A

SEMINAR REPORT ON
AIRCRAFT PROPULSION SYSTEM

PRESENTED BY:- GUIDED BY:-

PREETI DWIVEDI Mr. UC JHA
COURSE: B.Tech
COURSE: Mechanical Engineering 3rd year
ROLL No.: 0716540040
 Aircraft Propulsion System
A Seminar
Submitted to the
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Kanpur Institute of Technology,(Kanpur)
U.P Technical University, Lucknow
In partial fulfillment of requirements for the award of the degree of

“Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering”

GUIDED BY: Mr. UC JHA

SUBMITTED BY:-
PREETI DWIVEDI
Roll No.: 0716540040

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

KANPUR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
A-1, UPSIDC Industrial Area, Rooma Kanpur-208001 U.P(INDIA)
 CERTIFICATE

This certify that “Neha Singh” has worked under supervision and
guidance for the seminar entitled “AIRCRAFT PROPULSION
SYTEM” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of
the degree of B.TECH in “MECHANICAL ENGINEEING” OF
U.P.T.U LUCKNOW , during academic year 2009-2010.

It is further that to the best of my knowledge, this work has not been
submitted to any University in fulfillment of requirement of any
degree & has not been published elsewhere. His submission for the
above mentioned course is here by approved.

Mr. UC JHA
(Department of
Mechanical Engineering)
Kanpur Institute of Technology

DATE:………………………….
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am on cloud nine to extend my thanks to our H.O.D, Mr.

SHAKUN SRIVASTAVA for providing me such a great
opportunity to work on this topic

I would also like to thanks to Mr. UC JHA for his kind

cooperation and providing guidance to me related to the
topic.

I would also like to forward my thanks to all faculty

members of Mechanical Department who directly or
indirectly helped me a lot in completion of my project.

I would also like to include here my Parents who

encouraged me at every step and provided me the useful
information related to the topic.

At last but not the least I thank to all my friends without

whose cooperation the completion of this project would not
be an easy task.

PREETI DWIVEDI
 AN INTRODUCTION TO
AIRCRAFTS
Aircrafts come in many different shapes and sizes depending on the
mission of the aircraft, but all modern airplanes have certain
components in common. These are the fuselage, wing, tail
assembly and control surfaces, landing gear, and power plant(s).

For any aircraft to fly, it must be able to lift the weight of the
aircraft, its fuel, the passengers, and the cargo. The wings generate
most of the lift to hold the plane in the air. To generate lift, the
aircraft must be pushed through the air. The engines, which are
usually located beneath the wings, provide the thrust to push the
aircraft forward through the air.

The fuselage is the body of the airplane that holds all the pieces of
the aircraft together and many of the other large components are
attached to it. The fuselage is generally streamlined as much as
possible to reduce drag. Designs for fuselages vary widely. The
fuselage houses the cockpit where the pilot and flight crew sit and
it provides areas for passengers and cargo. It may also carry
armaments of various sorts. Some aircraft carry fuel in the fuselage;
others carry the fuel in the wings. In addition, an engine may be
housed in the fuselage.

The wing provides the principal lifting force of an aircraft. Lift is

obtained from the dynamic action of the wing with respect to the
air. The cross-sectional shape of the wing as viewed from the side is
known as the airfoil section. The platform shape of the wing (the
shape of the wing as viewed from above) and placement of the wing
on the fuselage (including the angle of incidence), as well as the
airfoil section shape, depend upon the aircraft mission and the best
compromise necessary in the overall aircraft design.

The control surfaces include all those moving surfaces of an

aircraft used for attitude, lift, and drag control. They include the
tail assembly, the structures at the rear of the aircraft that serve to
control and maneuver the aircraft and structures forming part of
and attached to the wing.

The tail usually has a fixed horizontal piece (called the horizontal
stabilizer) and a fixed vertical piece (called the vertical
stabilizer). The stabilizers provide stability for the aircraft—they
keep it flying straight. The vertical stabilizer keeps the nose of the
plane from swinging from side to side (called yaw), while the
horizontal stabilizer prevents an up-and-down motion of the nose
(called pitch). (On the Wright brothers' first successful aircraft,
the horizontal stabilizer was placed in front of the wings. Such a
configuration is called a canard after the French word for "duck").

