Combustion Gas Turbine for Airplanes

Citation

Lancaster, Otis Ewing (1945) Combustion Gas Turbine for Airplanes. Engineer's thesis, California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/82FF-C054. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-11242008-110400

Abstract

This paper contains a theoretical study of various thermodynamic cycles for Gas-Turbine-propeller propulsion units for aircraft. The object of the study was to evaluate the turbine-propeller engines as a source of power for fast, economical, long range airplanes. Hence, the consumption of fuel and the total weight of fuel and power plant were the main criterion for the evaluation. Since the weights of the particular units were not known, most of the results here are centered around the fuel consumption per horsepower, emphasizing the design criteria and throttle conditions for minimum values. In order to emphasize the maximum possible performance, formulae for ideal engines were developed for all cases. These relations are compared with the corresponding ones involving unknown efficiencies. A summary table of these comparison formulae is given at the close of the thesis. In the case of the cycles where there was sufficient experimental data available to estimate the performance of the component parts, the relations for power and specific fuel consumption were written in terms of three parameters which were convenient for graphical use in design purposes.

Thesis Files