What is an Aircraft Engine?

Aircraft engines move the airplane forward with a great force that is produced
by a tremendous thrust and causes the plane to fly very fast. The engine sucks
air in at the front with a fan.

How does an Aircraft Engine work?

A compressor raises the pressure of the air. The compressor is made with
many blades attached to a shaft. The blades spin at high speed and compress
or squeeze the air. The compressed air is then sprayed with fuel and an
electric spark lights the mixture. The burning gases expand and blast out
through the nozzle, at the back of the engine. As the jets of gas shoot
backward, the engine and the aircraft are thrust forward. As the hot air is
going to the nozzle, it passes through another group of blades called the
turbine. The turbine is attached to the same shaft as the compressor.
Spinning the turbine causes the compressor to spin.

This image shows how the air flows through the engine. The air goes through
the core of the engine as well as around the core, causing some of the air to
be very hot and some to be cooler. The cooler air then mixes with the hot air
at the engine exit area.
Parts of an Engine

1. Fan - The large spinning fan sucks in large quantities of air. It then
speeds this air up and splits it into two parts. One part continues
through the "core" or center of the engine, the second part "bypasses"
the core of the engine, where it produces much of the force that propels
the airplane forward.

2. Compressor - The compressor squeezes the air that enters it into

progressively smaller areas, resulting in an increase in the air pressure.
The squashed air is forced into the combustion chamber.

3. Combustor - In the combustor the air is mixed with fuel and then ignited.
The mixture of air and fuel catches fire. The fuel burns with the oxygen
in the compressed air, producing hot expanding gases.

4. Turbine - The gases produced in the combustion chamber move

through the turbine and spin its blades. The turbines of the jet spin
around thousands of times. They are fixed on shafts which have several
sets of ball-bearing in between them.

5. Nozzle - The nozzle is the exhaust duct of the engine. The combination
of the hot air and cold air are expelled and produce an exhaust, which
causes a forward thrust.
Aircraft Engine related parameters

Following are some of the critical parameters related to aircraft engines

1. Flight speed

2. Exhaust speed

3. Air mass flow rate

4. Flight altitude

5. Propulsive efficiency

6. Thermal efficiency

7. Overall efficiency

8. Specific impulse

9. Takeoff thrust

10. Thrust specific fuel consumption

Types of Aircraft Engines

1. Turbojets

2. Turboprops

3. Turbofans

4. Turboshafts

5. Ramjets
Turbojet

The first and simplest type of gas turbine is the turbojet.

A turbojet engine is a jet engine which produces all of its thrust by ejecting a
high energy gas stream from the engine exhaust nozzle. 100% of the air
entering the intake of a turbojet engine goes through the engine core.

The component parts of a turbojet engine are the inlet, the gas turbine engine,
consisting of a compressor, a combustion chamber and a turbine, and the
exhaust nozzle.

The air that is taken in from an opening in the front of the engine is
compressed to 3 to 12 times its original pressure in compressor. Fuel is
added to the air and burned in a combustion chamber to raise the
temperature of the fluid mixture to about 1,100°F to 1,300° F. The resulting
hot air is passed through a turbine, which drives the compressor.

The pressure at the turbine discharge will be nearly twice the atmospheric
pressure, if the turbine and compressor are efficient, and this excess
pressure is sent to the nozzle to produce a high-velocity stream of gas which
produces a thrust. Substantial increases in thrust can be obtained by
employing an afterburner.
An afterburner is a second combustion chamber positioned after the turbine
and before the nozzle. It increases the temperature of the gas ahead of the
nozzle. This results in an increase of about 40 percent in thrust at takeoff and
a much larger percentage at high speeds once the plane is in the air.

The turbojet engine is a reaction engine. In a reaction engine, expanding

gases push hard against the front of the engine. The turbojet sucks in air and
compresses or squeezes it. The gases flow through the turbine and make it
spin. These gases bounce back and shoot out of the rear of the exhaust,
pushing the plane forward.

