Jet Engine

A jet is a stream of fluid that is projected into a surrounding medium, usually from some kind
of a nozzle, aperture, or orifices. Jets can travel long distances without dissipation. Jet fluid
has higher momentum compared to the surrounding fluid medium. Some animals, notably
cephalopods, use a jet to propel themselves in water.
A jet may produce momentum on other objects due to impingement by Newtons 2 nd law or
thrust on the body from which it comes by Newtons 3rd law of motion.
A reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet can generate thrust on the engine by jet
propulsion. It includes airbreathing jet engines and non-airbreathing jet engines (such as
rocket engines). Air breathing engine includes turbojets, turbofans, ramjets, and pulse jets.
- uses atmospheric air for combustion
Non breathing engine also called rocket engine includes, solid propellant, liquid propellant,
hybrid propellant, nuclear, ion plasma rocket engines. - uses stored oxidiser and fuel in the
rocket

Jet Engine has a rotating air compressor powered by a turbine, with the leftover power
providing a thrust via a propelling nozzle — this process is known as the Brayton
thermodynamic cycle.
• used for long-distance travel. Early jet aircraft used turbojet engines which were
relatively inefficient for subsonic flight.
• Modern jet aircraft uses more complex high-bypass turbofan engines. These engines
offer high speed and greater fuel efficiency than piston and propeller aeroengines over
long distances.
A jet can be produced by the devices in a low pressure atmosphere
Air Breathing Engines
The major classification of air breathing engines includes
Reciprocating - Piston cylinder Arrangements – V engine, Radial engine,
Turbine powered – turbo prop, turboshaft, turbofan, turbojet
Reaction – A jet is used to produce reaction (thrust)
• Turbojet
• Turbofan
• Turboprop
• Turboshaft
• Ramjet
• Pulse jet
 Industries
• Pratt & Whitney,
• General Electric,
• Rolls-Royce, and
• CFM International (a joint venture of Safran Aircraft Engines and General Electric)
• Aeroengine Corporation of China

Turbojet Engine
The turbojet engine consists of five sections:
diffuser, compressor, combustion chamber, turbine section, and exhaust nozzle.
Diffuser increases the pressure of atmospheric air entering into the engine at high velocity,
reducing the kinetic energy.
The compressor section increases the air pressure further to the combustion pressure using
shaft power.
The combustion chamber burns the fuel with an igniter.
The expanding air/ gas drives a turbine, which is connected by a shaft to the compressor,
sustaining engine operation.
The accelerated exhaust gases by the exit nozzle of the engine provide thrust.
This is a basic application of compressing air, igniting the fuel-air mixture, producing power to
self-sustain the engine operation, and exhaust for propulsion.
Turboprop Engine

A turboprop engine is a turbine engine that drives a propeller through a reduction gear. The
propeller increases the air momentum by external jet.
The exhaust gases drive a power turbine connected by a shaft that drives the reduction gear
assembly.
urboprop engines are a compromise between turbojet engines and reciprocating powerplants.
Turboprop engines are most efficient at speeds between 250 and 400 mph and altitudes
between 18,000 and 30,000 feet.

They also perform well at the slow airspeeds required for takeoff and landing, and are fuel
efficient. Frontal area is less than reciprocating engine.
Propellers lose efficiency as aircraft speed increases, but very efficient at flight speeds below
725 km/h.
The minimum specific fuel consumption of the turboprop engine is normally available in the
altitude range of 25,000 feet.
Turboprop engines usually contain at least one stage of centrifugal compression.
Contrary to the turbojet, the turboprop accelerates a large amount of air to a relatively low
exhaust velocity.
Because of this, the turboprop reaches a very high fuel-efficiency at the expense of airspeed.
The turboprop engine performs best in the 250 to 450 mph speed range.
Additionally, the turboprop generates more noise than the turbojet.

Examples of aircraft that are powered by turboprop engines are the: Fokker 50, Dash-8, Saab
200 and ATP.

Turbofan Engine

Turbofans were developed to combine some of the best features of the turbojet and the
turboprop. Turbofan engine is an advanced version of the turbojet engine.
It has an axial fan at the inlet of the engine which has all the main components of the turbojet
engine. An outer air duct is also provided.
Turbofan engines are designed to create additional thrust by diverting a secondary airflow
around the combustion chamber.
The turbofan bypass air generates increased thrust, cools the engine, and aids in exhaust noise
suppression. This provides turbojet-type cruise speed and lower fuel consumption.
The inlet air that passes through a turbofan engine is usually divided into two separate streams
of air.
One stream passes through the engine core, used for combustion, produces power in turbine
and produces thrust by the (nozzle) gas jet, while a second stream bypasses the engine core and
does not undergo any combustion, but produces thrust, producing an air jet outside the core. It
is this bypass stream of air that is responsible for the term “bypass engine.”
The bypass ratio of air is defined as the ratio between the mass flow rate of air that bypasses the
engine core through the outer duct without undergoing combustion, to the mass flow rate of air
passing through the engine core that is involved in combustion.

