Airbreathing jet engine
Encyclopedia
An airbreathing jet engine (or ducted jet engine) is a jet engine
Jet engine
A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...

 propelled by a jet of hot exhaust gases formed from air that is drawn into the engine via an inlet duct.

All practical airbreathing jet engines are internal combustion engines that directly heat the air by combusting fuel, with the resultant hot gases used for propulsion via a propulsive nozzle, although other techniques for heating the air have been experimented with. Most jet engines are turbofan
Turbofan
The turbofan is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used for aircraft propulsion. A turbofan combines two types of engines, the turbo portion which is a conventional gas turbine engine, and the fan, a propeller-like ducted fan...

s and some are turbojets which use gas turbines to give high pressure ratios and are able to get high efficiency, but a few use simple ram effect or pulse combustion to give compression.

Most commercial aircraft possess turbofans, these have an enlarged air compressor which permit them to generate most of their thrust from air which bypasses the combustion chamber.

Airbreathing jet engines are mostly used for powering jet aircraft
Jet aircraft
A jet aircraft is an aircraft propelled by jet engines. Jet aircraft generally fly much faster than propeller-powered aircraft and at higher altitudes – as high as . At these altitudes, jet engines achieve maximum efficiency over long distances. The engines in propeller-powered aircraft...

, but have seen rare other uses such as jet cars.

Types of airbreathing jet engines

Airbreathing jet engines are nearly always internal combustion engine
Internal combustion engine
The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...

s that obtain propulsion from the combustion of fuel inside the engine. Oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...

 present in the atmosphere is used to oxidise a fuel source, typically a hydrocarbon-based jet fuel
Jet fuel
Jet fuel is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is clear to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1 which are produced to a standardized international specification...

. The burning mixture expands greatly in volume, driving heated air through a propelling nozzle
Propelling nozzle
A propelling nozzle is the component of a jet engine that operates to constrict the flow, to form an exhaust jet and to maximise the velocity of propelling gases from the engine....

.

Gas turbine
Gas turbine
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of internal combustion engine. It has an upstream rotating compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion chamber in-between....

 powered engines:
  • turbojet
  • turbofan
    Turbofan
    The turbofan is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used for aircraft propulsion. A turbofan combines two types of engines, the turbo portion which is a conventional gas turbine engine, and the fan, a propeller-like ducted fan...



Ram powered jet engine:
  • ramjet
    Ramjet
    A ramjet, sometimes referred to as a stovepipe jet, or an athodyd, is a form of airbreathing jet engine using the engine's forward motion to compress incoming air, without a rotary compressor. Ramjets cannot produce thrust at zero airspeed and thus cannot move an aircraft from a standstill...

  • scramjet
    Scramjet
    A scramjet is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow...



Pulsed combustion jet engine:
  • pulse detonation engine
    Pulse detonation engine
    A pulse detonation engine, or "PDE", is a type of propulsion system that uses detonation waves to combust the fuel and oxidizer mixture. The engine is pulsed because the mixture must be renewed in the combustion chamber between each detonation wave initiated by an ignition source. Theoretically, a...

  • pulse jet engine
    Pulse jet engine
    A pulse jet engine is a type of jet engine in which combustion occurs in pulses. Pulsejet engines can be made with few or no moving parts, and are capable of running statically....

  • motorjet
    Motorjet
    A motorjet is a rudimentary type of jet engine which is sometimes referred to as thermojet, a term now commonly used to describe a particular and completely unrelated pulsejet design.- Design :...


Turbojet engine

The turbojet is the oldest kind of general-purpose jet engine
Jet engine
A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...

. Two engineers, Frank Whittle
Frank Whittle
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force engineer officer. He is credited with independently inventing the turbojet engine Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS (1 June 1907 – 9 August 1996) was a British Royal Air...

 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and Hans von Ohain
Hans von Ohain
Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain was a German engineer, one of the inventors of jet propulsion.Frank Whittle, who patented in 1930 in the United Kingdom, and Hans von Ohain, who patented in 1936 in Germany, developed the concept independently during the late 1930s...

 in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, developed the concept independently into practical engines during the late 1930s.

