Turbomachine Design Introduction

1 Lecture 1: History and development of the gas turbine

Brief overview of early gas turbines; Whittle and Von Ohain; the Whittle engine and the Jumo 004 and the
progression and drivers the led us to the modern state of the art.

1.1 The end of the piston engine era

At the start of the second world war the major powers all had fighter and bomber aircraft using engines born
from the racing aircraft of the 1930’s of the 1000 Horsepower class. By the end of the war most had engines
operating close to or above 2000 hp, but still was not enough. The figures below show and describe some of
the key engines of the war, ponder the complexity, size and mass of these. To paraphrase Frank Whittle, To
get any more power from a reciprocating engine one can only imagine larger, heavier engines shaking and
tearing themselves apart at ever greater RPM.

Figure 1: The Rolls Royce Merlin 27 litre V12 of World War II and Spitfire fame, this
was a carburettor fed engine which evolved to a two stage two speed
supercharger producing 1536kW. Over 55000 of these were build by
Packard in the USA to spread production and ensure that the engines
were available even if the UK was invaded. Dry Weight 744kg.

Figure 2: Rolls Royce Griffon, 37 litre 60 degree V12 with two stage three speed
supercharger producing up to 1805kW, typically required 150 octane
fuel. This engine was in service with the SAAF in the Avro Shackleton
Maritime patrol aircraft until the end of the 1980s. Dry Weight 900 kg.

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Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

Figure 3: Pratt and Whitney R4360 Wasp Major, 28 cylinder 4 row radial piston engine
with 71.5 litres of displacement it is the largest displacement aero
engine ever mass produced. Air cooled, it was rated at up to 2800kW
with a mechanical supercharger, also known as the ‘corncob’ engine’.
Dry Weight 1690kg.

Figure 4: Allison V1710 was unique in that it featured turbocharging in some variants
but was generally considered underpowered at 1700kW by war's end,
it featured a single stage supercharger and a turbocharger that could
suddenly freeze up at high altitude causing a sudden loss of power and
hence the British removed the turbochargers! Dry weight 633kg.

Figure 5: The Daimler Benz DB605 Inverted V12 Engine was the German mainstay
engine at the end of the war featuring fuel injection and a variable
speed supercharger in produced up to 1324kW from its 35.7 litre
displacement with methanol injection. The 605 was a bored out higher
RPM version of the original DB601. Very similar in architecture and
ouput as the equivalent Jumo 213 engine. Dry weight 756kg.

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Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

Figure 6: The Russian Klimov M-105 liquid cooled V12, a supercharged derivative of
the French Hispano-Suiza 12Y engine that was license built in Russian,
this engine produced just 820kW. Dry Weight 575kg.

Figure 7: The Napier Sabre 24 Cylinder H Block, sleeve valve engine, power upto
2200kW with a two stage two speed supercharger. Dry weight 1070kg.

Figure 8: Rolls Royce Crecy Engine, a 90-degree V12 26 litre 2 stroke, sleeve valve
engine with two stage supercharging, twin spark premixing direct
injection head for low octane fuels typically 100 octane, at 1900kW
some feel that this engine might have reached twice that output. This
engine never saw service and in fact never flew having been
superseded by gas turbines. Dry weight 862kg.

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 Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

All of the above engines ran at speeds of around 3000RPM, today’s Formula 1 race engines are running at up
to 19000 RPM thanks to improved bearing technology and produce between 650 and 750kW from just 1.6
litres of displacement. Contemplate what a Crecy Engine might achieve if it could run at these speeds –
remember that power scales directly with RPM!
Side Note: Rolls-Royce 4 stroke engines are named for birds of prey, 2 stoke engines are named after battles
and gas turbines are named after rivers.

