Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

A flexible method for the off-design analysis of SST powerplant

installations suitable for global optimization
Dolf Bos
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Te& cnico, Lisbon, Portugal*

Abstract
This paper presents a flexible and relatively fast analytical method to carry out the off-design analysis of
a powerplant installation for a supersonic transport aircraft (bypass engines). The procedure does not impose
any constraints on the operating points of the turbines (like, for instance, requiring them to remain choked),
except those corresponding to actual physical limitations, such as bounds on the compressor exit temperature and the turbine entry temperature. The result of the procedure is a single, closed-form expression that
yields an off-design operating point of the engine at a given Mach number, altitude and low-pressure turbine
pressure ratio. ( 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Notation
A
c
p
M
mR
P
p
R
S

area
average specific heat at constant pressure (air)
Mach number
massflow
power
total pressure
gas constant
runway distance
total temperature, thrust
velocity

c
e
g
g
R
j
X, U, W

ratio of specific heats (air)

pressure ratio
efficiency
intake recovery factor (g "p /p )
R
2 0
bypass ratio
coefficients in off-design operating point
equations

Subscripts
0
ambient, intake
c
core, compressor, cold flow

cc
cr
e
f
g
h
inst
m
to
t

combustion chamber
cruise condition
exit
fan
combustion gases
hot flow
installed
mechanical
take-off
turbine

Acronyms
CPR
compressor pressure ratio
HPT
high-pressure turbine
LPT
low-pressure turbine
MDO multidisciplinary organisation
RPM
revolutions per minute
SST
supersonic transport
TET
turbine entry temperature

Station numbers according to definition in Fig. 1.

* Present address: National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands
S1369-8869/98/$see front matter ( 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
PII: S 1 3 6 9 - 8 8 6 9 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 0 3 - 2

14

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

1. Introduction
This method was developed within the framework of a Ph.D. study [1] aimed at introducing
MDO techniques into the conceptual design of aircraft, to form part of an analysis program
executed within an optimization procedure. Therefore, the accent is on calculation speed and
flexibility, which renders the method very well suitable for use in multidisciplinary optimization
studies using direct search methods to evaluate noisy or non-convex design spaces. Such methods
are notorious for making large jumps through the design space and therefore demand high
flexibility of the analysis methods. This is especially true in case genetic algorithms are used. Since
these algorithms derive their power from the fact that good genetic characteristics of a design are
kept in the design population, it is important that unusual designs can still be thoroughly analyzed,
thus enabling the genetic algorithm to learn from any good characteristics that may be present
and take corrective action. It is therefore important that the analysis programs generate results,
even for bad designs, rather than terminate the analysis and adding a large penalty to the merit
function of the design. The capability to analyze extreme designs and use any beneficial characteristics present is an absolute necessity to prevent premature convergence and stagnation of the
optimization a major problem jeopardizing the main advantage of direct search methods; their
robustness [1].
The necessity to develop a new method to analyze the powerplant installation is a result of the
fact that all analysis programs available to the author require too detailed input that is not
available at the conceptual design phase of an aircraft. The fast analytical methods known to the
author (e.g. Refs [24]) do not take into account the all important interaction between the engine
and the intake [5] (and therefore do not take into account spillage drag), whereas these methods
impose conditions on the operating points of the turbines and the nozzle throat that cannot always
be complied with by an engine required to operate in such a large flight envelope as necessary for
an SST.
The presently introduced method in order to provide the mentioned flexibility and speed uses
a number of assumptions that require closer scrutiny. First of all, the mixing process of the hot and
the cold flow is abstracted by assuming equal total pressures at the point of mixing. Since in reality
the Kutta condition (equal static pressures) applies, this assumption is only valid at low mixing
Mach numbers (the engine should be designed in such a way that the Mach numbers throughout
the engine remain small; in any case should the Mach number in front of the compressor be less
than about 0.5). In case the condition of equal total pressures would be enforced together
with the Kutta condition, this would require variable mixer geometry. This is dealt with in
Appendix A.
Secondly, for simplicity, it is assumed that the bypass air is compressed exclusively by the
low-pressure compressor (aft-fan model). In Appendix B it will be shown that this assumption is
not essential for the presented method. Finally, the presently adopted method might impose too
harsh requirements on the flexibility of the fan design (too large range of fan pressure ratios).
However, since the present method inherently imposes constraints on the bypass ratio (and
therefore indirectly on the fan pressure ratio) it is very easy to adapt these constraints to
considerations on the fan pressure ratio range. On the other hand, since such a constraint would
depend on the amount of flexibility that may be obtained by applying variable compressor vanes,
as well as on the number of compressor stages (which will influence weight and therefore requires