Turbojets consist of an air inlet, an air compressor, a combustion chamber, a gas turbine (that drives the air compressor) and a nozzle. The air is compressed into the chamber, heated and expanded by the fuel combustion and then allowed to expand out through the turbine into the nozzle where it is accelerated to high speed to provide propulsion.

Turbojets are quite inefficient if flown below about Mach 2, and very noisy. Most modern aircraft use turbofan
Turbofan
The turbofan is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used for aircraft propulsion. A turbofan combines two types of engines, the turbo portion which is a conventional gas turbine engine, and the fan, a propeller-like ducted fan...

s instead for economic reasons. Turbojets are still very common in medium range cruise missile
Cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...

s, due to their high exhaust speed, low frontal area and relative simplicity.

Turbofan engine

Most modern jet engines are actually turbofans, where the low pressure compressor acts as a fan, supplying supercharged air not only to the engine core, but to a bypass duct. 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 give an exhaust speed that is better matched for subsonic airliners. At airliner flight speeds, conventional turbojet engines generate an exhaust that ends up traveling very fast backwards (rocket engines are worse still), and this wastes energy. By emitting the exhaust so that it ends up traveling more slowly, better fuel consumption is achieved as well as higher thrust at low speeds. In addition, the lower exhaust speed gives much lower noise.

Thus civil turbofans today have a low exhaust speed (low specific thrust
Specific thrust
Specific thrust is a term used in gas turbine engineering to show the relative bulk of a jet engine and is defined as the ratio: net thrust/total intake airflow.-Low specific thrust engines:...

-net thrust divided by airflow) to keep jet noise to a minimum and to improve fuel efficiency. Consequently the bypass ratio
Bypass ratio
The term bypass ratio relates to the design of turbofan engines, commonly used in aviation. It is defined as the ratio between the mass flow rate of air drawn in by the fan bypassing the engine core to the mass flow rate passing through the engine core....

 (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.

Major components

The major components of a jet engine are similar across the major different types of engines, although not all engine types have all components. The major parts include:
  • Cold Section:
    • Air intake (Inlet)—For subsonic aircraft, the air intake to a jet engine consists essentially of an opening which is designed to minimise drag. The air reaching the compressor of a normal jet engine must be travelling below the speed of sound, even for supersonic aircraft, to allow smooth flow through compressor and turbine blades. At supersonic flight speeds, shockwaves form in the intake system. These help compress the air, but also there is inevitable reduction in the recovered pressure at inlet to the compressor. Some supersonic intakes use devices such as a cone or a ramp to increase pressure recovery.
    • Compressor
      Jet engine compressors
      As the name suggests, Jet engine compressors provide the compression part of the jet engine thermodynamic cycle.There are three basic categories of jet engine compressor:#Axial compressor#Centrifugal compressor#Mixed flow compressor...

       
      or Fan
      Fan (mechanical)
      A mechanical fan is a machine used to create flow within a fluid, typically a gas such as air.A fan consists of a rotating arrangement of vanes or blades which act on the air. Usually, it is contained within some form of housing or case. This may direct the airflow or increase safety by preventing...

      —The compressor is made up of stages. Each stage consists of vanes which rotate, and stators which remain stationary. As air is drawn deeper through the compressor, its heat and pressure increases. Energy is derived from the turbine (see below), passed along the shaft.
    • Bypass ducts—Much of the thrust of essentially all modern jet engines comes from air from the front compressor that bypasses the combustion chamber and gas turbine section that leads directly to the nozzle or afterburner (where fitted).
  • Common:
    • Shaft—The shaft connects the turbine to the compressor, and runs most of the length of the engine. There may be as many as three concentric shafts, rotating at independent speeds, with as many sets of turbines and compressors. Other services, like a bleed of cool air, may also run down the shaft.
  • Diffuser section: - This section is a divergent duct that utilizes Bernoulli's principle to decrease the velocity of the compressed air to allow for easier ignition. And, at the same time, continuing to increase the air pressure before it enters the combustion chamber.
  • Hot section:
    • Combustor
      Combustor
      A combustor is a component or area of a gas turbine, ramjet, or scramjet engine where combustion takes place. It is also known as a burner, combustion chamber or flame holder. In a gas turbine engine, the combustor or combustion chamber is fed high pressure air by the compression system. The...

      or Can or Flameholders
      Flame holder
      A flame holder is a component of a jet engine designed to help maintain continual combustion.All continuous-combustion jet engines require a flame holder. A flame holder creates a low-speed eddy in the engine to prevent the flame from being blown out...

      or Combustion Chamber—This is a chamber where fuel is continuously burned in the compressed air.
    • Turbine
      Turbine
      A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...

