Overview
High-bypass turbofan
Air enters at the fan and leaves at the nozzle. Most of it never reaches the
fire, and that is the whole trick of a modern engine. The air that does
reach the fire is squeezed, burned, and used to drive the very compressor
that squeezed it.
- Sections
- Fan, compressors, combustor, turbines, nozzle
- Spools
- Two, turning at different speeds
- View
- Outer nacelle half hidden from the next step on
Step 01
The fan
Eighteen blades, a little over five metres across. Most of what you feel as
thrust starts here, and most of the air it moves goes straight past the core
without ever being burned. In a modern high-bypass engine that bypass air
accounts for the large majority of total thrust.
- Blades
- 18
- Blade tip radius
- 2.6 m
- Spool
- Low pressure, shared with the LP turbine
Step 02
Low pressure compressor
The squeeze begins. Watch the core narrow as you move back: compression is
geometry you can see, not a number on a chart. Also called the booster, it
sits on the same shaft as the fan.
- Blades
- 72 across multiple stages
- Blade tip radius
- 1.23 m, down from 2.6 m at the fan
- Also called
- The booster
Step 03
High pressure compressor
The narrowest point in the whole engine. By the time air leaves here it is
several hundred degrees hot from pressure alone, before a drop of fuel has
been added. Squeezing a gas heats it, and that is why the compressor is the
hottest thing in the engine that is not on fire.
- Blades
- 120
- Blade tip radius
- 0.85 m, down from 1.23 m at the booster
- Spool
- High pressure, driven by the HP turbine
Step 04
Combustor
The only place fuel burns, and far smaller than you would expect for the
machine wrapped around it. This one is can-annular: a ring of discrete cans
rather than one continuous chamber, each perforated so cooling air can film
the inside of the liner.
- Type
- Can-annular
- Cooling holes
- Film air along the liner so it survives the flame
- Temperature
- The peak of the whole cycle
Step 05
High pressure turbine
Expansion starts doing work. These blades drive the compressor that squeezed
the air in the first place, which is why the back of the engine and the
front are really the same machine. Gas leaving here is cooler than at the
combustor, because the turbine has taken energy out of it.
- Blades
- 72
- Drives
- The high pressure compressor, directly
- Surface
- Heat-tinted alloy, hottest parts in the engine
Step 06
Low pressure turbine
The radius opens back out and the loop closes: this stage drives the fan at
the very front, through a shaft running the whole length of the engine. The
bands around the blade tips are shrouds, which seal against the casing and
damp vibration.
- Blades
- 146 across six stages
- Shrouds
- Six, rotating with the blades
- Drives
- The fan, through the LP shaft