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

15

a detailed weight estimation procedure), it is felt by the author that imposing such a constraint
should best take place during a more detailed phase of the design. Nevertheless, the influence of
constraining the fan pressure ratio on the take-off field length of an SST design is shown in
Appendix C.

2. Matching of high-pressure spool powers and massflow

Using the station definition according to Fig. 1, the matching of the high-pressure spool powers
can be expressed as follows in the power equation (for simplicity, the influence of the fuel flow was
neglected, whereas no allowance has been made for bleed-air or power off-take):
mR c ( ! )"g mR c ( ! ).
(1)
c p 3
2
m c pg 4
5
Using generalized turbine characteristics (relation between corrected mass flow and pressure ratio
independent of corrected RPM), picking a value for the LPT pressure ratio will fix the operating
points of both the LPT and the HPT [4]. Assuming that the fan compresses bypass air only, the
HPT massflow requirement can then be expressed as follows:
mR
2 J
4
mR J
(1#j)
t
4"
.
(2)
p
ee p
4
c cc 2
Substituting the turbine entry temperature from Eq. (1) into the above equation for the HPT mass
flow requirement, using the polytropic relation between the total temperature ratio and the
compressor pressure ratio, yields the following equation, combining the high-pressure spool power
equation with the HPT mass flow requirement:
(1#j)U Je(c~1)@cgc!1
" c
e
mR
c
2

(3)

with

B S A

mR J
t
4 e
cc
p
4
U"

1
g c 1!
p
m pg
0
/
4 5
g
(4)
R
Jc
p 2
in which the intake recovery factor g "p /p .
R
2 0
The right-hand side of expression (3), which for a given compressor efficiency is a function of
the CPR only, is plotted in Fig. 2 for a polytropic compressor efficiency of 95% (the maximum
value then equals 0.245, corresponding to a CPR of 1.72). Apparently, two solutions can be
obtained for the equation, but the values to the left of the maximum are of no practical use, since
the corresponding pressure ratios are unrealistically low. For a selected value of the LPT pressure
ratio and for specified intake conditions and bypass ratio, the left-hand side of the equation is fixed
and the corresponding value for the CPR can be computed. In case the left-hand side is in excess of
the maximum in the function on the right-hand side, either the bypass ratio has to decrease or
a higher value for the LPT pressure ratio has to be chosen. The latter will reduce the compressor

16

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

Fig. 1. Engine station definition.

Fig. 2. High pressure spool function.

pressure ratio which is limited by its design value and therefore increase the core mass flow since
less air has to be dumped [1, 5].
By enforcing constraints on the TET and the CPR, Eq. (3) can be used to analyse the off-design
performance of the engine. The mass flow through the engine which initially will be equal to the
captured mass flow may subsequently be adjusted to keep satisfying the HPT mass flow
requirement.

