Handbook

This course aims to enable you to:

• gain a deeper appreciation of gas turbine operation and to make high-level predictions of gas turbine behavior in various flight scenarios. This will be achieved by comparing analytical and numerical predictions of turbine behaviour with physical observations made in a laboratory setting.
• develop a strong understanding of rocket engines for different mission profiles. This will include reaching Earth orbits from sea-level (chemical rockets) and for satellite station keeping & interplanetary missions (ion-thrusters). 
• develop a deeper understanding of the thermodynamic aspects of reciprocating piston internal combustion engines and the role that energy harvesting of exhaust gases can have on aircraft fuel consumption in an era of greater powertrain hybridization.

Specific topics include:

• Polytropic efficiencies of compressors and turbines. Gas turbine engine matching in off-design conditions (plotting engine working lines with respect to compressor diagrams following Cumpsty’s analytical approach) for single-spool turbojet, two-spool turbojet, single-spool turbofan, two-spool turbofan. 
• Exergy analysis of open systems (gas turbine compressors and turbines) using stagnation properties. The exergy of lift. 
• Temperature control of aircraft and spacecraft.
• Introduction to the simulation of gas turbine engines with GasTurb software.
• Gas turbine laboratory.
• Introduction to chemical rockets, specific impulse, the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, the concept of maximum dynamic pressure.
• Thermodynamic analysis of rockets, introduction to ion thrusters.
• High-speed aircraft propulsion operation. Constraints on combat gas turbine engine operation, the afterburner, fighter aircraft nozzles. Ramjets and Scramjets.
• Finite time thermodynamics. Overview of basic Curzon-Novikov-Alhborn theory. Quasi-dimensional simulation of reciprocating piston, internal combustion engines. 
• Introduction to electrical motor and generators, batteries, solar cells. Fully electric propulsion and hybrid propulsion.