1.2 The invention of the gas turbine engine

Figure 9: Frank Whittle, inventor of the gas turbine engine

Frank Whittle, a trained aircraft technician and Royal Air Force pilot first patented the idea in 1930 having
decided that there was no future in pursuing larger piston engines. His ideas met with strong resistance and
he was even forced to seek outside expertise to prove to the air ministry that thrust from a jet could propel an
aircraft and that the thermodynamics of the cycle was sound, and even then, he failed to find the GBP 60 000
needed to develop an engine. The design was however in essence very simple, a single shaft, one rotating
component, no reciprocating parts, relatively light weight. By 1935 he could not afford to renew the patent and
it lapsed. His only real support was from parties interested in using the idea to power propellors in what we
would call turboprops today. Hans Von Ohain in Germany started work on a gas turbine in 1935.
By 1936 Frank Whittle had started Power Jets, a private venture, to develop the gas turbine and was cobbling
together the best of supercharger radial compressor technology, steam turbine technology and custom
combustors in an attempt to develop the working prototype which ran in a prototype test bench format in 1937.
It is important to note that the separate concepts of compressor and turbine were all pre-existing concepts that
had been successfully implemented were in used since the late 19 th century.

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 Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

Figure 10: Power Jets WU Test Bench Engine which first successfully produced
positive thrust in 1937
The Air Ministry then granted contracts for the development of a flying prototype the W1 and W2 engines and
eventually the W1a engine emerged in 1940 and eventually a contract was issued for the production of 3000
units a month in 1942. This production contract was eventually taken up by Rover in a controversial
development to which Frank Whittle was very opposed. Rover had been contracted to shadow the Power Jets
development unbeknownst to Whittle. Rover at that time was producing tank engines and had been contracted
in an attempt to allow Rolls-Royce, Whittle’s preferred choice the space to concentrate on production of the
Merlin and Griffon engines. Eventually however, sanity prevailed and Rolls-Royce and Rover struck a deal that
saw Rolls-Royce give up tank engine and armoured car production to Rover and Rover to stop gas turbine
work. Rolls-Royce, although a piston engine company, understood the high precision and tolerancing
necessary to facilitate high quality and reliability, something that was simply not part of the Rover culture. By
the time Rolls-Royce took over Rover had only managed to produce 20 engines.
In order to get the engine cycle to work there were significant hurdles to overcome, turbine material properties
were a major problem as the high nickel steels did not last and supply of better Nimonic alloys was very limited.
Frank Whittle himself developed the Free Vortex design theory for the twist of the turbine, something that the
steam industry had not even though of in decades, this allowed for compact and efficient turbines with
predictable performance. The combustor however remained a challenge as the flame was simply blown out
by the air flow rate. This final problem was actually solved by Shell who designed a counter flow spray atomiser
system which finally allowed for stable operation of the Whittle engine.
By in large the problems faced in the development of the British were heat management and metallurgy. The
British limited cooling to just the turbine discs and combustor liners relying on metallurgy to solve the
temperature issues which results in relatively low turbine inlet temperatures in the order of 1100K and in
turbines with short life spans and creep and fatigue problems. Bearing technology also had to take a stride
forward as you will notice that the engine speeds were in the order of 16000 RPM, 5 times that of piston
engines at the time.

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 Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

Figure 11: Power Jets W1a Engine which produced less than 6250N of thrust but
powered the Gloster E28/39 Prototype Jet plane as a proof of concept
for jet aircraft.

Figure 12: The Rolls-Royce W2 Welland Engine which powered the first British
Production Fighter Jet the Meteor used in both World War II and Korea.
This engine produced 7.1 kN at 16000 RPM and weighted 346kg.
Between 1940 and 1942 three other British companies began work design and developing gas turbine engines:

• Armstrong Whitworth
• De Havilland
• Metropolitan Vickers

Today it may seem inconceivable that 4 or 5 companies in a small nation like the United Kingdom would
attempt separate engine developments but it was typical of war time Britain where production orders abounded

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 Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

and development took place at a furious pace, in part this led to the decline of the aviation industry in the UK
following World War II has there where simply too many companies competing in a fractious environment
devoid of orders.