      —The turbine is a series of bladed discs that act like a windmill, gaining energy from the hot gases leaving the combustor. Some of this energy is used to drive the compressor, and in some turbine engines (i.e. turboprop, turboshaft or turbofan engines), energy is extracted by additional turbine discs and used to drive devices such as propellers, bypass fans or helicopter rotors. One type, a free turbine, is configured such that the turbine disc driving the compressor rotates independently of the discs that power the external components. Relatively cool air, bled from the compressor, may be used to cool the turbine blades and vanes, to prevent them from melting.
    • Afterburner
      Afterburner (engine)
      An afterburner 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...

      or reheat (chiefly UK)—(mainly military) Produces extra thrust by burning extra fuel, usually inefficiently, to significantly raise Nozzle Entry Temperature at the exhaust. Owing to a larger volume flow (i.e. lower density) at exit from the afterburner, an increased nozzle flow area is required, to maintain satisfactory engine matching, when the afterburner is alight.
    • Exhaust or Nozzle
      Nozzle
      A nozzle is a device designed to control the direction or characteristics of a fluid flow as it exits an enclosed chamber or pipe via an orifice....

      —Hot gases leaving the engine exhaust expand to atmospheric pressure via a nozzle, the objective being to produce a high velocity jet. In most cases, the nozzle is convergent and of fixed flow area. If the Nozzle Pressure Ratio (Nozzle Entry Pressure/Ambient Pressure) is very high, to maximize thrust it may be worthwhile, despite the additional weight, to fit a convergent-divergent (de Laval) nozzle
      De Laval nozzle
      A de Laval nozzle is a tube that is pinched in the middle, making a carefully balanced, asymmetric hourglass-shape...

      - a supersonic nozzle. As the name suggests, initially this type of nozzle is convergent, but beyond the throat (smallest flow area), the flow area starts to increase to form the divergent portion. The expansion to atmospheric pressure and supersonic gas velocity continues downstream of the throat, whereas in a convergent nozzle the expansion beyond sonic velocity occurs externally, in the exhaust plume. The former process is more efficient than the latter.


The various components named above have constraints on how they are put together to generate the most efficiency or performance. The performance and efficiency of an engine can never be taken in isolation; for example fuel/distance efficiency of a supersonic jet engine maximises at about Mach 2, whereas the drag for the vehicle carrying it is increasing as a square law and has much extra drag in the transonic region. The highest fuel efficiency for the overall vehicle is thus typically at Mach ~0.85.

For the engine optimisation for its intended use, important here is air intake design, overall size, number of compressor stages (sets of blades), fuel type, number of exhaust stages, metallurgy of components, amount of bypass air used, where the bypass air is introduced, and many other factors. For instance, let us consider design of the air intake.

Engine cycle

The thermodynamics of a typical air-breathing jet engine are modeled approximately by a Brayton Cycle which is a thermodynamic cycle
Thermodynamic cycle
A thermodynamic cycle consists of a series of thermodynamic processes transferring heat and work, while varying pressure, temperature, and other state variables, eventually returning a system to its initial state...

 that describes the workings of the gas turbine
Gas turbine
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of internal combustion engine. It has an upstream rotating compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion chamber in-between....

 engine, basis of the airbreathing jet engine and others. It is named after George Brayton
George Brayton
George Brayton was born in Rhode Island, son of William H. and Minerva Brayton. He was an American mechanical engineer who lived with his family in Boston, and who is noted for introducing the continuous combustion process that is the basis for the gas turbine, and which is now referred to as...

 (1830–1892), the American engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 who developed it, although it was originally proposed and patented by Englishman John Barber
John Barber (engineer)
John Barber was an English coalmaster and inventor. He was born in Nottinghamshire, but moved to Warwickshire in the 1760s to manage collieries in the Nuneaton area. For a time he lived in Camp Hill House, between Hartshill and Nuneaton, and later lived in Attleborough...

 in 1791. It is also sometimes known as the Joule
James Prescott Joule
James Prescott Joule FRS was an English physicist and brewer, born in Salford, Lancashire. Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work . This led to the theory of conservation of energy, which led to the development of the first law of thermodynamics. The...

 cycle
.

