Propulsion systems
Our group focuses on propulsive gas turbines in domains ranging from compressor flutter, turbine aero-thermodynamics and cooling, secondary cooling circuits and turbine design and cycle analysis.
Contact information:
Our capabilities
We use a variety of experimental techniques and the team has access to rotating and cascade facilities, as well as specialist computational fluid dynamics and empirical analysis codes. Areas of specialisation include gas turbines (efficiency and longevity enhancements) and concentrating solar power. In gas turbine development, supporting infrastructure includes computational clusters, a one-and-a-half stage low-speed turbine test rig, cascade and turbine test facilities, an atmospheric combustor test rig, a full suite of pressure probes, hot-wire anemometry, laser Doppler velocimetry and particle image velocimetry.
The work on gas turbines includes cycle modelling, efficiency enhancement and life extension. The efforts on concentrating solar power have focused on heliostat design, ray-tracing, glint and glare analysis, as well as system modelling.
This group has worked with all the major engine manufacturers, including General Electric, Rolls-Royce, Volvo Aero and Klimov, in domains ranging from compressor flutter, turbine aero-thermodynamics and cooling, secondary cooling circuits and turbine design and cycle analysis.