Fuel Consumption Reduction and Weight Estimate of an Intercooled-Recuperated Turboprop Engine

Abstract

The introduction of intercooling and regeneration in a gas turbine engine can lead to performance improvement and fuel consumption reduction. Moreover, as first consequence of the saved fuel, also the pollutant emission can be greatly reduced. Turboprop seems to be the most suitable gas turbine engine to be equipped with intercooler and heat recuperator thanks to the relatively small mass flow rate and the small propulsion power fraction due to the exhaust nozzle. However, the extra weight and drag due to the heat exchangers must be carefully considered. An intercooled-recuperated turboprop engine is studied by means of a thermodynamic numeric code that, computing the thermal cycle, simulates the engine behavior at different operating conditions. The main aero engine performances, as specific power and specific fuel consumption, are then evaluated from the cycle analysis. The saved fuel, the pollution reduction, and the engine weight are then estimated for an example case

Performance of a Turboprop Engine with Heat Recovery in Off-Design Conditions

“…For a flight length of 8 hours the saved fuel is about 490 kg. In this case the aircraft powered by the ICR turboprop could weigh at takeoff less than the aircraft powered by a conventional engine [19]. We must remember that the values shown in the previous graphics and tables refer to a particular study case.…”

“…The parametric study of a turboprop engine with intercooling and regeneration (ICR engine) has been performed by means of a thermodynamic numeric program developed for this purpose. The program allows to simulate the behavior of a ICR turboprop engine at different operating conditions (altitude, flight Mach number) and for different engine characteristics (pressure ratio, TET, intercooling and regeneration effectiveness, components efficiency) computing the thermal cycle and hence the main engine performance and efficiencies [19][20][21][22]. The program simulates the HPT blade cooling, follow ing the method presented by Oates and reported in bib liography [17].…”

Optimization of a Turboprop UAV for Maximum Loiter and Specific Power Using Genetic Algorithm

“…[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. In addition, optimization problems related with gas turbine engine performance have been studied in literature in many cases [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22].…”