Thrust lapse

The nominal net thrust quoted for a jet engine usually refers to the Sea Level Static (SLS) condition, either for the International Standard Atmosphere (ISA) or a hot day condition (e.g. ISA+10 °C). As an example, the GE90-76B has a take-off static thrust of 76,000 lbf (360 kN) at SLS, ISA+15 °C.

Naturally, net thrust will decrease with altitude, because of the lower air density. There is also, however, a flight speed effect.

Initially as the aircraft gains speed down the runway, there will be little increase in nozzle pressure and temperature, because the ram rise in the intake is very small. There will also be little change in mass flow. Consequently, nozzle gross thrust initially only increases marginally with flight speed. However, being an air breathing engine (unlike a conventional rocket) there is a penalty for taking on-board air from the atmosphere. This is known as ram drag. Although the penalty is zero at static conditions, it rapidly increases with flight speed causing the net thrust to be eroded.

As flight speed builds up after take-off, the ram rise in the intake starts to have a significant effect upon nozzle pressure/temperature and intake airflow, causing nozzle gross thrust to climb more rapidly. This term now starts to offset the still increasing ram drag, eventually causing net thrust to start to increase. In some engines, the net thrust at say Mach 1.0, sea level can even be slightly greater than the static thrust. Above Mach 1.0, with a subsonic inlet design, shock losses tend to decrease net thrust, however a suitably designed supersonic inlet can give a lower reduction in intake pressure recovery, allowing net thrust to continue to climb in the supersonic regime.

Safety and reliability

Jet engines are usually very reliable and have a very good safety record. However, failures do sometimes occur.

Engine surge

In some cases in jet engines the conditions in the engine due to airflow entering the engine or other variations can cause the compressor blades to stall
Compressor stall
A compressor stall is a situation of abnormal airflow resulting from a stall of the aerofoils within the compressor of a jet engine. Stall is found in dynamic compressors, particularly axial compressors, as used in jet engines and turbochargers for reciprocating engines.Compressor stalls result in...

. When this occurs the pressure in the engine blows out past the blades, and the stall is maintained until the pressure has decreased, and the engine has lost all thrust. The compressor blades will then usually come out of stall, and re-pressurize the engine. If conditions are not corrected, the cycle will usually repeat. This is called surge. Depending on the engine this can be highly damaging to the engine and creates worrying vibrations for the crew.

Compressor blade containment

Due to "foreign object damage
Foreign object damage
Foreign Object Debris is a substance, debris or article alien to a vehicle or system which would potentially cause damage.Foreign Object Damage is any damage attributed to a foreign object that can be expressed in physical or economic terms that may or may not degrade the product's required...

"- material being sucked into the engine- the most likely failure is often compressor blade failure, and modern jet engines are designed with structures that can catch these blades and keep them contained within the engine casing. Verification of a jet engine design involves testing that this system works correctly.

Bird strike

Bird strike
Bird strike
A bird strike—sometimes called birdstrike, avian ingestion , bird hit, or BASH —is a collision between an airborne animal and a man-made vehicle, especially aircraft...

 is an aviation term for a collision between a bird and an aircraft. It is a common threat to aircraft safety and has caused a number of fatal accidents. In 1988 an Ethiopian Airlines
Ethiopian Airlines
Ethiopian Airlines , formerly Ethiopian Air Lines, often referred to as simply Ethiopian, is an airline headquartered on the grounds of Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It serves as the country's flag carrier, and is wholly owned by the Government of Ethiopia...