The hinged part found on the trailing edge of the wing is called the
aileron. It is used to roll the wings from side to side. Flaps are
hinged or pivoted parts of the leading and/or trailing edges of the
wing used to increase lift at reduced airspeeds, primarily at landing
and takeoff. Spoilers are devices used to disrupt the airflow over
the wing so as to reduce the lift on an airplane wing quickly. By
operating independently on each wing, they may provide an
alternate form of roll control. Slats at the front part of the wing are
used at takeoff and landing to produce additional lift.
At the rear of both the aileron surfaces and elevators and rudders
are small moving sections called trim tabs that are attached by
hinges. Their function is to (1) balance the airplane if it is too nose
heavy, tail heavy, or wing heavy to fly in a stable cruise condition;
(2) maintain the elevator, rudder, and ailerons at whatever setting
the pilot wishes without the pilot maintaining pressure on the
controls; and (3) help move the elevators, rudder, and ailerons and
thus relieve the pilot of the effort necessary to move the surfaces.

The landing gear, or undercarriage, supports the aircraft when it is

resting on the ground or in water and during the takeoff and
landing. The gear may be fixed or retractable. The wheels of most
aircraft are attached to shock-absorbing struts that use oil or air to
cushion the blow of landing. Special types of landing gear include
skis for snow and floats for water. For carrier landings, arrester
hooks are used.

Forward motion, or thrust, is generated by a thrust-producing

device or power plant to sustain flight. The power plant consists of
the engine (and propeller, if present) and the related accessories.
The main engine types are the reciprocating (or piston type), and
the reaction, or jet, engine such as the ram jet, pulse jet, turbojet,
turboprop, and rocket engine. The propeller converts the energy of
a reciprocating engine's rotating crankshaft into a thrust force.
Usually the engines are located in cowed pods hung beneath the
wings, but some aircraft, like fighter aircraft, will have the engines
buried in the fuselage.

Other configurations have sometime been used. For instance, the

Wright brothers' 1903 Flyer had pusher propellers (propellers at
the rear of the plane) and the elevators at the front of the aircraft.
Many fighter aircraft also combine the horizontal stabilizer and
elevator into a single stipulator surface. There are many possible
aircraft configurations, but any configuration must provide for the
four forces needed for flight.
 HISTORY OF AIRCRAFT

The ease with which birds roam the skies has always been
envied by man. The dream to be able to take off to the
skies is probably as old as mankind itself. However, the
concept of the aircraft or airplane is fairly new.

Just about 2 centuries ago man tried imitating birds by

creating the omithopter. The omithopter was basically a
machine with flapping wings. Unfortunately, it did not
scale well. Flapping wings were great to lift light bodied
birds. However, they simply did not have the power
required to lift an entire machine and a human body as
well. The concept was good but could not be executed.
In around 1783, another attempt at flying was made by a
few daring aeronauts in lighter-than-air balloons. While
this experiment succeeded in getting off the ground –
literally – it did not go very far either. The aeronauts had
no way to maneuver the balloon and were completely
dependent on the strength and direction of the wind for
their flight. The project was grounded soon after.

It was only in 1799, that an Englishman named Sir George

Clayey built the first true airplane. He conceptualized a
flying machine that had fixed wings instead of flapping
ones, a propulsion system and even movable control
surfaces. Thus, the fundamental concept of airplanes
came into existence.

With his emphasis on lift, thrust and control Clayey

designed the first glider in 1804. It had a single wing and a
movable tail mounted on a universal joint. It also had an
adjustable center of gravity and was the first ever aircraft
of any size capable of flying. In 1809 Clayey expanded the
glider concept and built a man-sized one with wings
spanning 300 feet. A few hops were all it could manage.
Around the same time Clayey also published a three part
series ‘On Aerial Navigation’ in Nicholson’s Journal Of
Natural Philosophy to propound his theory on flying as
being a consequence of lift, propulsion and control.

While Clayey was working on his glider there were others

too who were trying to fly. In 1831 Thomas Walker
proposed the tandem-wing design airplane. It featured a
wing whose camber was upside down. Had it been built it
would have stayed firmly on the ground. In 1843 Samuel
Henson proposed the first ever design for a propeller
driven fixed-wing aircraft. A few years later Henson built
his airplane with String fellow but it only managed brief
glides.

It was after years of experimentation and research in 1849,

that Clayey finally built a small glider that could lift about
80 pounds of weight. He called it the ‘boy-glider’ since it
could lift a 10-year old boy for a few yards. And what
followed changed the course of flying forever. In 1853,
Clayey built an improved version of the boy-glider and
convinced his coachman to pilot it. The coachman made a
wavering and uncontrolled glide of a few hundred feet.
This was the first ever truly manned flight in a fixed wing
aircraft!

