Methods To Increase Power
The power output of a Brayton engine can be improved in the following manners:
- Reheat, wherein the working fluid—in most cases air—expands through a series of turbines, then is passed through a second combustion chamber before expanding to ambient pressure through a final set of turbines. This has the advantage of increasing the power output possible for a given compression ratio without exceeding any metallurgical constraints (typically about 1000 °C). The use of an afterburner for jet aircraft engines can also be referred to as "reheat"; it is a different process in that the reheated air is expanded through a thrust nozzle rather than a turbine. The metallurgical constraints are somewhat alleviated, enabling much higher reheat temperatures (about 2000 °C). Reheat is most often used to improve the specific power (per throughput of air), and is usually associated with a drop in efficiency, this effect is especially pronounced in afterburners due to the extreme amounts of extra fuel used.
- Overspray, wherein, after a first compressor stage, water is injected into the compressor, thus increasing the mass-flow inside the compressor, increasing the turbine output power significantly and reducing compressor outlet temperatures. In a second compressor stage the water is completely converted to a gas form, offering some intercooling via its latent heat of vaporization.
Read more about this topic: Brayton Cycle
Famous quotes containing the words methods, increase and/or power:
“We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“I have an intense personal interest in making the use of American capital in the development of China an instrument for the promotion of the welfare of China, and an increase in her material prosperity without entanglements or creating embarrassment affecting the growth of her independent political power, and the preservation of her territorial integrity.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)