 Boeing 737
Boeing 737
The Boeing 737 is a short- to medium-range, twin-engine narrow-body jet airliner. Originally developed as a shorter, lower-cost twin-engine airliner derived from Boeing's 707 and 727, the 737 has developed into a family of nine passenger models with a capacity of 85 to 215 passengers...

 sucked pigeons into both engines during take-off and then crashed in an attempt to return to the Bahir Dar
Bahir Dar
Bahir Dar is a city in north western Ethiopia. It is the capital of the Amhara Region .Administratively, Bahir Dar is considered a Special Zone, placing it midway between Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa which are organized as chartered cities , and cities like Debre Marqos and Dessie, which are...

 airport; of the 104 people aboard, 35 died and 21 were injured. In another incident in 1995, a Dassault Falcon 20
Dassault Falcon
The Dassault Falcon is a family of business jets, manufactured by Dassault Aviation.Aircraft include:* Dassault Falcon 10 Scaled down Falcon 20...

 crashed at a Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 airport during an emergency landing attempt after sucking lapwing
Lapwing
Vanellinae are any of various crested plovers, family Charadriidae, noted for its slow, irregular wingbeat in flight and a shrill, wailing cry. Its length is 10-16 inches. They are a subfamily of medium-sized wading birds which also includes the plovers and dotterels. The Vanellinae are...

s into an engine, which caused an engine failure and a fire in the airplane fuselage
Fuselage
The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. In single-engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage which in turn is used as a floating hull...

; all 10 people on board were killed. In 2009, on US Airways Flight 1549
US Airways Flight 1549
US Airways Flight 1549 was US Airways' scheduled domestic commercial passenger flight from LaGuardia Airport in New York City to Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina...

, a Airbus A320 aircraft sucked in one bird in each engine. The plane landed in the Hudson River after taking off from LaGuardia International Airport in New York City. There were no fatalities.

Modern jet engines have the capability of surviving an ingestion of a bird. Small fast planes, such as military jet fighters
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...

, are at higher risk than big heavy multi-engine ones. This is due to the fact that the fan of a high-bypass turbofan
Turbofan
The turbofan is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used for aircraft propulsion. A turbofan combines two types of engines, the turbo portion which is a conventional gas turbine engine, and the fan, a propeller-like ducted fan...

 engine, typical on transport aircraft, acts as a centrifugal separator to force ingested materials (birds, ice, etc.) to the outside of the fan's disc. As a result, such materials go through the relatively unobstructed bypass duct
Bypass duct
A bypass duct is an annular passage that allows some of a turbofan's airflow to bypass the engine core, or gas generator. If the turbofan is unmixed, the bypass duct will terminate at the bypass nozzle...

, rather than through the core of the engine, which contains the smaller and more delicate compressor blades. Military aircraft
Military aircraft
A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat:...

 designed for high-speed flight typically have pure turbojet, or low-bypass turbofan engines, increasing the risk that ingested materials will get into the core of the engine to cause damage.

The highest risk of the bird strike is during the takeoff and landing
Landing
thumb|A [[Mute Swan]] alighting. Note the ruffled feathers on top of the wings indicate that the swan is flying at the [[Stall |stall]]ing speed...

, in low altitude
Altitude
Altitude or height is defined based on the context in which it is used . As a general definition, altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The reference datum also often varies according to the context...

s, which is in the vicinity of the airport
Airport
An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...

s.

Volcanic ash

If a jet plane is flying through air densely contaminated with volcanic ash
Volcanic ash
Volcanic ash consists of small tephra, which are bits of pulverized rock and glass created by volcanic eruptions, less than in diameter. There are three mechanisms of volcanic ash formation: gas release under decompression causing magmatic eruptions; thermal contraction from chilling on contact...

, there is risk of ingested ash eroding the front blades, melting in the combustion heat, and re-freezing sticking to the rear blades, affecting performance and perhaps stopping the engine; as well as triggering long-term corrosion.

Uncontained failures

One class of failures that has caused accidents in particular is uncontained failures, where rotary parts of the engine break off and exit through the case. These can cut fuel or control lines, and can penetrate the cabin. Although fuel and control lines are usually duplicated for reliability, the crash of United Airlines Flight 232
United Airlines Flight 232
United Airlines Flight 232 was a scheduled flight from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado, to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, with continuing service to Philadelphia International Airport...

 was caused when hydraulic fluid lines for all three independent hydraulic systems were simultaneously severed by shrapnel from an uncontained engine failure. Prior to the United 232 crash, the probability of a simultaneous failure of all three hydraulic systems was considered as high as a billion-to-one. However, the statistical models used to come up with this figure did not account for the fact that the number-two engine was mounted at the tail close to all the hydraulic lines, nor the possibility that an engine failure would release many fragments in many directions. Since then, more modern aircraft engine designs have focused on keeping shrapnel from penetrating the cowling or ductwork, and have increasingly utilized high-strength composite material
Composite material
Composite materials, often shortened to composites or called composition materials, are engineered or naturally occurring materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties which remain separate and distinct at the macroscopic or...

s to achieve the required penetration resistance while keeping the weight low.