Soon after attempts started being made by others as well

to build power aircrafts. In 1857 Felix Due Temple and his
brother Louis flew a model monoplane with steam engine
driven propellers. This was the first ever, successful flying
powered aircraft.

In 1871, Penned built the planophore. It was a 20-inch long

monoplane with a pusher propeller powered by a rubber
band and flew 131 feet in 11 seconds. Wenham and
Browning in the same year demonstrated the wind tunnel
to prove that cambered wings produce more lift than other
types of wings. There were continued attempts by many
inventors to build successful powered aircrafts. While
many important discoveries were made, no one was able
to build an aircraft capable of sustained flight.

In the last two decades of the nineteenth century many

discoveries and attempts were made to build an airplane.
Milliard of France pointed out the necessity of training
pilots to fly the various aircrafts being built. Parsons in
England used a small steam engine to propel a plane for
almost 300 feet. This is the first ever account of a jet
aircraft.

In 1884 a significant discovery was made by Horatio

Philips. He worked with cambered wings in a wind tunnel,
which is the scientific foundation for modern airfoil
designs as well. He also discovered that when wind blows
across a curved surface, it creates a low pressure area on
top of the surface and high pressure area below it. This is
what generates the much-required lift.

In 1891 Samuel Langley began experimenting with

Aerodromes and even got funding from the government.
The first five attempts however, were all miserable failures.

And finally, it was around the same time, the Wright

brothers start building their airplane and getting
recognized for their work at Kitty Hawk. The story of the
Wright brothers’ airplane reads like a true American
success story! All the above events seem to be leading up
to the grand finale executed and performed by Orville and
Wilbur Wright.

AN INTRODUCTION OF
PROPULSION
What is propulsion?
The word is derived
from two Latin words:
pro meaning before or
forwards and peeler
meaning to drive.
Propulsion means to
push forward or drive
an object forward. A
propulsion system is a
machine that produces
thrust to push an
object forward. On
airplanes, thrust is
usually generated
through some
application of Newton's
third law of action and
reaction. A gas, or
working fluid, is
accelerated by the
engine, and the
reaction to this
acceleration produces a
force on the engine.
A general derivation of the thrust equation shows that the amount
of thrust generated depends on the mass flow through the engine
and the exit velocity of the gas. Different propulsion systems
generate thrust in slightly different ways. We will discuss four
principal propulsion systems: the propeller, the turbine (or jet)
engine, the ramjet, and the rocket.

Why are there different types of engines? If we think about

Newton's first law of motion, we realize that an airplane propulsion
system must serve two purposes. First, the thrust from the
propulsion system must balance the drag of the airplane when the
airplane is cruising. And second, the thrust from the propulsion
system must exceed the drag of the airplane for the airplane to
accelerate. In fact, the greater the difference between the thrust
and the drag, called the excess thrust, the faster the airplane will
accelerate.

Some aircraft, like airliners and cargo planes, spend most of their
life in a cruise condition. For these airplanes, excess thrust is not as
important as high engine efficiency and low fuel usage. Since
thrust depends on both the amount of gas moved and the velocity,
we can generate high thrust by accelerating a large mass of gas by

CLASSIFICATIONS OF
PROPULSION SYSTEM
Propulsion systems are classified into four parts:-

TURBOJET ENGINE

TURBOPROP ENGINE

TURBOFAN ENGINE
RAMJET ENGINE
 AN OVERVIEW OF
TURBOJET ENGINE
The turbojet uses a series of fan-like compressor blades to
bring air into the engine and compress it. An entire section of
the turbojet engine performs this function, which can be
compared to the compression stroke of the reciprocating
engine. In this section, there is a series of rotor and stator
blades. Rotor blades perform somewhat like propellers in that
they gather and push air backward into the engine. The stator
blades serve to straighten the flow of this air as it passes from
one set of rotor blades.

As the air continues to be forced further into the engine, it

travels from the low-compression set of rotors and stators to
the high-compression set. This last set puts what we might say
is the final squeeze on the air.

The combustion chamber receives the high-pressure air,

mixes fuel with it, and burns the mixture. The hot, very high-
velocity gases produced strike the blades of the turbine and
cause it to spin rapidly. The turbine is mounted on a shaft
which is connected to the compressor. Thus, the spinning is
what causes the compressor sections to function. After passing
the turbine blades, the hot, highly accelerated gases go into the
engine's exhaust section.