3. Matching of low-pressure spool powers and mixing condition

The power of the fan and of the LPT can be written as follows (using the same efficiency for the
fan as for the compressor):

AA B
B
A A B B

p f (c~1)@cg c
P
3
f"jc
!1 ,
p 2 p
mR
c
2
P
p (cg~1)gt @cg
LPT"g c 1! 6
.
m pg 5
mR
p
c
5

(5)
(6)

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

17

Putting the total pressure behind the fan equal to that behind the LPT (mixing condition), the
following relation is obtained:

A BA BA B

p
p f"p "p e 4
3
6
2 c p
3
and substituting this in the

p
p
5
6 ,
p
p
4
5
equation for the fan power yields

CA BA BA BD

(7)

p
p
p
p
(c~1)@cgc
f "jc e(c~1)@cgc
4
5
6
!1 .
(8)
p 2 c
mR
p
p
p
c
3
4
5
Substituting the high-pressure spool power equation (1) into the equation for the LPT power
equation (6) yields after some rewriting,

A AB
A B

p (cg~1)gt @cg
c (e(c~1)@cgc!1) 1! 6
p
2
c
p
P
5
LPT"
.
(9)
mR

c
4!1

5
Now setting equal the fan power according to Eq. (8) and the LPT power according to Eq. (9), the
following relation is obtained, which combines both the matching condition of the high-pressure
spool powers and the mixing condition:

j!X cgc @(c~1)

e"
c
Wj!X

(10)

with

A AB B
A B
CA BA BA BD

p (cg~1)gt @cg
6
p
5
,
(11)
X"

4!1

5
p
p
p
(c~1)@cgc
4
5
6
.
(12)
W"
p
p
p
3
4
5
All pressures and temperatures in this equation are written as ratios that are known once an initial
value for the LPT pressure ratios has been chosen provided that the pressure ratio over the
combustion chamber is assumed to be constant. For two different values of the LPT pressure ratio
expression (10) is plotted in Fig. 3. These figures should not be regarded as the off-design variations
of the compressor pressure ratio and the bypass ratio, but as curves on which the solution must be
located for the off-design point under consideration.
From Eq. (10) it follows that there exists a singularity which has been indicated in the figures by
a thin dashed line. To the left of this singularity, the values for the compressor pressure ratio are
lower than one and therefore of no practical use. To the right, the CPR decreases very rapidly from
infinity and approaches the asymptotical value e "p /p , which implies that for a bypass ratio of
c
3 6
infinity, the fan does not work. Limits should be imposed on the CPR to prevent it from exceeding
its design value or to prevent the compressor exit temperature from becoming too high (whichever
1!

18

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

Fig. 3. Mixing condition: relation between compressor pressure ratio and bypass ratio.

is critical) and to limit the TET. This last limitation follows from the high-pressure spool power
equation.

4. Combining the high- and low-pressure spool equations with the mixing condition
The previously derived equations (3) and (10) constitute a system of two equations with two
unknowns (the compressor pressure ratio and the bypass ratio). Eq. (3) joins the high-pressure
spool power equation with the HPT mass flow requirement according to the generalized characteristic, whereas Eq. (10) joins the low-pressure spool power equation and the mixing condition.
Combining the two will give a single, closed-form equation for the off-design operating point of the
engine in terms of the bypass ratio and the engine mass flow [1]:

mR "U (1#j)
2

SA
A

j!X 2cgc @(c~1)

Wj!X
j!X
!1
Wj!X

(13)

with X and W according to Eqs. (11) and (12).

Eq. (13) is plotted in Fig. 4 for two values of the LPT pressure ratio. The constraints imposed on
the compressor pressure ratio can be easily translated into constraints on the bypass ratio, using
X(e(c~1)@cgc!1)
c
.
j"
We(c~1)@cgc!1
c

(14)

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

19

Fig. 4. Off-design operating point.

