Water-Enhanced Turbofan Condenser Sizing Considering Configuration and Operating Conditions

The Water-Enhanced Turbofan is a promising aero engine propulsion concept that could reduce the climate impact of aviation significantly by combining the conventional Joule/Bryton cycle with a Clausius-Rankine steam cycle. Previous publications covered the basic thermodynamics, climate impact reduction potential and important design parameters. One important component with high impact on the overall performance is the condenser, a heat exchanger cooling the core exhaust for water recovery. In this paper operating conditions are investigated that can be critical for the condenser sizing. These operating conditions include ambient temperature variations, different cruise altitudes, maximum cruise thrust and contrail avoidance. The critical sizing condition for the condenser is then included in the multi-point design approach used for the engine modelling and an optimization of the engine design parameters is performed. It is shown that high ambient temperatures pose a challenge for the condenser design and several parameters exist that reduce the penalty of such operating conditions on the condenser size. Also the probability of contrail formation is reduced when the condenser design results in excess water recovery at colder ambient conditions.     «

The Water-Enhanced Turbofan is a promising aero engine propulsion concept that could reduce the climate impact of aviation significantly by combining the conventional Joule/Bryton cycle with a Clausius-Rankine steam cycle. Previous publications covered the basic thermodynamics, climate impact reduction potential and important design parameters. One important component with high impact on the overall performance is the condenser, a heat exchanger cooling the core exhaust for water recovery. In...     »