Abstract

Specific Thrust  and efficiency of a  gas-turbine engine (specific power and efficiency in the case of power generation) are two opposing performance measures.  Higher thermal efficiency requires higher pressure ratio, which reduces specific  power or thrust given fixed temperature limit and  component efficiencies. I will give a brief review of the invention and evolution  of the gas turbine before introducing the new turbine-burner design, in which heat is added either continuously in the turbine (Continuous Turbine-Burner, ie., CTB) or discretely in the turbine stages (Inter-Stage Turbine Burner, ie., ITB) to resolve the conflicting requirement of high efficiency and high thrust/power. Analyses will be presented to demonstrate the tremendous potential of the turbine-burner engine for increased specific thrust (power) and efficiency at the same time. The parameter regime where such advantages can be best achieved will be identified. RANS and LES simulations are performed to demonstrate the feasibility and highlight the challenges and research opportunities of the continuous turbine-burner.

Biography

Feng Liu: Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. He received his B.S. from Northwestern Polytechnic University in Xi’an, China; M.S. from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics; and Ph.D. from Princeton University. His research interests include computational fluid dynamics, vortex stability, aeroelasticity, turbomachinery, combustion, and propulsion.  Dr. Liu is a Fellow of AIAA and ASME. He served as the Associate Editor for Journal of Fluids Engineering, International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Journal of Propulsion and Power (continuing). He received the 2023 AIAA Air-breathing Propulsion Award “for the turbine-burner engine innovation and other high-impact contributions of computational methods for turbomachinery aerodynamics.”