Relative effect of pressure losses and inefficiencies of turbomachines on the performance of the heat-exchange gas turbine cycle

The gas turbine engine is known to be relatively more sensitive to pressure losses and inefficiencies of components than any other engine. Therefore, a quantitative evaluation of the resulting performance is necessary. In this paper, a heat-exchange cycle, which is widely used due to its higher efficiency, is considered. Performance, including work and thermal efficiency, in addition to air mass flow, is evaluated over a wide range of operating conditions, namely, compressor pressure ratio, and efficiency plus turbine efficiency. A specially designed computer program was used. The analysis resulted in a set of curves which help the designer to easily estimate the percentage change in performance and engine cost relative to the ideal cycle over a wide range of operating conditions.