MEL 341 : GAS DYNAMICS & JET PROPULSION

P M V Subbarao Professor Mechanical Engineering Department

A Passion of Doing Adventures lead to a Hi-Fi Science and Technology!!!

The Shocking News

1 million to 10 million years they might be able to make a plane that would fly ?!?!?! People had dreamed of flying for many years. The United States Army was trying to develop an airplane in 1903, but the plane wouldn't fly. The New York Times wrote that maybe in 1 million to 10 million years they might be able to make a plane that would fly. Only eight days later two men were successful in flying the first manned plane. Controlled, powered flight had seemed impossible until Orville Wright took off on the 17th December 1903. They were Wilbur Wright and his younger brother, Orville.

A Research Area, where Group Efforts were Major Failures

The Wright brothers may be the most famous people in the history of aviation for the first aeroplane flight in 1903, but the first ever powered and controlled flights were carried out in lighter-than-air craft before either of the Wright brothers was even born.

History of Early Jet Engines

Sir Isaac Newton in the 18th century was the first to theorize that a rearward-channeled explosion could propel a machine forward at a great rate of speed. This theory was based on his third law of motion. As the hot air blasts backwards through the nozzle the plane moves forward. Henri Giffard built an airship which was powered by the first aircraft engine, a three-horse power steam engine. It was very heavy, too heavy to fly.

Giffards Air Ship

Performance of Griffards Airship

The airship successfully flew on the 24th September 1852, launching from the Paris Hippodrome and flying 27km (17 miles) to Elancourt, near Trappes. The small engine was not very powerful and it could not overcome the prevailing winds to allow Giffard to make the return flight. The top speed of Giffard's airship was just six miles per hour. However, he did manage to turn the airship in slow circles, proving that in calm conditions controlled flight was possible.

Hiram Maxim -- Triple Biplane In 1894, American Hiram Maxim tried to power his triple biplane with two coal fired steam engines. Maxim began his aerial experiments at Baldwyns Park, England, leading to the construction in 1893 of his enormous biplane Test-Rig, which weighed about 7,000 pounds. The machine's two steam engines each produced 180 h.p. and turned two pusher propellers each 17-1/2 feet in diameter. The device was intended to be a test vehicle it was held to a track, preventing it from rising more than a couple of feet.

Samuel Langley:Aerodrome
Samuel Langley made a model airplanes that were powered by steam engines. In 1896, he was successful in flying an unmanned airplane with a steam-powered engine, called the Aerodrome. It flew about 1 mile before it ran out of steam. Otto in the late 1800's, invented the first gasoline engine. He then tried to build a full sized plane, the Aerodrome A, <> <> with a gas powered engine. In 1903, it crashed immediately after being launched from a house boat.

A Narrow Gap Between Success & Failure

The would-be aeronauts of the nineteenth century closely studied the flight of birds and began building flying machines patterned after avian structures. Their birdlike craft failed miserably. They quickly realized that in reality they knew nothing about the lift and drag forces acting on surfaces cutting through the atmosphere. To fly, man first had to understand the flow of air over aircraft surfaces. This meant that he had to build instrumented laboratories in which wings, fuselages, and control surfaces could be tested under controlled conditions. Thus it is not surprising that the first wind tunnel was built a full 30 years before the Wrights' success at Kitty Hawk. A science called Aerodynamics leading to Gas dynamics. A Technology called Jet Propulsion

Jet Propulsion with Gas Dynamics

The Successful Invention

In 1903, the Wright Brothers flew, "The Flyer", with a 12 horse power gas powered engine. From 1903, the year of the Wright Brothers first flight, to the late 1930s the gas powered reciprocating internalcombustion engine with a propeller was the sole means used to propel aircraft.

Propeller Engines

Propeller Aircraft