Economic considerations

In 2007, the cost of jet fuel
Jet fuel
Jet fuel is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is clear to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1 which are produced to a standardized international specification...

, while highly variable from one airline to another, averaged 26.5% of total operating costs, making it the single largest operating expense for most airlines.

Environmental considerations

Jet engines are usually run on fossil fuel propellant, and are thus a source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Jet engines can use biofuel
Biofuel
Biofuel is a type of fuel whose energy is derived from biological carbon fixation. Biofuels include fuels derived from biomass conversion, as well as solid biomass, liquid fuels and various biogases...

s or hydrogen, although the production of the latter is usually made from fossil fuels.

About 7.2% of the oil used in 2004 was consumed by jet engines.

Some scientists believe that jet engines are also a source of global dimming
Global dimming
Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth's surface that was observed for several decades after the start of systematic measurements in the 1950s. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it has been estimated to be of the order of a 4%...

 due to the water vapour in the exhaust causing cloud formations.

Nitrogen compounds are also formed from the combustion process from atmospheric nitrogen. At low altitudes this is not thought to be especially harmful, but for supersonic aircraft that fly in the stratosphere some destruction of ozone may occur.

Sulphates are also emitted if the fuel contains sulphur.

Ramjet

A ramjet is a form of airbreathing jet engine
Airbreathing jet engine
An airbreathing jet engine is a jet engine propelled by a jet of hot exhaust gases formed from air that is drawn into the engine via an inlet duct....

 using the engine's forward motion to compress incoming air, without a rotary compressor. Ramjets cannot produce thrust at zero airspeed and thus cannot move an aircraft from a standstill. Ramjets require considerable forward speed to operate well, and as a class work most efficiently at speeds around Mach
Mach number
Mach number is the speed of an object moving through air, or any other fluid substance, divided by the speed of sound as it is in that substance for its particular physical conditions, including those of temperature and pressure...

 3. This type of jet can operate up to speeds of Mach 6.

Ramjets can be particularly useful in applications requiring a small and simple engine for high speed use, such as missile
Missile
Though a missile may be any thrown or launched object, it colloquially almost always refers to a self-propelled guided weapon system.-Etymology:The word missile comes from the Latin verb mittere, meaning "to send"...

s, while weapon designers are looking to use ramjet technology in artillery shells to give added range: it is anticipated that a 120-mm mortar shell, if assisted by a ramjet, could attain a range of 22 mi (35.4 km). They have also been used successfully, though not efficiently, as tip jets on helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...

 rotors.

Ramjets are frequently confused with pulsejets, which use an intermittent combustion, but ramjets employ a continuous combustion process, and are a quite distinct type of jet engine.

J-58 combined ramjet/turbojet

The SR-71 Blackbird
SR-71 Blackbird
The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by the Lockheed Skunk Works. Clarence "Kelly" Johnson was responsible for many of the...

's Pratt & Whitney J58
Pratt & Whitney J58
The Pratt & Whitney J58 was a jet engine used on the Lockheed A-12, and subsequently on the YF-12 and SR-71 Blackbird aircraft. The J58 was a variable cycle engine which functioned as both a turbojet and a fan-assisted ramjet. The J58 was a single-spool turbojet engine with an afterburner...

 engines were rather unusual. They could convert in flight from being largely a turbojet to being largely a compressor-assisted ramjet. At high speeds (above Mach 2.4), the engine used variable geometry vanes to direct excess air through 6 bypass pipes from downstream of the fourth compressor stage into the afterburner. 80% of the SR-71's thrust at high speed was generated in this way, giving much higher thrust, improving specific impulse
Specific impulse
Specific impulse is a way to describe the efficiency of rocket and jet engines. It represents the derivative of the impulse with respect to amount of propellant used, i.e., the thrust divided by the amount of propellant used per unit time. If the "amount" of propellant is given in terms of mass ,...

 by 10-15%, and permitting continuous operation at Mach 3.2. The name coined for this setup is turbo-ramjet.