Armstrong Witworth developed an engine based around a 14-stage axial compressor that was eventually
converted to a turboprop engine which powered the only turboprop fighter to enter active service, the Westland
Wyvern, when the UK attacked Egypt during the Suez crisis using its aircraft carrier forces.

De Havilland developed the Ghost and Goblin engines very similar to the Rolls-Royce designs but featuring
through flow rather than reverse flow combustors, one of which is to be found in the foyer of the Department
of Mechanical Engineering at UKZN, these engines powered the post-war Vampire aircraft and where the first
jets to enter service with The South African Air Force.

Metropolitan Vickers’ engine was also based on Axial flow compressor design but never went into production.

Rolls-Royce went on to develop into a company of international renown for its gas turbine engines, even if
their household name derives from their original car business. Following the development of the Derwent
Engine, Rolls-Royce developed the first of its own designs, the RB41 Nene Engine both of very similar through
flow design to the De Havilland Engines. Power Jets was eventually closed in 1948 and some of its staff taken
up into the National Gas Turbine Research Establishment (NGTRE).

Side note: The public often contract Rolls-Royce to ‘Rolls’ but to every engineer and technician at Rolls-Royce
the company is know as ‘Royce’s’, because Royce was the Engineer and Rolls the financier. And in an even
more obscure piece of trivia: Royce was the inventor of the bayonet fitting light bulb attachment!

Figure 13: W.2 Engine with reverse flow combustors giving a short compact design

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Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

Figure 14: A Rolls Royce Derwent engine from the remarkable collection at the SAAF
Museum. This engine powered a Gloster Meteor brought out to South
Africa for evaluation trials by the SAAF, it weight 442 kg and produced
9kN of thrust (picture Robert Cathro)

Figure 15: Rolls -Royce Nene 22.25kN thrust engine with through flow combustors
and clearly showing the double acting radial compressor, note the
third compressor cooling the bearing and turbine disc cavities.

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 Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

1.3 German Development

While Whittle was struggling to get funding Hans Von Ohain, a German physicist put together a gas turbine
engine, neatly side stepping the combustion issues encountered by Whittle by using hydrogen. Later
developments of the German industry saw Hydrogen replaced with methanol and alcohol, making for
dangerous aircraft to fly, but gaining valuable experience in the flying operation of gas turbines until the
Messerschimtt 262 became the first operational jet fighter in 1944 but even this date had been delayed due to
metallurgical issues.

Figure 16: Hans Von Ohain, one of many German scientists who ended up working
in the USA after the war.

Figure 17: The HeS 3 Engine derived from Von Ohain's original HeS 1, this engine
flew in the first German prototype jet planes built by Heinkel, note the
single axial stage in front of the radial compressor and the radial
turbine.

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 Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

The Germans then developed three main designs, the HeS engines with the HeS11 featuring a mix of axial
and radial compressor stages but never reached production, the purely axial BMW 003 and Junkers Jumo
004, the latter being the only truly successful engine to emerge and pictured in Figure 18.

The Germans had been forced to innovate in order to make the gas turbine engine a reality in war time German
where high temperature materials where extremely difficult to come by given that Nickel was mined in Canada
and Russia and the desire for a smaller diameter engine coupled to advanced axial compressor design
capability led to what is a very modern looking engine. The turbine had to be cooled and hence was made
from sheet steel with compressor bleed air forced through the hollow blades and the can annular combustor
design was advanced compared to the purely can type combustors of the British designs featuring flame
holders to stop the flame from being extinguished by the high flow speeds in the relatively low-pressure high
mass flow engine design resulting from the use of the 8-stage axial flow compressor. Nevertheless, these
engines never completely overcame the metallurgical problems and were notorious for unravelling after a few
flights. The BMW 003 weighed 649kg and produced 10.76kN of thrust running at 8000RPM. The Junkers Jumo
004 weight 745 kg and produced 8.83 kN at 8700 RPM.

