The Design of High-Efficiency Turbomachinery

and Gas Turbines

second edition, with a new preface

The first edition of this text was published in 1984 by the MIT Press. It was received with
kindness,
David Gordonand forty-six
Wilsoninstructors in chargeKorakianitis
and Theodosios of turbomachinery and turbine courses reported
that they had adopted the book at their universities. I spent a few weeks basking in the glow of
what I happily thought was a long job well done. While I was working on a sabbatical at GE
Aircraft Engines, someone told me that he had ordered over sixty copies for the company’s de-
sign engineers. I felt that this was equivalent to winning a Pulitzer prize, and my modesty was
severely challenged.
However, this wide use brought in a great deal of feedback, soon indicating that a second
edition was needed to incorporate improvements in treatment, update examples, and correct
some errors. The second edition, for which Theodosios Korakianitis joined as coauthor, was
published in 1998 by Prentice Hall. We had several aims for a second edition. We wanted to
reduce errors to a minimum, of course. We also introduced new flow correlations into chapter 3
(cycle thermodynamics), and extended the cycles to include the principal aircraft-engine types.
We wanted to rationalize the treatment of preliminary and detailed design by taking energy
transfer in turbomachines (chapter 5) further so that a great deal of preliminary design (arriving
at the overall size and shape of a machine) could be done with the material in that chapter. More
detailed design of axial-flow turbines and compressors and of radial-flow turbomachines in
chapters 7, 8, and 9 became, we hope, more useful and more consistent. We also took three-di-
mensional design (chapter 6) to a more practical level, and extended heat-exchanger design
(chapter 10) considerably. Every chapter was updated in various ways. Many chapters had what
we have termed “illustrations” to distinguish them from “figures.” The latter are part of and
are referred to in the text. “Illustrations” are photographs or cutaway drawings of machines or
components, generally accompanied by a commentary on their design aspects.
Many people helped us. Some we have acknowledged in the text. We have been allowed to
use a wide variety of graphs, diagrams, and photos for the figures. Our students then at Wash-
ington University in St. Louis and at MIT contributed materially, sometimes unwittingly, as
tryouts for our methods. Andrew R. Mech of the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with
his students J. Lawrence Elkin and William Mathies went through the first edition and through
a draft of the second edition in great detail and dedication, giving us many useful recommen-
The MIT
dations andPress
feedback. Aristide F. Massardo, on the faculty of the University of Genoa, also
Cambridge,
reviewed Massachusetts
the second edition and offered valuable suggestions.
Before England
London, I turn to the current printing of this book, I would also like to take this opportunity to
© 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage
and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales
promotional use. For information, please email special_sales@mitpress.mit.edu.

This book was printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-0-262-52668-5

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 12.
3Ge
ner
alc
ombus
torde
sign 542