Hydrogen fuelled air-breathing jet engines

Jet engines can be run on almost any fuel. Hydrogen is a highly desirable fuel, as, although the energy per mole
Mole (unit)
The mole is a unit of measurement used in chemistry to express amounts of a chemical substance, defined as an amount of a substance that contains as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 12 grams of pure carbon-12 , the isotope of carbon with atomic weight 12. This corresponds to a value...

 is not unusually high, the molecule is very much lighter than other molecules. The energy per kg of hydrogen is twice that of more common fuels and this gives twice the specific impulse. In addition, jet engines running on hydrogen are quite easy to build—the first ever turbojet was run on hydrogen. Also, although not duct engines, hydrogen-fueled rocket engines have seen extensive use.

However, in almost every other way, hydrogen is problematic. The downside of hydrogen is its density; in gaseous form the tanks are impractical for flight, but even in the form of liquid hydrogen
Liquid hydrogen
Liquid hydrogen is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecular H2 form.To exist as a liquid, H2 must be pressurized above and cooled below hydrogen's Critical point. However, for hydrogen to be in a full liquid state without boiling off, it needs to be...

 it has a density one fourteenth that of water. It is also deeply cryogenic and requires very significant insulation that precludes it being stored in wings. The overall vehicle would end up being very large, and difficult for most airports to accommodate. Finally, pure hydrogen is not found in nature, and must be manufactured either via steam reforming
Steam reforming
Fossil fuel reforming is a method of producing hydrogen or other useful products from fossil fuels such as natural gas. This is achieved in a processing device called a reformer which reacts steam at high temperature with the fossil fuel. The steam methane reformer is widely used in industry to...

 or expensive electrolysis
Electrolysis
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a method of using a direct electric current to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction...

. Nevertheless, research is ongoing and hydrogen-fueled aircraft designs do exist that may be feasible.

Precooled jet engines

An idea originated by Robert P. Carmichael in 1955 is that hydrogen-fueled engines could theoretically have much higher performance than hydrocarbon-fueled engines if a heat exchanger were used to cool the incoming air. The low temperature allows lighter materials to be used, a higher mass-flow through the engines, and permits combustors to inject more fuel without overheating the engine.

This idea leads to plausible designs like Reaction Engines SABRE, that might permit single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicles, and ATREX
ATREX
The ATREX engine developed in Japan is an experimental precooled jet engine that works as a turbojet at low speeds and a ramjet up to mach 6.0....

, which could permit jet engines to be used up to hypersonic speeds and high altitudes for boosters for launch vehicles. The idea is also being researched by the EU for a concept to achieve non-stop antipodal supersonic passenger travel at Mach 5 (Reaction Engines A2
Reaction Engines A2
|-See also:-External links:* *...

).

Nuclear-powered ramjet

Project Pluto
Project Pluto
Project Pluto was a United States government program to develop nuclear powered ramjet engines for use in cruise missiles. Two experimental engines were tested at the United States Department of Energy Nevada Test Site in 1961 and 1964.-History:...

 was a nuclear-powered ramjet, intended for use in a cruise missile
Cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...

. Rather than combusting fuel as in regular jet engines, air was heated using a high-temperature, unshielded nuclear reactor. This dramatically increased the engine burn time, and the ramjet was predicted to be able to cover any required distance at supersonic speeds (Mach 3 at tree-top height).

However, there was no obvious way to stop it once it had taken off, which would be a great disadvantage in any non-disposable application. Also, because the reactor was unshielded, it was dangerous to be in or around the flight path of the vehicle (although the exhaust itself wasn't radioactive). These disadvantages limit the application to warhead delivery system for all-out nuclear war, which it was being designed for.

Scramjets

Scramjets are an evolution of ramjets that are able to operate at much higher speeds than any other kind of airbreathing engine. They share a similar structure with ramjets, being a specially shaped tube that compresses air with no moving parts through ram-air compression. Scramjets, however, operate with supersonic airflow through the entire engine. Thus, scramjets do not have the diffuser required by ramjets to slow the incoming airflow to subsonic speeds.

