MEC 4873 - Gas Turbines and Aircraft Engines

• Perform equilibrium composition and flame temperature calculations for combustion reactions
• Define and calculate common compressible flow parameters such as Mach number and stagnation quantities
• Explain the phenomena of choking for flows through variable area geometries
• Describe common gas turbine architectures for propulsion and power generation applications
• Perform and report preliminary design calculations to size jet engines to meet specific performance goals
• Characterize the performance and operating/design constraints for inlets, compressors, combustors, turbines, and nozzles
• Provide preliminary design parameters for compressors and turbines and characterize their performance based on mean (pitch) line approach
• Evaluate the operation and performance of a jet engine based on compressor and turbine maps for different operating conditions
• Provide preliminary design parameters and define key design issues and constraints for main combustors in jet engines

• First and second laws of thermodynamics
• Control volume mass, momentum, energy and entropy analysis
• Energy and entropy properties of ideal gases
• Thermodynamics of reacting mixtures
• Ability to write basic computer programs in MATLAB

• Review of the fundamentals (laws of thermodynamics, conservation of mass, momentum and energy, entropy changes for perfect gases)
• Introduction to compressible flow (sonic velocity, Mach number, stagnation relations in terms of Mach number, total pressure loss and entropy change relation)
• Varying-area adiabatic flow (convergent-divergent nozzle, diffuser, choking)
• Chemical equilibrium, equilibrium constant, equilibrium composition and temperature
• Review of Carnot and Brayton cycles
• Engine performance parameters such as thrust, specific fuel consumption, and efficiencies
• Cycle analysis of ramjets, turbojets and turbofans
• Analysis of inlets and nozzles
• Turbomachinery preliminaries: Euler turbomachinery equations, cascade nomenclature
• Compressors: cascade analysis and velocity triangles, stage characteristics, stability and surge, multi-stage compressors
• Turbines: cascade analysis of characteristics, blade design
• On-design compressor-turbine matching procedures
• Combustors: requirements, combustor sizing, fuel injection, ignition, and heat transfer and liner cooling