Performance Evaluation of an Experimental Turbojet Engine

Abstract

An exergy analysis is presented including design parameters and performance assessment, by identifying the losses and efficiency of a gas turbine engine. The aim of this paper is to determine the performance of a small turbojet engine with an exergetic analysis based on test data. Experimental data from testing was collected at full-load of small turbojet engine. The turbojet engine exhaust data contains CO2, CO, CH4, H-2, H2O, NO, NO2, N-2 and O-2 with a relative humidity of 35% for the ambient air of the performed experiments. The evaluated main components of the turbojet engine are the air compressor, the combustion chamber and the gas turbine. As a result of the thermodynamic analysis, exergy efficiencies (based on product/fuel) of the air compressor, the combustion chamber and the gas turbine are 81.57%, 50.13% and 97.81%, respectively. A major proportion of the total exergy destruction was found for the combustion chamber at 167.33 kW. The exergy destruction rates are 8.20 %, 90.70 % and 1.08% in the compressor, the combustion chamber and the gas turbine, respectively. The rates of exergy destruction within the system components are compared on the basis of the exergy rate of the fuel provided to the engine. Eventually, the exergy rate of the fuel is calculated to be 4.50% of unusable due to exergy destruction within the compressor, 49.76% unusable due to exergy destruction within the combustion chamber and 0.59% unusable due to exergy destruction within the gas turbine. It can be stated that approximately 55% of the exergy rate of the fuel provided to the engine can not be used by the engine.