COMBINED CYCLE ANALYSIS

What is ramjet ? How it works?

The term ramjet is short for ram-air compression. The ramjet is the
simplest form of a jet engine because it has no moving parts.
This kind of engine is essentially a hollow tube into which fuel is
injected, mixed with air, and burned to produce thrust.
The ramjet only works when it is already moving fast enough that the
incoming air is compressed simply by being forced into the engine.
This behaviour is called the ram effect because when a volume of air is
forced into a small space at high enough speeds, it is compressed to a
higher pressure.

What is turbojet? Why we need combined

cycle ?
Since a ramjet must already be traveling at high speeds before it will
start working, a ramjet-powered aircraft is incapable of taking off from
a runway under its own power.
That is the advantage of the turbojet, which is a member of the gas
turbine family of engines.
A turbojet operates much like a ramjet except that it does not rely
purely on the motion of the engine to compress the incoming air flow.
Instead, the turbojet contains some additional rotating machinery that
compresses incoming air and allows the engine to function during
take-off and at slow speeds

TURBO RAMJET ENGINE

How turboramjet works?

The turboramjet is a hybrid engine that essentially consists of a
turbojet mounted inside a ramjet.
The turbojet core is mounted inside a duct that contains a
combustion chamber downstream of the turbojet nozzle.
The turboramjet can be run in turbojet mode at take-off and during
low speed flight but then switch to ramjet mode to accelerate to high
Mach numbers.

OPERATION OF THE ENGINE

The operation of the engine is controlled using bypass flaps located
just downstream of the diffuser.

During low speed flight, these controllable flaps close the bypass duct
and force air directly into the compressor section of the turbojet.
During high speed flight, the flaps block the flow into the turbojet, and
the engine operates like a ramjet using the aft combustion chamber to
produce thrust

APPLICATION
During a typical SR-71 flight, the engine would start out
operating as a turbojet during take-off and while climbing to
altitude. Upon reaching high subsonic speed, the portion of
the engine downstream of the turbojet would be used as an
afterburner to accelerate the plane above the speed of sound.
Once the aircraft was traveling fast enough, the bypass flaps
would block the flow into the turbojet and the engine would
begin operating as a ramjet to accelerate to cruise speed.
The SR-71 typically flew between Mach 3 and 3.5 during
cruise flight, speeds at which the turbojet could not function
because of the temperature limitations of its turbine blades.

DESIGN APPROACH SR_71

This design approach gave the SR-71 the ability to operate from zero speed to
Mach 3+ using the best features of both the turbojet and ramjet combined into a
single engine.
Today, researchers are working on new classes of jet engines that may be able to
accomplish the same mission with a much simpler design.
Recent developments in advanced materials capable of surviving higher
temperatures may make it possible to build turbine blades that can operate beyond
Mach 4.
This technology is being explored in a program called the Revolutionary
Approach To Time Critical Long Range Strike (RATTLRS).
RATTLRS is part of the National Aerospace Initiative and is a cooperative effort
between
the
US
Navy,
US
Air
Force,
and
NASA.

AIR TURBO-ROCKET ENGINE

What is ATR?
The Air Turbo Rocket, also known as the Air Turbo Ramjet or by its
acronym, the ATR, is an airbreathing propulsion engine which
combines elements from both turbojets and rocket engines.
The ATR belongs to a general class of propulsion engines known as
Turbine-Based-Combined-Cycle, or TBCC, engines

OPERATIONS
The basic operation of the ATR is as follows.
A source of hot, high energy, fuel-rich gas is used to drive a turbine,
which in turn drives a compressor.
The compressor compresses incoming atmospheric air, like a turbojet,
which then flows into a combustion chamber, which is much like an
afterburner (or reheater) on a turbojet.
The fuel-rich gas which was used to drive the turbine also flows into
the combustion chamber. Within this combustor chamber, the
compressed air from the compressor and the fuel-rich turbine drive gas
are mixed, burned, and then expanded through a nozzle to produce
thrust.

Cont
The source of the hot, high energy fuel-rich gas is generically known
as the gas generator, and it can be configured in a number of different
ways.
The hot gas can be produced by mixing and burning a liquid or
gaseous fuel and oxidizer combination, by the use of a monopropellant gas generator, or by the burning of a solid propellant. These
configurations are known as gas-generator, or gg-cycle ATRs

 The source of the hot, high energy

fuel-rich gas is generically known as
the gas generator, and it can be
configured in a number of different
ways.
The hot gas can be produced by
mixing and burning a liquid or gaseous
fuel and oxidizer combination, by the
use of a mono-propellant gas
generator, or by the burning of a solid
propellant. These configurations are
known as gas-generator, or gg-cycle
ATRs

ATR Operating Characteristics

Although functionally very similar to the turbojet, the ATR possesses a number of
operating characteristics that are significantly different from that of the turbojet.
The fundamental difference between the ATR and the turbojet lies in the
relationship between the compressor and turbine.
In a turbojet, the turbine and the compressor are coupled thermodynamically, i.e.
power output of the turbine is the power input into the compressor, and
aerodynamically, i.e. air flow through the compressor equals airflow through the
turbine.
In the ATR, the turbine and compressor are coupled thermodynamically, but are
not coupled aerodynamically. This coupling difference is the source of the major
performance differences between the turbojet and the ATR.
It allows the ATR to fly much faster and higher than the turbojet, and to have the
highest thrust-per-unit frontal area of any airbreathing engine over its operational
speed range.

LACE
A liquid air cycle engine (LACE) is a type of spacecraft
propulsion engine that attempts to increase its efficiency by gathering
part of its oxidizer from the atmosphere. A liquid air cycle engine
uses liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel to liquefy the air.
In a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen rocket, the liquid oxygen (LOX)
needed for combustion is the majority of the weight of the spacecraft
on lift-off, so if some of this can be collected from the air on the way,
it might dramatically lower the take-off weight of the spacecraft.

Principles of operations
Conceptually, LACE works by compressing and then quickly liquefying the air.
Compression is achieved through the ram-air effect in an intake similar to that
found on a high-speed aircraft like Concorde, where intake ramps create shock
waves that compress the air.
The LACE design then blows the compressed air over a heat exchanger, in which
the liquid hydrogen fuel is flowing.
This rapidly cools the air, and the various constituents quickly liquefy. By careful
mechanical arrangement the liquid oxygen can be removed from the other parts of
the air, notably water, nitrogen and carbon dioxide, at which point the liquid
oxygen can be fed into the engine as usual.
The hydrogen is so much lighter than oxygen that the now-warmer hydrogen is
often dumped overboard instead of being re-used as fuel, at a net gain.