Chapter 3 - Gas Turbine Configurations and Heat Cycles

Abstract

When defining heat cycles, one needs to determine which fluid (air, fuel, hot gases, injected fluid, heat exchanger flows) is flowing where and how. This information helps define the gas turbine’s configuration and efficiency. For high-flight Mach number applications, an afterburner is often employed, which offers higher thrust from the same turbomachinery. This, also called reheat, involves burning fuel in an additional combustor downstream of the jet pipe. The greatly increased exhaust temperature provides a far higher jet velocity, and the ratios of engine thrust to weight and thrust to unit frontal area are greatly increased. This chapter covers various gas turbine configurations and heat cycles as well as steam power plant theory, combined-cycle economics, supercritical systems and various case studies.