DEVELOPMENT OF THE JET ENGINE

Development of the Jet Engine

Development of the Jet Engine

Introduction

Jet engines, invented in 1930 by Frank Whittle (1907-1996), have become the dominant form of propulsion for the multimillion-dollar commercial air transportation industry. Jet aircraft's ability to deliver products and services at fast speeds has changed the way business is conducted, and its affordability has enabled more people to travel by air.

Background

Before the development of jet engines, the aviation industry had an absolute limit on how fast, how far, and how high their planes could fly, and how much they could carry. Frank Whittle had a dream to eliminate these boundaries.

Chaikin (1997) mentions in 1923, at the age of 16, Whittle entered RAF College at Cranwell. When he was selected for officer and pilot training in 1926, he wrote his thesis on Future Developments in Aircraft Design. Whittle explored new possibilities for propulsion, which, in 1929, led to his idea of using a gas turbine for jet propulsion. Whittle applied for a patent in 1930, but interest (and funding) from the government was meager. The only report on file regarding the idea of jet propulsion was discouraging, and, even though the analysis was based on outdated materials, the Air Ministry developed an attitude of skepticism toward Whittle's research, which lasted for years (Chaikin, 1997).

In fact, the British government thought so little of Whittle's patent on the jet engine that they allowed its publication when it was approved in 1932. Within a year, Germany had its own jet research program under way. Whittle continued to work on his project with little official encouragement. In fact, when his patent ran out in 1935, Whittle did not have the five pounds to renew it, so he never received royalties for his invention.

To properly fund experiments, Whittle brought investors and colleagues together to form Power Jets Ltd. in 1936. Ironically (and too late), by then the government had decided to classify his research, putting Whittle in a position where he could not tell investors what they were investing in. At the same time, the government was not willing to provide sufficient funding for Whittle to continue his research.

Whittle faced daunting technical challenges as well. The three basic elements of a jet engine are the compressor, the combustion chamber, and the turbine. A jet engine sucks in air, compresses it by three- to 12-fold, mixes it with fuel (burned to superheat the air, with a small amount used to turn the turbine for more air compression), and forces air and combustion products out the end to create thrust. Though gas turbines existed, Whittle had to rethink them entirely (Cumpsty, 2000). The goal of contemporary turbines was to harness as much of the energy of combustion as possible to drive machinery. Whittle's jet engine took most of the combustion products and used them for thrust, using only a small portion to drive the turbine. In addition, Whittle needed to develop materials that could stand the enormous forces the engine generated, and he needed to find ...