Each value for the bypass ratio corresponds therefore to a value for the compressor pressure
ratio (Fig. 3) and each value of the compressor pressure ratio corresponds to a function value in
Fig. 2. Since the mass flow through the engine cannot exceed the captured mass flow possibly
minus an amount of minimum spillage related to the minimum flow deflection angle at the Mach
number under consideration an upper limit exists as well for the bypass ratio.
By varying the bypass ratio between its lower and upper limits, operating points of the engine
may be obtained that satisfy the matching conditions of power and mass flow as well as the mixing
condition. The lowest value of the bypass ratio corresponds to a large amount of excess air but a high
CPR leading to maximum installed thrust. The highest value as indicated above corresponds to
minimum spillage but also to such low values of the CPR that the reduction of intake drag is not
balanced by the loss of thrust. However, higher bypass ratios can be used during take-off to reduce
the exit jet velocity and hence take-off noise at the cost of thrust (variable cycle, see also Appendix C).
In the present model this can be achieved simply by means of a variable nozzle throat area. The
LPT pressure ratio which is the independent variable for the present procedure may be
optimized for maximum thrust.
After the operational envelope of the engine and therefore the range of pressure-ratio-corrected
mass flow combinations of the fan is known, it should be established if a realistic fan design with an
acceptable performance map can be realized. The present variable-cycle model may impose very
harsh requirements on the flexibility of the fan, necessitating the use of variable compressor vanes.
Even then, it may be necessary to impose bounds on the fan pressure ratio, which are easily
translated into bounds on the bypass ratio and added to the set of constraints already imposed on
this variable. This is dealt in Appendix C.

20

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

5. Matching of the intake and engine mass flow

Dumping of excess air can be taken care of in two ways, by means of a dump door and by means
of the system of oblique shockwaves in the intake. In the latter case (which almost invariably results
in less drag [1]) the intake efficiency changes [1, 5]. This requires an iterative solution of the engine
mass flow, in the present method taken care of by means of the coefficient U. From Eq. (4) it follows
that this coefficient (which represents the mass flow requirement of the engine) depends on the
intake efficiency. Thus, after spillage, the intake efficiency changes, leading to a change of U and
hence of the mass flow through the engine. Therefore, the amount of spillage changes, leading in
turn to a new change in intake efficiency. Since the change in intake efficiency may be discontinuous because of the elimination or generation of a shock, sometimes no solution can be obtained. In
such cases additional excess air should be dumped (which will not lead to a change in intake
efficiency).

6. Conclusions
A new, flexible method to analyze the off-design performance of turbo-engines destined to power
supersonic transport aircraft has been presented. The main reasons for developing a new method
are the necessity to implement the important matching between the intake and the engine and the
required flexibility in the analysis when using direct search methods for global optimization of
a noisy or non-convex design space. Furthermore, in the design and analysis of a secondgeneration supersonic transport with the large amount of conflicting requirements imposed on
the design, environmental issues and the inherently very large flight envelope a lot of flexibility in
the powerplant design will be required. This will almost certainly lead to physical flexibility too,
like cycle variability, an adaptable nozzle throat area, an adjustable intake and possibly variable
compressor vanes. Imposing constraints on the operation of the powerplant installation such as
requiring a choked nozzle or turbine like it is done in most fast analytical methods will be
unaffordable in an attempt to create a feasible design, since such requirements in effect lead to
a reduction of dimensionality and therefore to sub-optimal results. The presented method does not
impose any such constraints on the operational envelope of the engine.

Appendix A. Evaluation of the mixing process

The engine off-design performance was calculated on basis of the assumption that the mixing
process is abstracted by considering the total pressures behind the fan and the low-pressure
turbine to be equal. In reality, the Kutta condition (equal static pressures) will apply to the
streamline separating the hot and the cold flow prior to mixing. If the assumption of equal total
pressures in the mixer is enforced together with the Kutta condition, it will be necessary to vary the
mixer areas of the hot and the cold flow (under the constraint that their sum remains constant).
Hereafter it is examined what kind of geometry adaptions this would require between the cruise
condition and take-off, for an engine design obtained after a multivariate SST optimization
study [1].