Scramjets start working at speeds of at least Mach 4, and have a maximum useful speed of approximately Mach 17. Due to aerodynamic heating
Aerodynamic heating
Aerodynamic heating is the heating of a solid body produced by the passage of fluid over a body such as a meteor, missile, or airplane. It is a form of forced convection in that the flow field is created by forces beyond those associated with the thermal processes...

 at these high speeds, cooling poses a challenge to engineers.

Turborocket

The air turborocket is a form of combined-cycle jet engine
Jet engine
A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...

. The basic layout includes a gas generator
Gas generator
A gas generator usually refers to a device, often similar to a solid rocket or a liquid rocket that burns to produce large volumes of relatively cool gas, instead of maximizing the temperature and specific impulse. The low temperature allows the gas to be put to use more easily in many...

, which produces high pressure gas, that drives a turbine/compressor assembly which compresses atmospheric air into a combustion chamber. This mixture is then combusted before leaving the device through a nozzle and creating thrust.

There are many different types of air turborockets. The various types generally differ in how the gas generator section of the engine functions.

Air turborockets are often referred to as turboramjets, turboramjet rockets, turborocket expanders, and many others. As there is no consensus on which names apply to which specific concepts, various sources may use the same name for two different concepts.

Terminology

To describe the RPM of a jet engine, abbreviations are commonly used:
  • For a turboprop engine, Np refers to the RPM of the propeller shaft. For example, a common Np would be about 2200 RPM for a constant speed propeller
    Constant speed propeller
    A constant speed propeller is a type of propeller that can change its blade pitch to take better advantage of the power supplied by an engine in much the same way that a transmission in a car takes better advantage of its power source...

    .
  • N1 or Ng refers to the speed of the gas generator (gas producer) section (RPM). Each engine manufacturer will pick between those two abbreviation but N1 is mainly used for turbofan
    Turbofan
    The turbofan is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used for aircraft propulsion. A turbofan combines two types of engines, the turbo portion which is a conventional gas turbine engine, and the fan, a propeller-like ducted fan...

     engines whereas Ng is mainly used for turboprop
    Turboprop
    A turboprop engine is a type of turbine engine which drives an aircraft propeller using a reduction gear.The gas turbine is designed specifically for this application, with almost all of its output being used to drive the propeller...

     or turboshaft
    Turboshaft
    A turboshaft engine is a form of gas turbine which is optimized to produce free turbine shaft power, rather than jet thrust...

     engines. For example, a common Np would be on the order of
    Order of magnitude
    An order of magnitude is the class of scale or magnitude of any amount, where each class contains values of a fixed ratio to the class preceding it. In its most common usage, the amount being scaled is 10 and the scale is the exponent being applied to this amount...

     30,000 RPM.
  • N2 or Nf refers to the speed of the power turbine section. Each engine manufacturer will pick between those two abbreviations but N2 is mainly used for turbofan engine where Nf is mainly used for turboprop or turboshaft engines. In many cases, even for free turbine engines, the N1 and N2 may be very similar.
  • Ns refers to the speed of the reduction gear box (RGB) output shaft for turboshaft engines.


In many cases, instead of expressing N-speeds (N1, N2) as a sheer RPM on cockpit
Cockpit
A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft. Most modern cockpits are enclosed, except on some small aircraft, and cockpits on large airliners are also physically separated from the cabin...

 displays, pilots are provided with the N-speeds expressed as a percentage of a nominal or maximal value. For example, at full power, the N1 might be 101.5% or 100%. This user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...

 decision has been made as a human factors
Human factors
Human factors science or human factors technologies is a multidisciplinary field incorporating contributions from psychology, engineering, industrial design, statistics, operations research and anthropometry...

 consideration, since pilots are more likely to notice a problem with a two- or 3-digit percentage (where 100% implies a nominal value) than with a large, unbounded scalar number.

See also

  • rocket engine
    Rocket engine
    A rocket engine, or simply "rocket", is a jet engineRocket Propulsion Elements; 7th edition- chapter 1 that uses only propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet. Rocket engines are reaction engines and obtain thrust in accordance with Newton's third law...

  • turboprop engine a gas turbine engine used to turn propellers
  • turboshaft engine a gas turbine engine used for helicopters
  • water jet
    Water jet
    Water jet has several meanings including :* Water jet cutter, a tool for cutting virtually any material* Water jet cleaning and surface preparation, a tool for cleaning and surface preparation using ultra-high pressure waterjet...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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