3

Cycle Calculations: Design

Point Performance
Engine performance can be calculated at a multitude of different levels. It
may be assessed at the very elementary level introduced in section 1.1, or it
may make allowance for component inefficiences, pressure losses, non-ideal
behaviour of gases and numerous other effects. All these affect the performance
at the design point; that is, the normal operating condition of a plant or the cruise
condition of an aircraft engine.
Then there are the complications of operation at other speeds, off-design.
Here, the effects of the component characteristics add to the complication,
involving the matching between the turbine and compressor characteristics at
many operating speeds (chapter 10). Further allowance may be required for
non-standard atmospheric conditions, such as the raised inlet pressure and
temperature with forward flight for aircraft engines or the reduced pressure and
temperature for all engines at higher altitudes (section B.4.5). Then, the working
fluid may not be air (section E.9), having a different set of properties as listed
for a few gases in appendix D. Finally, the calculations may get down to the
specific aerodynamic behaviour of the blade shapes chosen, as introduced in
appendix E.
The scope of this chapter is necessarily limited in several ways. It looks at
design point performance only, and in such a way that the performance of a
proposed gas turbine installation could be studied to assess its viability. Typical
values of efficiency and other parameters are used, and rule-of-thumb equations
are presented in place of standard graphs to determine the value of a few
parameters. The method of calculation of a basic cycle is presented, with the
effects of a number of standard variations. A general guide to cycle analysis may
also be found in reference 29, and a much more detailed guide to the initial design
process is given in reference 30. Other books giving fuller background to the
design and performance estimation are references 31 and 32A. Beyond these,
the manufacturers have their own, unpublished data and computer programs.

R. T. C. Harman, Gas Turbine Engineering

© Richard T. C. Harman 1981
 CYCLE CALCULATIONS: DESIGN POINT PERFORMANCE 35
A very helpful simplification is the use of non-dimensional, or dimensionless,
performance parameters (section B.S). These convert pressures and temperatures
to the form of ratios rather than actual values. Thus, the pressure ratio across a
compressor may be 2.5, whereas its delivery pressure would be 2.533 bar if
the inlet condition was the International Standard Atmosphere, Sea Level, Static
condition (ISASLS). Other parameters also have dimensionless forms. They permit
the engine performance throughout the dimensionless speed range to be plotted
on simple graphs (section 4.2), from which the actual values of any parameter
can be found by inserting the ambient atmospheric conditions as the reference
inlet and outlet data.

3.1 The Ideal Operating Cycle

As introduced in section 1.1, the gas turbine engine works ideally to the Joule or
Brayton cycle, involving compression and expansion at constant entropy
(isentropic, section C.2) and heat addition and rejection at constant pressure.
This cycle is different from those of the various reciprocating engine types,
which work ideally to the Diesel, Otto (petrol engines), Stirling or other cycles.
These use various combinations of processes involving constant entropy, pressure,
temperature and/or volume.
The diagrams in figure 1.2 show the lines of constant pressure as straight lines,
with no particular values to the horizontal scale. Cycle diagrams are more
commonly drawn on a plot of temperature against entropy, or pressure against
volume, as in figure 3 .1. The use of a linear entropy scale causes the lines of
constant pressure to bend as shown, but this does not alter the nature of the
argument in section 1.1. Entropy is discussed briefly in sections B.3 and C.2 as a
measure of wasted energy: changes of entropy must therefore always be positive,

pressure,p

specific volume 1m 3 /kg)

0~----------~----------
Figure 3.1 Temperature-entropy and pressure-volume diagrams for an ideal engine