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

21

From the relation for the total pressure, putting both the total pressures and the static pressures
equal in the mixer, the Mach numbers of the hot and the cold flow are related as follows:

S CA

c !1
cg (c~1)@c(cg~1)
1# g
M2
!1 .
h
2

2
M"
c
c!1

(A.1)

With this relation, the required areas for the hot and the cold flow in the mixer can be expressed as
a function of the hot flow Mach number as follows:
J
c
mR
c p
c
A"
c
2
c!1

J
h
mR
h p
h
A"
h

S A
CA
S A

c !1
R
cg (c`1)@2c(cg~1)
1# g
M2
h
2
c

c !1
cg (c~1)@c(cg~1)
1# g
M2
!1
h
2

(A.2)

c !1
R
cg`1@2(cg~1)
1# g
M2
h
2
c
g
.
M
h

(A.3)

The ratio of both areas can then be written as follows, when the total pressures of the cold and the
hot flow are equal (neglecting for simplicity the fuel mass flow):

A
c"j
A
h

S S

c
gM
c h

A
S CA

c !1
cg~c@2c(cg~1)
1# g
M2
h
2

2
c!1

c !1
cg (c~1)@c(cg~1)
1# g
M2
!1
h
2

(A.4)

The function of the hot Mach number on the right-hand side of the equation is almost equal to one.
This implies that the mixer area ratio is all but independent of the Mach numbers of the hot and the
cold flow, and the mixer area ratio in the cruise condition relative to that during take-off can be
written as
(A /A )
j (J / )
c h cr" cr
c h cr .
(A /A )
c h to jto (Jc /h ) to

(A.5)

The total temperatures of the hot flow and the cold flow in the cruise condition are, respectively,
1036 and 535 K whereas the bypass ratio is 0.51. During take-off these values are 1023 and 447 K
and the bypass ratio is 0.27 (maximum thrust, take-off noise constraint not enforced). Since the
engine frontal area was sized for a maximum permissible Mach number of 0.5, the sum of the mixer
areas should equal 1.34 times the intake area A (3.58 m2), or 4.8 m2 [1]. During cruising the mixer
0
area ratio is about 0.36 yielding a hot mixer area of 3.53 m2 and a cold mixer area of 1.27 m2.
During take-off the mixer area ratio is half of the cruise value (0.18) yielding a hot mixer area of
4.07 m2 and a cold mixer area of 0.73 m2. Thus, the diameter of the hot duct changes about 15 cm
in case the mixer is cylindrical.

22

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

The total mass flow through the engine while cruising is 353 kg/s whereas the total pressure in
front of the mixer is 215,602 Pa. The Mach numbers of the flow, just before mixing occurs, can thus
be calculated as about 0.15 (both hot and cold). The take-off mass flow through the engine equals
478 kg/s. With a pre-mixing total pressure of 439,309 Pa this yields a value of about 0.1 for the
Mach numbers of the hot and the cold flow. The difference between the total pressure and the static
pressure therefore is very small.

Appendix B. Adaption to front-fan arrangement

For simplicity, the presented model was derived under the assumption that the fan compresses
bypass air only. This model not only applies to the aft fan concept, but also to the more
complicated versions of the variable cycle flow multiplier concept, introduced by SNECMA and
Rolls-Royce as a possible solution for the take-off noise problem of supersonic transports [6]
(tandem fan and mid-fan models). In this appendix it will be shown, however, that this assumption
is not a prerequisite for the applicability of the method; if the mixing condition is kept in the model
which, as shown in the previous appendix, is permissible in case the Mach numbers in the engine
are kept small the function of the compressor pressure ratio and the fan pressure ratio will simply
reverse and relations similar to the ones derived in this paper may be obtained for the front fan
layout.
Putting the total pressure behind the fan equal to that behind the low-pressure turbine, it
follows:
p
p "p f N 6
6
3
p
5

p
5
p
4

which yields

p p
4 3 p "p
3f
p p f 3f
3hij
3
ec

(B.1)

