Engineering Fundamentals: An Introduction to Engineering, 4th ed.c

The Jet Engine*

A N ENGINEERING MARVEL

* Materials were adapted with permission from Pratt & Whitney, a United Techonologies Company. Text by

Matthew Broder.

Introduction

You think you’ve got problems? How would you like to be a molecule of air minding your own

business at 30,000 feet when all of a sudden you get mugged by five tons of a Pratt & Whitney

jet engine?

Over the course of the next 40 thousandths of a second you, Mr. or Ms. Molecule, will be

beaten through 18 stages of compression, singed in a furnace heated to nearly 3,000 degrees

Fahrenheit, expanded through a turbine and pushed out the back with a wicked headache and

the bitter knowledge as the aircraft screams on that your ugly ordeal has been merely for the sake

of getting Aunt Marge to Phoenix for a much needed rest.

That’s basically what happens every day in the skies above as thousands of Pratt engines

power aircraft from place to place while the passengers and crew inside those aircraft experience

only the steady and reassuring thrum that results from Pratt’s precision manufacturing.

The principle of jet propulsion has been demonstrated by anyone who has blown up a

balloon for a child and accidentally let go before tying it closed. The air stored up inside the

578

Source:Materials were adapted with permission from Pratt & Whitney, a United Techonologies

Company. Text by Matthew Broder.

Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

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