A jet engine is a type of reaction engine, discharging a fast-moving jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition may include rocket, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term jet engine typically refers to an internal combustion air-breathing jet engine such as a turbojet, turbofan, ramjet, pulse jet, or scramjet. In general, jet engines are internal combustion engines.
Air-breathing jet engines typically feature a rotating air compressor powered by a turbine, with the leftover power providing thrust through the propelling nozzle—this process is known as the Brayton thermodynamic cycle. Jet aircraft use such engines for long-distance travel. Early jet aircraft used turbojet engines that were relatively inefficient for subsonic flight. Most modern subsonic jet aircraft use more complex high-bypass turbofan engines. They give higher speed and greater fuel efficiency than piston and propeller aeroengines over long distances. A few air-breathing engines made for high-speed applications (ramjets and scramjets) use the ram effect of the vehicle's speed instead of a mechanical compressor.
The thrust of a typical jetliner engine went from (de Havilland Ghost turbojet) in the 1950s to (General Electric GE90 turbofan) in the 1990s, and their reliability went from 40 in-flight shutdowns per 100,000 engine flight hours to less than 1 per 100,000 in the late 1990s. This, combined with greatly decreased fuel consumption, permitted routine transatlantic flight by twin-engined airliners by the turn of the century, where previously a similar journey would have required multiple fuel stops and three or more engines.
History
Before the start of World War II, engineers were beginning to realize that engines driving propellers were approaching performance limits due to issues related to propeller efficiency,propeller efficiency which declined as blade tips approached the speed of sound. If aircraft performance was to increase beyond this point, a different propulsion mechanism would be necessary. This was the motivation behind the development of the gas turbine engine, the most common form of jet engine.
The key to a practical jet engine was the gas turbine, extracting power from the engine itself to drive the compressor. The gas turbine was not a new idea: the patent for a stationary turbine was granted to John Barber in England in 1791. The first gas turbine to successfully run self-sustaining was built in 1903 by Norwegian engineer Ægidius Elling. Such engines did not reach manufacture due to issues of safety, reliability, weight and, especially, sustained operation.
The first patent for using a gas turbine to power an aircraft was filed in 1921 by Maxime Guillaume. His engine was an axial-flow turbojet, but was never constructed as it would have required considerable advances over the state of the art in compressors. Alan Arnold Griffith published An Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design in 1926 leading to experimental work at the RAE.
In 1928, RAF College Cranwell cadet Frank Whittle formally submitted his ideas for a turbojet to his superiors. In October 1929, he developed his ideas further. On 16 January 1930, in England, Whittle submitted his first patent (granted in 1932). The patent showed a two-stage axial compressor feeding a single-sided centrifugal compressor. Practical axial compressors were made possible by ideas from A.A.Griffith in a seminal paper in 1926 ("An Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design"). Whittle would later concentrate on the simpler centrifugal compressor only. Whittle was unable to interest the government in his invention, and development continued at a slow pace.
In Spain, pilot and engineer Virgilio Leret Ruiz was granted a patent for a jet engine design in March 1935. Republican president Manuel Azaña arranged for initial construction at the Hispano-Suiza aircraft factory in Madrid in 1936, but Leret was executed months later by Francoist Moroccan troops after unsuccessfully defending his seaplane base on the first days of the Spanish Civil War. His plans, hidden from Francoists, were secretly given to the British embassy in Madrid a few years later by his wife, Carlota O'Neill, upon her release from prison.
In 1935, Hans von Ohain started work on a similar design to Whittle's in Germany, both compressor and turbine being radial, on opposite sides of the same disc, initially unaware of Whittle's work. Ohain said that he had not read Whittle's patent and Whittle believed him. (Frank Whittle 1907–1996). Von Ohain's first device was strictly experimental and could run only under external power, but he was able to demonstrate the basic concept. Ohain was then introduced to Ernst Heinkel, one of the larger aircraft industrialists of the day, who immediately saw the promise of the design. Heinkel had recently purchased the Hirth engine company, and Ohain and his master machinist Max Hahn were set up there as a new division of the Hirth company. They had their first HeS 1 centrifugal engine running by September 1937. Unlike Whittle's design, Ohain used hydrogen as fuel, supplied under external pressure. Their subsequent designs culminated in the gasoline-fuelled HeS 3 of , which was fitted to Heinkel's simple and compact He 178 airframe and flown by Erich Warsitz in the early morning of August 27, 1939, from Rostock-Marienehe aerodrome, an impressively short time for development. The He 178 was the world's first jet plane.Warsitz, Lutz: The First Jet Pilot – The Story of German Test Pilot Erich Warsitz (p. 125), Pen and Sword Books Ltd., England, 2009 Heinkel applied for a US patent covering the Aircraft Power Plant by Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain on May 31, 1939; patent number US2256198, with M Hahn referenced as inventor. Von Ohain's design, an axial-flow engine, as opposed to Whittle's centrifugal flow engine, was eventually adopted by most manufacturers by the 1950s.Experimental & Prototype US Air Force Jet Fighters, Jenkins & Landis, 2008
Austrian Anselm Franz of Junkers' engine division (Junkers Motoren or "Jumo") introduced the axial-flow compressor in their jet engine. Jumo was assigned the next engine number in the RLM 109-0xx numbering sequence for gas turbine aircraft powerplants, "004", and the result was the Jumo 004 engine. After many lesser technical difficulties were solved, mass production of this engine started in 1944 as a powerplant for the world's first jet-fighter aircraft, the Messerschmitt Me 262 (and later the world's first jet-bomber aircraft, the Arado Ar 234). A variety of reasons conspired to delay the engine's availability, causing the fighter to arrive too late to improve Germany's position in World War II, however this was the first jet engine to be used in service.