1
.
(B.2)
e"
c
p p p
6 5 4
p p p
5 4 3
Therefore, if the fan pressure ratio is equal for the hot and the cold flow and the total pressures in
front of the mixer are equal (mixing condition), the compressor pressure ratio is known (for a given
value of the LPT pressure ratio) and the fan pressure ratio is variable. Expressions similar to the
ones presented in this paper can be derived; the assumption of the aft fan model does not affect the
nature of the method. If the fan compresses the cold and the hot flow differently or if the mixing
condition is dropped, an additional variable will enter the equations, and the purpose of the
method is lost.
Using the same symbols as previously introduced, for the front fan arrangement, Eq. (3),
combining the HPT mass flow requirement and the high-pressure spool equation, changes into

(1#j) UW(c(1~2gc)~1)@2(c~1) Je (c~1)@cgc

" f
e
mR J1!W
f
2

(B.3)

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

23

Eq. (10), combining the low-pressure spool power equation and the mixing equation, becomes

Wj
cgc @(c~1)
.
e "
f
Wj#(W!1)X

(B.4)

And the combination of the two yields the following relation instead of Eq. (13):

(1#j)U Wj#(W!1) X (c(1~2gc)~1)@2(c~1)

.
mR "
2 J1!W
j

(B.5)

Appendix C. Evaluation of the fan design

As mentioned, the presented variable cycle-model may impose too high demands on the
flexibility of the fan design, which may necessitate variable compressor vanes. It was acknowledged
that the increase in flexibility that can thus be obtained is limited too. Therefore, it may be
necessary to impose bounds on the range of the fan pressure ratio. Such bounds, however, are
dependent on the number of fan stages and on the amount of flexibility that eventually can be
attained using flexible vanes.
Since the range of the fan pressure ratio can only be determined during a more detailed design
phase, no attempts were made to constrain the fan pressure ratio (and therefore the bypass ratio) in
the present model. However, in this appendix the influence of variations of the bypass ratio (and
therefore of the fan pressure ratio) on the take-off performance of a second-generation supersonic
design study [1] are shown. The influence of the take-off thrust on the engine weight and hence on
the maximum take-off weight of the aircraft are taken into account.
In Table 1, the bypass ratio is increased from its minimum permissible value (maximum installed
thrust) to its maximum permissible value (minimum take-off noise). The design fan pressure ratio
for this study is 2.53 and it follows that constraining the fan pressure ratio at take-off to a value of
3.26 will increase the take-off field length by about 300 m. Further reduction of the fan pressure
ratio leads to a shortage of thrust during rotation (due to leading-edge vortices) and requires
a reoptimization of the design.

Table 1
Influence of fan pressure ratio limitations on take-off performance
j
e
f
e
c
u (m/s)
e
(kN)
*/45
S (m)
50

0.27
4.00
14.17
780
322
(100%)
2910

0.31
3.70
13.99
736
312
(97%)
2939

0.36
3.26
13.07
674
281
(87%)
3191

0.42
2.80
11.87
606
243
(75%)
R

0.48
2.54
11.32
561
224
(70%)
R

0.50
2.36
10.48
529
200
(62%)
R

24

D. Bos / Aircraft Design 1 (1998) 1324

References
[1] Bos AHW. Multidisciplinary design optimization of a second-generation supersonic transport aircraft using
a hybrid genetic/gradient-guided algorithm. Ph.D. Dissertation, ISBN 90-5623-041-7, Delft University of Technology, 1996.
[2] Saravanamuttoo HIH. A rapid method for the matching of two-spool turbojets. Canadian Aeronaut Space J, 1970.
[3] Saravanamuttoo HIH. A rapid matching procedure for twin-spool turbofans, Canadian Aeronaut Space J, 1972.
[4] Wittenberg H. Prediction of off-design performance of turbojet and turbofan engines. AGARD CP 242, May 1978.
[5] Bos AHW. Intake-engine matching for HSCT powerplant design and analysis, proposed for publication.
[6] Lowrie BW, Portjoie E. Two variable engine cycle concepts for second generation supersonic transport. SAE
Technical Paper 901892, Aerospace Technology Conference and Exposition, Long Beach, CA, October 1990.