Concept description and assessment of the main features of a geared intercooled reversed flow core engine

Journal article, 2015

Intercooled turbofan cycles allow higher overall pressure ratios to be reached which gives rise to improved thermal efficiency. Intercooling also allows core mass flow rate to be reduced which facilitates higher bypass ratios. A new intercooled core concept is proposed in this paper which promises to alleviate limitations identified with previous intercooled turbofan designs. Specifically, these limitations are related to core losses at high overall pressure ratios as well as difficulties with the installation of the intercooler. The main features of the geared intercooled reversed flow core engine are described. These include an intercooled core, a rear-mounted high-pressure spool fitted rearwards of the low-pressure spool as opposed to concentrically as well as a mixed exhaust. In these studies, the geared intercooled reversed flow core engine has been compared with a geared intercooled straight flow core engine with a more conventional core layout. This paper compares the mechanical design of the high-pressure spools and shows how different high-pressure compressor and high-pressure turbine blade heights can affect over-tip leakage losses. In the reversed configuration, the reduction in high-pressure spool mean diameter allows for taller high-pressure compressor and turbine blades to be adopted which reduces over-tip leakage losses. The implication of intercooler sizing and configuration, including the impact of different matrix dimensions, is assessed for the reversed configuration. It was found that a 1-pass intercooler would be more compact although a 2-pass would be less challenging to manufacture. The mixer performance of the reversed configuration was evaluated at different levels of mixing effectiveness. This paper shows that the optimum ratio of total pressure in the mixing plane for the reversed flow core configuration is about 1.02 for a mixing effectiveness of 80%. Lower mixing effectiveness would result in a higher optimum ratio of total pressure in the mixing plane and fan pressure ratio.