Jet Propulsion A Simple Guide to the Aerodynamics and Thermodynamic Design and Performance of Jet Engines

Preface to the third edition

The civil aircraft, the Airbus A380, which resembles the New Large Aircraft of Part 1 of earlier editions, has been in service for several years. Attention in the aircraft industry has now shifted to two-engine aircraft with a greater emphasis on reduction of fuel burn, so the model created for Part 1 is the New Efficient Aircraft, a twin aimed at high efficiency. There is another change to highlight, which is the switch to using fan pressure ratio as the independent design variable rather than bypass ratio. In the time since the first edition, the typical fan pressure ratios have been reduced, and this has necessarily led to a considerable increase in complexity. The changes relating to military combat engines are relatively small.

Another major change is the inclusion of a co-author. Andy Heyes had used the second edition in teaching a course in Imperial College and was well placed in terms of knowledge and experience to work on the third edition.

For the third edition, we would like to acknowledge additional help from friends and colleagues. From Rolls-Royce, we would mention Conrad Banks, John Bolger, Simon Gallimore, Peter Hopkins, Glen Knight, Paul Madden, Alan Newby, Ian Rainbow and Joe Walsh; from Pratt and Whitney, Yuan Dong, Alan Epstein and Jayant Sabnis; from Stanford University, Juan Alonso and Anil Variyar; from the University of Cambridge, Chez Hall and John Young; from Imperial College, Aaron Costall, Ricardo Martinez-Botas and Peter Newton; from Ohio State, Mike Dunn, retired from NASA, Tony Strazisar; retired from General Electric, Meyer Benzakein; and retired from Airbus, Jeff Jupp.

Preface to the first edition

This book arose from an elementary course taught to undergraduates, which forms the first ten chapters, concerned with the design of the engines for a new 600-seat long-range airliner. Introductory undergraduate courses in thermodynamics and fluid mechanics would provide the reader with the required background, but the material is also presented in a way to be accessible to any graduate in engineering or physical sciences with a little background reading. The coverage is deliberately restricted almost entirely to the thermodynamic and aerodynamic aspects of jet propulsion, a large topic in itself. The still larger area associated with mechanical aspects of engines is not covered, except that empirical information for such quantities as maximum tip speed are used, based on experience.