Ok, first off, this is my reply, but I'd like a second voice on top of polars, just because I know books vs line vs mx vs mfg are all different in some sense. Anyone here an engineer and build these things?
There is no explosion in turbine engines, it's a constant fire. Except start up, there might be an explosion when the fuel lights off.
Call it a continual explosion if you will. You're right that there's not a spark to speak of, but Jet A plus oxygen, plus plasma equates to ignition. A flame increases temperature as some volume is converted to a plasma state and neighboring air increases in temperature. In an explosion you're dealing with a rapid rise in temperature and mainly pressure. That pressure must drive the turbine blades and is henceforth the really important part. If we could do it without the heat... great!
It has nothing to do with less air moving over the turbine blades and everything to do with less cooling air. The fuel nozzles inject fuel at high pressure (I've heard numbers from 600 to 1000 psi) into the burner can(s). It will mix with whatever air it need.
We're still dealing with less air though right? The inlet is being rammed with a certain amount of air that is then being compressed by the stages. At the end of that, some air (even on the low amount let's say 5%, and I say low since the stage will be low pressure compared to the compressor section, so high pressure to low pressure, a lot of volume will be lost. The air would rather go through the SOV valve than go into the combustion section, which is high pressure... hence compressor stalls when the inlet doesn't ram enough air in...) will go to the anti-ice and not the combustor. Less air equates to a smaller boom unless fuel takes a great hold, which it's not due to just less air for cooling, but also a greater percentage of fuel, leading to the higher ITT.
While you're right that heat is the enemy of turbine engines (In a similar fashion, Hete is the enemy of ABX pilots), I think the stoichiometric ratio (someone just took an engines class) applies to recipricating engines.
Actually took the engine class 4 years ago, and advanced aerodynamics 2 years ago I think... it's been a while. I just still teach it. Thanks though!
Just like our space program, using yesterday's technology to power us into tomorrow. The oldest turbine engines used a mechanically driven compressor to provide compressed air for auxiliary systems. While it's true the engine doesn't suffer a loss of internal air, the engine still must produce enough power to drive the mechanical compressors. Throw in an extra set of oil seals on the gear box to leak, an extra set of gear teeth to inject shrapnel into the accessory gearbox, more moving mechanincal parts to maintain, I'll call it a wash in the reliability department.
Obviously, I'm not a GE engineer, but we'll see how it goes.
Hmmm, but if you already need the generator on there, simply increasing it's weight by say 5% for a 15% increase in power (I don't know if that's the amount, but it normally works along those lines. Kindof the same way as a bigger inlet increases the power disproportionally to the area of inlet increased), wouldn't that be better than robbing the precious thrust? The chance for failure should be theoretically less on the engine. Sure, now you have another system to fail, but talking about just the engine, it should be better for that. Oh, and the stoichiometric ratio is NOT just for piston engines. It applies to all engines, it's simply that you don't take it into account like you do on a Cessna with a mixture control. The stoichiometric ratio has more to do with chemistry that it does with pilot calculated performance.
I appreciate your reply polar, but I would like some clarification to make a composite of not just the pilot handbook, but the physics and mechanics of this.