Bypass Ratio

The bypass ratio (BPR) of a turbofan engine is the ratio between the mass flow rate of the bypass
stream to the mass flow rate entering the core. It is in the range of 8 to 10.
A bypass ratio of 6, for example, means that 6 times more air passes through the bypass duct
than how much air goes into the combustion chamber.
A higher BPR provides a lower fuel consumption for the same thrust.
A high-specific-thrust/low-bypass-ratio turbofan normally has a multi-stage fan behind inlet
guide vanes, developing a relatively high pressure ratio and, thus, yielding a high (mixed or cold)
exhaust velocity.
The core airflow needs to be large enough to give sufficient core power to drive the fan. A
smaller core flow/higher bypass ratio cycle can be achieved by raising the high-pressure (HP)
turbine rotor inlet temperature.

Thrust
While a turbojet engine uses all of the engine's output to produce thrust in the form of a hot
high-velocity exhaust gas jet, a turbofan's cool low-velocity bypass air yields between 30% and
70% of the total thrust produced by a turbofan system.
FN = me vhe – mo vo + BPR (mcvf)
The thrust (FN) generated by a turbofan depends on the effective exhaust velocity of the total
exhaust, as with any jet engine, but because two exhaust jets are present the thrust equation
can be expanded as:

where:

ṁo = the mass rate of total air flow entering the turbofan = ṁc + ṁf

ṁc = the mass rate of intake air that flows to the core engine

ṁf = the mass rate of intake air that bypasses the core engine

vf = the velocity of the air flow bypassed around the core engine

vhe = the velocity of the hot exhaust gas from the core engine

vo = the velocity of the total air intake = the true airspeed of the aircraft

BPR = Bypass Ratio

Difference between Turbojet, Turboprop and Turbofan Engines

In a turbojet, turbine drives compressor only and whole of the thrust is produced by the super-
accelerated gases exiting the exhaust nozzle of the core.
In a turboprop, there always are two stages of turbine, high pressure turbine (HPT) driving the
compressor whereas low pressure turbine (LPT) driving propeller. By the time air exits LPT it
loses all its energy and is almost at ambient pressure. Hence there is no thrust generated by
exhaust. Whereas, the aircraft is propelled forward by the propeller being driven by turbine by a
set of gears.
A turbofan is a hybrid of the above two. You can call it a turboprop with small propeller ( fan)
driven by LPT, without a gear, and the fan stream of air (normally called bypass stream) flows
inside a nacelle, giving better pressure recovery for better efficiency. LPT driving smaller fan,
doesn't lose all of its energy and hence the exhaust also produce thrust.

Turbofans are more efficient than turbojet but still less than turboprops because of incomplete
recovery after LPT.
Then why do we use turbofans in almost all of the modern applications. A turboprop has big fan
blades and hence can't fly beyond Mach no. 0.3-0.4. If you want to fly faster than that, you use
turbofans.

Turboprops consist of a huge propeller in front of the engine core and turbofans have a small fan
in front of the core. Propeller is much more gigantic than the fan.
Total thrust in turboprop = 90% propeller thrust + 10% exhaust jet thrust ( as most work of a
turbine goes off in running the propeller).
Total thrust in turbo fan = thrust using bypass jet (app. 30 %) + thrust using exhaust jet (70%)
(contribution of each is dependent upon the by pass ratio)
In a turbo fan , mass of output is made much more because the bypass air mingles with the
exhaust jet (though they are of different velocities , mass of output will be more).
Turbo prop gives rise to fuel savings at low altitude short distance fight. And turbofan gives rise
to fuel savings at high altitude large distance flight.
They are efficient as only less amount of fuel is consumed as in a turbo prop, it is
enough to have fuel to run the propeller and
in a turbofan, not much fuel is needed to drive the fan as bypass
is going to produce a significant contribution of the total thrust.

Ramjet Engine

Concept: A high pressure ratio of 8 to 10 by ramming action in a variable area duct is possible to
design a jet engine without a mechanical compressor
It is the simplest type of air breathing engine. It has
i) Supersonic diffuser (1-2),
ii) subsonic diffuser (2-3),
iii) combustion chamber (3-4), and
iv) iv) Discharge nozzle (4-5)
Air at a high velocity with a Mach number of 3 enters the ramjet engine through a diffuser where
is it is decelerated to a low velocity (M=0.3). This will increase the pressure 30 times before it
enters the combustion chamber.
The fuel is injected by suitable injectors and mixed with fresh air entering the combustion
chamber.
The combustion produces at 1500 K to 2000 K expands through an exit nozzle and produces a
gas jet. This will continuously develop a thrust on the body in the opposite direction according to
the Newton,s third law of motion.

It is not a self propelling machine at zero flight velocity.

It is the modification in the ramjet engine. The flow of air into the combustion chamber is
controlled by an additional mechanically operated flapper valve grids.
These valves are used to provide intermittent flow of air in pulses, into the combustion chamber
so that the flame can be sustained and complete combustion is ensured. Pulse jet engine has
i) Inlet diffuser
ii) Valve ,
iii) Combustion chamber with spark plugs and
iv) Discharge nozzle

• Very simple next to ramjet.

The maximum operating speed of the pulse jet is limited by two factors.
i) Diffuser design
ii) Design and operation of flapper valve (resonance)
• The efficiency reduces drastically at high speed operation
• Very short life of flapper valves
• Higher fuel consumption and close to that of ramjet
• The speed range is within 650 too 800 kmph
• Limited altitude
• Higher noise, vibration due to pulsed air flow and combustion
• Lower propulsion efficiency than that of turbojet engine.