The exhaust section of the jet engine is designed to give

additional acceleration to the gases and thereby increase
thrust. The exhaust section also serves to straighten the flow of
the gases as they come from the turbine. Basically, the exhaust
section is a cone mounted in the exhaust duct. This duct is also
referred to as the tailpipe. The shape of the tailpipe varies,
depending on the design operating temperatures and the
speed-performance range of the engine.

With all the heat produced in the turbojet engine, you

probably wonder how it is kept from overheating. Like most
aircraft reciprocating engines, the jet is also air-cooled. Of all
the air coming into the compressor section, only about 25
percent is used to produce thrust; the remaining 75 percent
passes around the combustion chamber and turbine area to
serve as a coolant.
 AN OVERVIEW ON
TURBOPROP ENGINE
The turboprop engine is an effort to combine the best features
of turbojet and propeller aircraft. The first is more efficient at
high speeds and high altitudes; the latter is more efficient at
speeds under 400 mph and below 30,000 feet. The turboprop
uses a gas turbine to turn a propeller. Its turbine uses almost
all the engine's energy to turn its compressor and propeller,
and it depends on the propeller for thrust, rather than on the
high-velocity gases going out of the exhaust. Strictly speaking,
it is not a jet. Study Figure 6-9 and note how the turbine turns
the compressors and the propeller.

The gas turbine can turn a

propeller with twice the
power of a reciprocating
engine. Reduction gears slow
the propeller below the
turbine's rpm, and this must
be done because of the
limitations of propellers.
That is, no propeller is
capable of withstanding the
forces generated when it is
turned at the same rate as
that of the gas turbine. Even
so, the turboprop engine
receives fairly extensive use
in military and civilian
aviation circles.

In summary, aircraft turbine engines may be classified as

turbojet, turbofan, or turboprop. As a group, the turbine
engines have many advantages over reciprocating engines, the
most obvious being the capability of higher-altitude and
higher-speed performance. Vibration stress is relieved as a
result of rotating rather than reciprocating parts. Control is
simpler because one lever controls both speed and power. With
the large airflow, cooling is less complicated. Spark plugs are
used only for starting, and the continuous ignition system of
reciprocating engines is not needed. A carburetor and mixture
control are not needed.

The major disadvantages have been the high fuel

consumption and poor performance at low power setting, low
speeds, and low altitudes. Turboprop and turbofan
developments have greatly improved aircraft turbine engines
in these areas

AN OVERVIEW ON TURBOFAN
ENGINE

The turbofan engine has gained popularity for a variety of

reasons. As shown in Figure 6-8, one or more rows of
compressor blades extend beyond the normal compressor
blades. The result is that four times as much air is pulled into
the turbofan engine as in the simple turbojet. However, most of
this excess air is ducted through bypasses around the power
section and out the rear with the exhaust gases. Also, a fan
burner permits the burning of additional fuel in the fan
airstreams. With the burner off, this engine can operate
economically and efficiently at low altitudes and low speeds.
With the burner on, the thrust is doubled by the burning fuel,
and it can operate on high speeds and high altitudes fairly
efficiently. The turbofan has greater thrust for takeoff,
climbing, and cruising on the same amount of fuel than the
conventional turbojet engine.

With better all-around performance at a lower ate of fuel

consumption, plus less noise resulting from its operation, it is
easy to understand why most new jet-powered airplanes are
fitted with turbofan engines. This includes military and civilian
types

JET ENGINE THRUST:-

The force produced by a jet engine is expressed in terms of

pounds of thrust. This is a measure of the mass or weight of air
moved by an engine times the acceleration of the air as it goes
through the engine. Technically, if the aircraft were to stand
still and the pressure at the exit plane of the jet engine was the
same as the atmospheric pressure, the formula for the jet
engine thrust would be:
 Weight of air in pounds per
second X velocity
Thrust =
--------------------------------------------
------------------
32.2 (normal acceleration due to
gravity, in feet per second2)

Imagine an aircraft standing still, capable of handling 215

pounds of air per second. Assume the velocity of the exhaust
gases to be 1,500 feet per second. The thrust would then be:
215 lbs of air per second
Thrust = --------------------------- X 1,500
feet per second= 6.68 X 1,500 =
32.2 feet per second2
Thrust = 10,020 lbs

If the pressure at the exit plane is not the same as the

atmospheric pressure and the aircraft were not standing still,
the formula would be somewhat different.
It is not very practical to try to compare jet engine output in terms of horsepower.
As a rule of thumb, however, you might remember that at 375 miles per hour (mph),
one pound of thrust equals one horsepower; at 750 mph, one pound of thrust equals
two horsepower.