1.4 International Development

During World War II the British made the strategic decision to share many of their secrets with the Americans
in order that the war might continue should Britain be overrun, and as a result General Electric were chosen
to partner with and were the recipients of the UK’s gas turbine secrets. The Rolls-Royce Nene engine was
however licence produced by Pratt and Whitney for the US Air Force and both the Derwent and BMW 003
were reverse engineered and copied at Klimov by the Soviets. The French thrust engine industry is strongly
linked with the German Jumo 004 engine as the ultimate ancestor as a result of parts produced in France
during the war while French helicopter engines are another matter and result from a French Jew who
manufactured fridge compressors and who escaped the Nazi’s by moving to the south of France near the
Spanish Border. Hence all engines to day owe their heritage to British and German developments during World
War II. As an example, the French SNECMA Atar 09C and 09K50 engines that powered the Mirage family of
fighters in South African service were in fact direct decendents of the Jumo 004 engine, featuring more stages
in the compressor but really just a scaled-up engine running at 8400 RPM.

At the close of World War II South Africa was quick to recognise that gas turbines, rockets and radar formed
the future of warfare but little was done in the gas turbine domain until 1969 when the South African Railways
commissioned work to convert a Rolls-Royce Mamba engine to constant volume combustion for use on trains
– an extraordinary project even by today’s standards, made even more extraordinary by the fact that it was
successfully run even if it was never used on a train. During sanctions a number of engines were industrialised
and a small engine developed for target drones but no full engine production ever materialised before it was
shut down by the end of sanctions in 1990. Today the only countries capable of developing and supplying gas
turbine engines are the UK, USA, Russia, Japan and France. Germany, Spain and Italy are heavily involved
in the design and development of major components and modules and Brazil, India and China all have ongoing
development programmes. The Czech Republic, Ukraine, Serbia and a number of countries including South
Africa and the Netherlands can supply small missile or hobby scale engines.

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 Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

Today the main engine companies are structured as follows:

Parent Company Subsidiaries Products

Rolls-Royce (UK) Rolls-Royce Deutschland Trent Series 3 – spool engines
(Germany) was BMW Developing 2 Spool Geared
Rolls-Royce ITP (Spain) Turbofans
specialising in Low Pressure
turbines
Rolls-Royce Corporation (USA)
was Allison – mainly military
engines
GE Aviation (USA) Avio (Italy) Specialising in Low F404 and F414 and others mainly
Pressure turbines for US Navy
Partners with SNECMA in CFM56 CFM56 and 2 spool engines for
Airliners
Pratt and Whitney (USA) Pratt and Whitney Canada US Airforce engines
(Helicopter engines Geared Turbofans for the airliner
Pratt and Whitney Poland market
Klimov (Russia) Thrust Engines for the Russian
Military and Airliners
Ivkenko Progress (Ukraine) Helicopter Engines
AVIC (China) License built military engines and
tasked with first local design of a
high Bypass engine for Chinese
designed airliner
Mitsubishi (Japan) Supplier to Japanese military and
international large engine
manufacturers
Honda (Japan) Business jet engines Honda Jet
MTU (Germany) Parts supplier to most large German Airforce EJ2000,
engine manufacturers but closely compressor and turbine
allied to Pratt and Whitney components for civil engines
GKN Aerospace (Sweden) Was Volvo Aero, supplier of the RM12 and structural components
Gripen RM12 engine, a modified for civil engines as well as
GE F404, and parts supplier to turbines for the Ariane rocket
most large engine manufacturers engines.
Honeywell (USA) Took over Garret and Allied Signal Drone Engines
in the USA Tank Engines
Business Jets
SNECMA (France) Partners with GE on CFM56 CFM56
Mictroturbo (Missile engines and French Military engines
APUs) Makila 2K2 (Rooivalk and Oryx)
Turbomeca (helicopter engines) Arrius 2c (Agusta A109)
Note: This is not an exhaustive list but it shows the contraction of the industry into a few main players and
partnerships to develop engines, a capital-intensive process