I
nde
x 589
 The first edition of this text was published in 1984 by the MIT Press. It was received with
kindness, and forty-six instructors in charge of turbomachinery and turbine courses reported
that they had adopted the book at their universities. I spent a few weeks basking in the glow of
what I happily thought was a long job well done. While I was working on a sabbatical at GE
Aircraft Engines, someone told me that he had ordered over sixty copies for the company’s de-
sign engineers. I felt that this was equivalent to winning a Pulitzer prize, and my modesty was
severely challenged.
However, this wide use brought in a great deal of feedback, soon indicating that a second
edition was needed to incorporate improvements in treatment, update examples, and correct
some errors. The second edition, for which Theodosios Korakianitis joined as coauthor, was
published in 1998 by Prentice Hall. We had several aims for a second edition. We wanted to
reduce errors to a minimum, of course. We also introduced new flow correlations into chapter 3
(cycle thermodynamics), and extended the cycles to include the principal aircraft-engine types.
We wanted to rationalize the treatment of preliminary and detailed design by taking energy
transfer in turbomachines (chapter 5) further so that a great deal of preliminary design (arriving
at the overall size and shape of a machine) could be done with the material in that chapter. More
detailed design of axial-flow turbines and compressors and of radial-flow turbomachines in
chapters 7, 8, and 9 became, we hope, more useful and more consistent. We also took three-di-
mensional design (chapter 6) to a more practical level, and extended heat-exchanger design
(chapter 10) considerably. Every chapter was updated in various ways. Many chapters had what
we have termed “illustrations” to distinguish them from “figures.” The latter are part of and
are referred to in the text. “Illustrations” are photographs or cutaway drawings of machines or
components, generally accompanied by a commentary on their design aspects.
Many people helped us. Some we have acknowledged in the text. We have been allowed to
use a wide variety of graphs, diagrams, and photos for the figures. Our students then at Wash-
ington University in St. Louis and at MIT contributed materially, sometimes unwittingly, as
tryouts for our methods. Andrew R. Mech of the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with
his students J. Lawrence Elkin and William Mathies went through the first edition and through
a draft of the second edition in great detail and dedication, giving us many useful recommen-
dations and feedback. Aristide F. Massardo, on the faculty of the University of Genoa, also
reviewed the second edition and offered valuable suggestions.
Before I turn to the current printing of this book, I would also like to take this opportunity to
acknowledge longer-term debts. I became fascinated by turbomachinery when I was a student,
but my enthusiasm was given depth and breadth through the generosity of Ian Goodlet, chief en-
gineer of gas turbines at the Brush company in Loughborough, Leicestershire, UK, where I was
working on my postgraduate apprenticeship and had my first professional job. Brush awarded
me a research fellowship at Nottingham University, where there were at that time no faculty in
the gas-turbine field. Ian put a lot of effort into helping me find a good thesis topic. I took one
suggested by A. G. Smith at the (UK) National Gas Turbine Establishment on the chordwise
variation of heat-transfer coefficient on gas-turbine blades. The fellowship work on that project
at Nottingham University became the most exhilarating experience of my professional life up
to that point.
Now, in 2014, we are reprinting this book. The publication date of the second edition, 1998,
is relevant to the present situation for the following reason. University instructors in power and
propulsion, and particularly in high-efficiency design, know that when their courses in these
topics are not required of all students, the enrollment numbers fairly closely rise and fall with
the price of oil. The delay from problems of the authors’ making resulted in the publication
occurring at a time when the price of oil had fallen. Class enrollments in power and propulsion
fell throughout the country and probably throughout the world. Sales of the rather beautiful
second edition were therefore disappointing. Prentice Hall produced the book for two or three
years, but then notified me around 2001 that it was taking the book off regular publishing and
was putting it on “print on demand” (POD) status.
This turned out to be a considerable drawback for the book. The second edition was already
considerably more expensive than the first, and the cost of the POD (paperback) version was
further increased substantially. The quality also decreased considerably. The photographs were
so dark in most cases as to be indecipherable. After a short time of use large numbers of pages
were apt to fall out. Bunches of pages appeared twice in early printings. Prentice Hall was not
making money on the book, and in 2011 was gracious enough to return the rights to me.
Obviously, the book should have been allowed a respectful death at that point. However, it
had faithful followers. We were repeatedly asked to find fifty or so copies for new classes. The
strong design nature of the book gave students and others the ability to arrive at hardware to
a greater degree, they stated, than could be given by alternative texts. They asked us to try to
make the book available in some form.
We considered trying to produce the text as an electronic book with a great deal of help,
but were delighted when Clay Morgan, acquisitions editor at the MIT Press, agreed to take
the book back under the wing of the press. This book is highly similar to the published second
edition (not the POD version), but has a large number of small corrections and improvements
incorporated.
We hope that instructors of turbomachinery and gas-turbine design courses enjoy the prob-
lems in this book. A solutions manual is available to instructors who request it via the MIT Press
website, http://mitpress.mit.edu, or by telephone at 617-253-3620. We often used to challenge
students in our classes by giving them more open problems than are present in the book. We
would ask them individually to choose values that would normally be a designer’s responsi-
bility, for instance, the number of blades in a centrifugal compressor or the pressure ratio of a
gas turbine. Such open questions are more challenging for students but are very educational.
The instructor has to spend a little more time grading the submitted responses, but learns im-
mediately how well the students understand the material. There is usually some guidance in the
text, but if there does not seem to be enough, wild guesses by the students provide wonderful
educational opportunities.
We hope that instructors, students, companies, and individual engineers find our book useful.
Please let us know of any attributes that are not of a high standard.

David Gordon Wilson Theodosios Korakianitis

Email address: dgwilson@mit.edu Email address: talexander@slu.edu
switching-rate ratio (eqn. 10.30)
M6451.indb xxvii 2/4/14 10:59:54 AM
m mean (fig. 5.15)

mi minimum (eqn. 10.16)

 COMBUSTOR
HEAT EXCHANGER

Figure 1.6. Principle of regenerative gas turbine

If we use a temperature of Tst = 300 K, then ast = 346.4 m ∕ s,, and the corresponding
inlet velocity is about 139 m/s. Therefore
Tst, 1 = 255.45 K (255.12 K) [255.12 K]
Cp = 1010 J/kg/K (1002.78 J/kg/K) [1002.11 J/kg/K]

pst, 1 = 56.787 kPa [56.763 kPa]

= 0.7747 kg/m3 [0.7754 kg/m3]

= 18.5926 kg/s
kg [18.6102 kg/s]
From table A.1, Cp / R at 1500 K = 4.2173 and at 1000 K = 3.9741.
Tst
Kerosine
(R / Cp, c ) = 0.240
(R / Cp, e ) = 0.284
re–1
Figure 3.25. CBE-cycle performance with 4% stagnation-pressure losses and
large-radial component efficiencies
Figure 3.26. CBE-cycle performance with 4% stagnation-pressure losses and
small-radial component efficiencies
Figure 3.30. CBEX-cycle performance
with 14% stagnation-pressure losses,
large-axial component efficiencies, and
97.5%-effectiveness heat exchanger
 *

* The work cited here was predated by a feasibility study in 1975, followed by the construction of a plant
in 1980.
 *

* A cycle of this type was proposed by P. Meyer in 1935.

1.0.
SeeRoger
s(2000)
 We choose the optimum specific speed, Ns, at 0.8 from figure 5.20. The stage poly-
tropic efficiency is read from figure 5.21 to be 0.854. Then equation 2.78 can be used to
find the temperature and the enthalpy rise:
Rodgers, C. (2000). Effects of blade number on the efficiency of centrifugal-compressor impellers.
ASME paper 2000-GT-455.

0.9.
 r′
(r′)2
2. bx / c = cos λ 0.766
bx /s

bx
(across stage)
 *
1
×
2

×2

Cf
* Data in, e.g., fig. 10.7d are closer to St ≈ .
4
gc RTht
2
×2
d
kN/m2

psia
C3T 3 . . .
f
 1 quad 1015 Btu

Refrigeration power 1 ton 12,000 Btu/h = 3.516 kW