Gas Turbine Aircraft Engines

A jet engine is a type of reaction engine that produces thrust or shaft power by compressing air, burning fuel in it, and expanding the resulting hot gas through a turbine; air-breathing jet engines typically feature a rotating air compressor powered by a turbine, in what is known as the Brayton thermodynamic cycle. This class gathers the aircraft engines of this family built around a rotating gas-turbine core: a turbojet expands its hot gas through a propelling nozzle for direct jet thrust, a turbofan adds a bypass fan driven by the same turbine to increase efficiency, a turboprop uses the turbine's power through a reduction gearbox to drive a propeller instead of relying on jet thrust, and a turboshaft is optimized to deliver shaft horsepower rather than thrust, typically to a helicopter rotor. Despite their different thrust or power delivery, each shares the same compressor-combustor-turbine core architecture.