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Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

Figure 18: The Junkers Jumo 004 Gas turbine used in the first operational jet fighter
the Messerschmitt 262. Inset are the 8-stage axial flow compressor
rotors, the can-annular combustor with views of the swirler and flame
holder as well as the hollow, cooled turbine blades. (SAAF Museum,
picture by Robert Cathro)

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 Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

1.5 The rapid development of the gas turbine engine

The rapid growth in performance of gas turbine engines is illustrated by the graph below which illustrates the
three fold increase in thrust to weight ratio of military engines used by the SAAF.

Thrust to weight ratio

10
GE F414
3F, 7AC, 2T 8.91
9 Turbofan

8 7.78
7 6.72 Volvo RM12
SMR 95
3F, 7AC, 2T
4F, 9AC, 2T
6 Turbofan
Turbofan
5.21
5 5.06
4.69 4.08
4
2.94
3
3.28
Orenda 14
2 2.33 10AC, 2T Atar 09K50
Goblin 35 9AC, 2T
Turbojet
1CC, 1T Turbojet
1 Turbojet

0
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

Service Entry

Figure 19: Historical thrust to weight ratios of South African Air Force fighter jet gas
turbine engines (red indicates reheat)

In the area of civil aviation (Figure 20) the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB will produce approximately 93000 lb of
thrust, more than 100 times the thrust of the first of Power Jet’s flying engines in 1941, 69 years previously. A
thrust to weight ratio increase from 1.2:1 to greater than 6.2:1.

During The cold war engine development was focused on military engines and military engines led the way
with low bypass engines of increasing thrust, thrust vectoring, afterburners and engines capable of rapid
acceleration being the focus. Advances in high temperature metallurgy and the use of Titanium in compressors
was pioneered in the process. Cooling technology, mainly film cooling of turbine blades was also a focus in
this era along with a focus on highly loaded blading to reduce the part count, not from an economics standpoint
but from a weight reduction standpoint.

In the 1980 and even more dramatically in the 1990s the emphasis shifted to high bypass engines and today
these engines are developed on a cost reduction and environmental responsibility agenda. Interestingly the
HP cores of these engines are still largely based on the military engines of the 1980’s and find their way into
the Marine and aero-derivative power generation gas turbines found all around the world, such as the Eskom
Peaking Station in Atlantis Cape Town. Today the focus is on composite fans 3m in diameter, high power, low
weight gearboxes, staged high temperature, low NOx combustion and highly loaded, efficient turbines as well
as more electric generation for more electric aircraft, light weight TiAl shafts and ceramic high temperature
blading.

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 Turbomachine Design History and development of the gas turbine

Rolls Royce Trent

XWB, Airbus A350
100000
P&W JT9D-3A -
Boeing 747
Rolls Royce Trent
Rolls Royce 1000, Boeing 787
RB211, Boeing
10000 747-200
de Havilland
Thrust (lbf)

Ghost 50 Mk1 -
Comet

1000 Whittle W.1

100
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Year

Figure 20: Thrust history of high thrust airliner gas turbine engines on a logarithmic
scale (Whittle W.1 and Rolls-Royce Trent XWB inset)

Figure 21: Rolls-Royce Engine Growth (The Jet Engine, Rolls-Royce)

To try and put things in perspective and equate the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine producing 375kN of thrust
at takeoff speed for the Airbus A350 back to equivalent shaft horsepower you will arrive at a figure of
approximately 24 MW per engine or 15 Rolls-Royce Crecy engines. The Trent XWB weights in at 7 277 kg
less that 8.5 times the weight of the Crecy.

(Unless otherwise stated all photographs are taken from the internet, various sources mainly Wikipedia)

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