Meanwhile, in Britain the Gloster E28/39 had its maiden flight on 15 May 1941 and the Gloster Meteor finally entered service with the RAF in July 1944. These were powered by turbojet engines from Power Jets Ltd., set up by Frank Whittle. The first two operational turbojet aircraft, the Messerschmitt Me 262 and then the Gloster Meteor entered service within three months of each other in 1944; the Me 262 in April and the Gloster Meteor in July. The Meteor only saw around 15 aircraft enter World War II action, while up to 1400 Me 262 were produced, with 300 entering combat, delivering the first ground attacks and air combat victories of jet planes.
Following the end of the war the German jet aircraft and jet engines were extensively studied by the victorious allies and contributed to work on early Soviet and US jet fighters. The legacy of the axial-flow engine is seen in the fact that practically all jet engines on fixed-wing aircraft have had some inspiration from this design.
By the 1950s, the jet engine was almost universal in combat aircraft, with the exception of cargo, liaison and other specialty types. By this point, some of the British designs were already cleared for civilian use, and had appeared on early models like the de Havilland Comet and Avro Canada Jetliner. By the 1960s, all large civilian aircraft were also jet powered, leaving the piston engine in low-cost niche roles such as cargo flights.
The efficiency of turbojet engines was still rather worse than piston engines, but by the 1970s, with the advent of high-bypass turbofan jet engines (an innovation not foreseen by the early commentators such as Edgar Buckingham, at high speeds and high altitudes that seemed absurd to them), fuel efficiency was about the same as the best piston and propeller engines.
Uses
Jet engines power jet aircraft, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. In the form of rocket engines they power model rocketry, spaceflight, and military missiles.
Jet engines have propelled high speed cars, particularly drag racers, with the all-time record held by a rocket car. A turbofan powered car, ThrustSSC, currently holds the land speed record.
Jet engine designs are frequently modified for non-aircraft applications, as industrial gas turbines or marine powerplants. These are used in electrical power generation, for powering water, natural gas, or oil pumps, and providing propulsion for ships and locomotives. Industrial gas turbines can create up to 50,000 shaft horsepower. Many of these engines are derived from older military turbojets such as the Pratt & Whitney J57 and J75 models. There is also a derivative of the P&W JT8D low-bypass turbofan that creates up to 35,000 horsepower (HP).
Jet engines are also sometimes developed into, or share certain components such as engine cores, with other gas turbine engine types. Turboshaft and turboprop engines, which are forms of gas turbine engines that are typically used to power helicopters and some propeller-driven aircraft.
Types of jet engine There are a large number of different types of jet engines, all of which achieve forward thrust from the principle of jet propulsion.
Airbreathing
Commonly aircraft are propelled by airbreathing jet engines. Most airbreathing jet engines that are in use are turbofan jet engines, which give good efficiency at speeds just below the speed of sound.
Turbojet
A turbojet engine is a gas turbine engine that works by compressing air with an inlet and a compressor (axial, centrifugal, or both), mixing fuel with the compressed air, burning the mixture in the combustor, and then passing the hot, high pressure air through a turbine and a nozzle. The compressor is powered by the turbine, which extracts energy from the expanding gas passing through it. The engine converts internal energy in the fuel to increased momentum of the gas flowing through the engine, producing thrust. All the air entering the compressor is passed through the combustor, and turbine, unlike the turbofan engine described below.
Turbofan
Turbofans differ from turbojets in that they have an additional fan at the front of the engine, which accelerates air in a duct bypassing the core gas turbine engine. Turbofans are the dominant engine type for medium and long-range airliners.
Turbofans are usually more efficient than turbojets at subsonic speeds, but at high speeds their large frontal area generates more drag.Mattingly, pp. 9–11 Therefore, in supersonic flight, and in military and other aircraft where other considerations have a higher priority than fuel efficiency, fans tend to be smaller or absent.
Because of these distinctions, turbofan engine designs are often categorized as low-bypass or high-bypass, depending upon the amount of air which bypasses the core of the engine. Low-bypass turbofans have a bypass ratio of around 2:1 or less.
Propfan