Mixing of Exhaust and By-pass Flow in a By-pass Engine

Abstract

It is well known that the main purpose of the by-pass principle is to improve the propulsive efficiency of a simple jet engine by removing some of the energy left in the jet gases and using this to compress an extra quantity of air, known as the by-pass air, this air being ejected rearwards with the jet gases. In this way a greater mass of air is ejected rearwards at a lower jet velocity and thus a better propulsive efficiency is obtained. This is an extremely simplified view of the advantages of the by-pass engine, however, since an equivalent result of obtaining a lower jet velocity can be obtained by designing the jet engine for a lower combustion temperature. The by-pass principle is of advantage because it enables a higher propulsive efficiency to be obtained at the same time as employing a high combustion temperature and therefore a high basic cycle efficiency. If the component efficiencies of a gas turbine were 100 per cent, cycle efficiency would not depend upon combustion temperature at all, and there would thus be no advantage in principle in using the by-pass engine. In practice there would probably be some residual advantage left in that for a given thrust a lower engine weight could be obtained.