The B-52A had eight Pratt and Whitney J-57 turbojets, each of which could produce about 10,000 pounds of
thrust.
Turboprops

A turboprop engine is a jet engine attached to a propeller. The turbine at the

back is turned by the hot gases, and this turns a shaft that drives the
propeller. Some small airliners and transport aircraft are powered by
turboprops.

The turboprop uses a gas turbine core to turn a propeller. Propeller

engines develop thrust by moving a large mass of air through a small change
in velocity. Propellers are very efficient and can use nearly any kind of engine
to turn the prop.

Like the turbojet, the turboprop engine consists of a compressor, combustion

chamber, and turbine. The air and gas pressure are used to run the turbine,
which then creates power to drive the compressor.

The core is very similar to a basic turbojet except that instead of expanding
all the hot exhaust through the nozzle to produce thrust, most of the energy
of the exhaust is used to turn the turbine. The exhaust velocity of a turboprop
is low and contributes little thrust because most of the energy of the core
exhaust has gone into turning the drive shaft.
Compared with a turbojet engine, the turboprop has better propulsion
efficiency at flight speeds below about 500 miles per hour. Modern turboprop
engines are equipped with propellers that have a smaller diameter but a
larger number of blades for efficient operation at much higher flight speeds.
To accommodate the higher flight speeds, the blades are scimitar-shaped
with swept-back leading edges at the blade tips. Engines featuring such
propellers are called propfans.

Since propeller-driven planes fly more slowly, they waste less energy fighting
drag (air resistance), and that makes them very efficient for use in workhorse
cargo planes and other small, light aircraft. However, propellers themselves
create a lot of air resistance, which is one reason why turbofans were
developed.

The M28 is twin-engine turboprop

aircraft designed for short take-off
and landing
Turbofans

A turbofan engine is the most modern variation of the basic gas

turbine engine. As with other gas turbines, there is a core engine that is
surrounded by a fan in the front and an additional turbine at the rear. The fan
and fan turbine are composed of many blades, like the core compressor and
core turbine, and are connected to an additional shaft. As with the core
compressor and turbine, some of the fan blades turn with the shaft and some
blades remain stationary. The fan shaft passes through the core shaft for
mechanical reasons. This type of arrangement is called a two spool engine
(one "spool" for the fan, one "spool" for the core.) Some advanced engines
have additional spools for even higher efficiency.

Giant passenger jets have huge fans mounted on the front, which work like
super-efficient propellers. The fans work in two ways. They slightly increase
the air that flows through the center (core) of the engine, producing more
thrust with the same fuel (which makes them more efficient). They also blow
some of their air around the outside of the main engine, "bypassing" the core
completely and producing a backdraft of air like a propeller. In other words, a
turbofan produces thrust partly like a turbojet and partly like a turboprop.
Low-bypass turbofans send virtually all their air through the core, while high-
bypass ones send more air around it. Impressive power and efficiency make
turbofans the engines of choice on everything from passenger jets (typically
using high-bypass) to jet fighters (low-bypass). The bypass design also cools
a jet engine and makes it quieter

In a turbojet all the air entering the intake passes through the gas generator,
which is composed of the compressor, combustion chamber, and turbine. In
a turbofan engine, only a portion of the incoming air goes into the combustion
chamber. The remainder passes through a fan, or low-pressure compressor,
and is ejected directly as a "cold" jet or mixed with the gas-generator exhaust
to produce a "hot" jet. The objective of this sort of bypass system is to increase
thrust without increasing fuel consumption. It achieves this by increasing the
total air-mass flow and reducing the velocity within the same total energy
supply.
Because the fuel flow rate for the core is changed only a small amount by the
addition of the fan, a turbofan generates more thrust for nearly the same
amount of fuel used by the core. This means that a turbofan is very fuel
efficient. In fact, high bypass ratio turbofans are nearly as fuel efficient
as turboprops. Because the fan is enclosed by the inlet and is composed of
many blades, it can operate efficiently at higher speeds than a simple
propeller. That is why turbofans are found on high speed transports and
propellers are used on low speed transports.
Turboshafts

