Burt Rutan's White Knight and SpaceShip One, Photo Courtesy of Scaled Composites
Thermodynamics and Propulsion

12.1 Introduction

So far we have only looked at the thermodynamic results of compressors and turbines ($ \pi$ 's and $ \tau$ 's). Now we will look in more detail at how the components of a gas turbine engine produce these effects. You will learn later that without heat transfer, it is only possible to change the total enthalpy of a fluid with an unsteady process (e.g. moving blades). Still we will use many of the steady flow tools that we have discussed in thermodynamics and propulsion by considering the steady flow in and out of a component as shown in Figure 12.1.

Figure 12.1: Control volume around compressor or turbine.
Image fig9TurbomachineryCtrlVolume_web

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