Aerodynamic Redesign and Analysis of a Research Jet Engine – Virtual Prototyping of Gas Turbine Components

Abstract

Today’s the gas turbines are the only relevant propulsion systems for high speed commercial and military applications in aeronautics and they are widely used in other segment of the industry too. A research project has been completed to redesign a 330 N thrust low size jet engine to be used for academic purposes. This article introduces the main steps required to design and analyse such a system in aerodynamic way. The jet engine has a single-stage centrifugal compressor having 2.5:1 pressure ratio at 43,000 RPM, a direct-flow annular combustion chamber and a single-stage axial turbine with 1000 K turbine-inlet temperature. Following the design, 3D CAD model of the engine has been created for fluid dynamics and heat transfer analysis. The results of the CFD simulations are compared with the available measured data for validation purposes and conclusions are drawn about the effectivity of the used analytical and numerical methods.