A turboshaft engine is a variant of a jet engine that has been optimised to

produce shaft power to drive machinery instead of producing thrust.
The rotors that are powered by one or two gas-turbine engines called
turboshafts. A turboshaft is very different from a turbojet, because the
exhaust gas produces relatively little thrust. Instead, the turbine in a turbojet
captures most of the power and the driveshaft running through it turns a
transmission and one or more gearboxes that spin the rotors. Apart from
helicopters, turboshaft engines are found in trains, tanks, and boats. Gas
turbine engines mounted in things like power plants are also turboshafts.

These operate much like turboprop systems. They do not drive a propeller,
instead, they provide power for a helicopter rotor. The turboshaft engine is
designed so that the speed of the helicopter rotor is independent of the
rotating speed of the gas generator. This permits the rotor speed to be kept
constant even when the speed of the generator is varied to modulate the
amount of power produced.
A turboshaft engine may be made up of two major parts assemblies: the 'gas
generator' and the 'power section'. The gas generator consists of
the compressor, combustion chambers with ignitors and fuel nozzles, and
one or more stages of turbine. The power section consists of additional stages
of turbines, a gear reduction system, and the shaft output. The gas generator
creates the hot expanding gases to drive the power section. Depending on
the design, the engine accessories may be driven either by the gas generator
or by the power section.
In most designs, the gas generator and power section are mechanically
separate so they can each rotate at different speeds appropriate for the
conditions, 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 forgo
the weight and cost of complex multiple-ratio transmissions and clutches.

The V-22
Osprey is
powered
by two
T406-AD-
400
turboshaft
engines.
Ramjet

The ramjet is the simplest jet engine and has no moving parts. The speed of
the jet "rams" or forces air into the engine. It is essentially a turbojet in which
rotating machinery has been omitted. Its application is restricted by the fact
that its compression ratio depends wholly on forward speed. The ramjet
develops no static thrust and very little thrust in general below the speed of
sound. As a consequence, a ramjet vehicle requires some form of assisted
takeoff, such as another aircraft. It has been used primarily in guided-missile
systems. Space vehicles use this type of jet.

In the early 1900's some of the original ideas concerning ramjet

propulsion were first developed in Europe. Thrust is produced by passing the
hot exhaust from the combustion of a fuel through a nozzle. The nozzle
accelerates the flow, and the reaction to this acceleration produces thrust. To
maintain the flow through the nozzle, the combustion must occur at
a pressure that is higher than the pressure at the nozzle exit. In a ramjet, the
high pressure is produced by "ramming" external air into the combustor using
the forward speed of the vehicle. The external air that is brought into the
propulsion system becomes the working fluid, much like a turbojet engine.
In a turbojet engine, the high pressure in the combustor is generated by a
piece of machinery called a compressor. But there are no compressors in a
ramjet. Therefore, ramjets are lighter and simpler than a turbojet. Ramjets
produce thrust only when the vehicle is already moving; ramjets cannot
produce thrust when the engine is stationary or static.

Since a ramjet cannot produce static thrust, some other propulsion system
must be used to accelerate the vehicle to a speed where the ramjet begins to
produce thrust. The higher the speed of the vehicle, the better a ramjet works
until aerodynamic losses become a dominant factor.
The combustion that produces thrust in the ramjet occurs at a subsonic
speed in the combustor. For a vehicle traveling supersonically, the air
entering the engine must be slowed to subsonic speeds by the
aircraft inlet. Shock waves present in the inlet cause performance losses for
the propulsion system. Above Mach 5, ramjet propulsion becomes very
inefficient. The new supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet, solves this
problem by performing the combustion supersonically in the burner.

X-43A Dual-Mode Ramjet/Scramjet Propulsion System