise being of less concern in military uses relative to civil uses. Multistage fans are normally needed to reach the relatively high fan pressure ratio needed for high specific thrust. Although high turbine inlet temperatures are often employed, the bypass ratio tends to be low, usually significantly less than 2.0.

The earliest attempts at airbreathing jet engines were hybrid designs in which an external power source first compressed air, which was then mixed with fuel and burned for jet thrust. In one such system, called a thermojet by Secondo Campini but more commonly, motorjet, the air was compressed by a fan driven by a conventional piston engine.

By the 1950s the jet engine was almost universal in combat aircraft, with the exception of cargo, liaison and other specialty types. By this point some of the British designs were already cleared for civilian use, and had appeared on early models like the de Havilland Comet and Avro Canada Jetliner. By the 1960s all large civilian aircraft were also jet powered, leaving the piston engine in low-cost niche roles such as cargo flights.

The efficiency of turbojet engines was still rather worse than piston engines, but by the 1970s, with the advent of high-bypass turbofan jet engines, fuel efficiency was about the same as the best piston and propeller engines.

220px-Turbofan3_Unlabelled (1)

Fig 1 Turbofan

Fig 2 Turbofan scheme

Fig 2 Turbofan scheme



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