Energy 35 (2010) 952–959

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Exergy and thermoeconomic analysis of a turbofan engine during a typical

commercial flight
Cesare Tona a, Paolo Antonio Raviolo a, Luiz Felipe Pellegrini b, Silvio de Oliveira Júnior b, *
a
Energy Department, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milan, Italy
b
Environmental and Thermal Engineering Laboratory, Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo, Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, 1289 Cidade Universitária, CEP:05508-900,
São Paulo/SP, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In an energy perspective of cost-reduction and configuration-optimization, it becomes necessary to

Received 3 November 2008 develop and use advanced tools for the analysis, design and improvement of energy conversion systems.
Received in revised form In the aeronautical industry, such trend is fundamental since this industry has evolved to design
19 June 2009
extremely complex aircrafts, with highly integrated systems, requiring more information in order to
Accepted 26 June 2009
Available online 21 July 2009
evaluate the whole system. The aim of this paper is to present an exergy-based analysis as to evaluate the
global performance of a typical turbofan engine and its components. The study presents values for exergy
efficiency over the whole flight cycle, critical equipment and flight phases considering exergy destruction
Keywords:
Exergy analysis and estimating internal and exhaust flow costs.
Thermoeconomic analysis Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Aircraft
Turbofan
Commercial flight

1. Introduction Gandolfi and co-workers [5] present an exergy analysis of

a complete mission of a commercial aircraft. Such analysis allows
Aircraft are very complex systems composed of a large number the evaluation of exergy efficiency, destroyed exergy rates and the
of components which are exposed to changeable and unsteady distribution of irreversibilities among systems as well as perfor-
environmental conditions. The aeronautical industry has evolved to mance indexes. The aircraft system is divided into 8 sub-systems:
design extremely complex aircrafts, with highly integrated systems, Airframe, Engine, Bleed System, Electric System, Hydraulic & FC
requiring more information in order to evaluate the whole system. Systems, Anti-ice, Environmental Control Unity (ECU) and Cabin.
Since the beginning of aeronautical industry, different studies/ Fig. 1 shows the exergy flows in and out of each of the sub-systems
methodologies were developed to improve the vehicle perfor- listed. Exergy flows in blue represent useful exergy flows, while
mance and efficiency during the flight. It has been long discussed those in red stand for exergy destruction or losses.
that, in order to design and optimize an aircraft in a complete The power plant is the aircraft power source. It provides thrust
integrated way, commonly used trade-off studies should be used to the airframe as well as electric and hydraulic power to drive all
together with other methods to enhance the analysis. Also, it is the aircraft equipment and sub-systems, and bleed air to the Air
agreed that there must be a common basis to compare different Management System (AMS), which is composed by the pneumatic
alternatives in aircraft design, especially when developing new system, air conditioning system, ice protection system, engine
systems. Thus, the use of exergy analysis might provide new starting system and pressurization system. Depending on the
information in which a comparative study could rely on, since configuration, the power plant consists of a piston or turbine
trade-off studies are faulty in evaluating new systems, as they engines, propellers or fan as well as all engine sub-systems and
present lack of information [1–4]. utilities. From this point on, engine and power plant will be used
interchangeably.
Most recently, the so-called ‘more-electric’ architectures has
brought a new benchmark to energy-optimized aircrafts. This
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ55 11 3091 9667; fax: þ55 11 3091 9681. architecture increases the electric energy use in order to replace the
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. de Oliveira Júnior). mix of hydraulic, pneumatic and electric energy to fulfil the

0360-5442/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.energy.2009.06.052
 C. Tona et al. / Energy 35 (2010) 952–959 953

Nomenclature destroyed Destroyed

el Electric system
equip Equipment
Symbols ex extracted
B Exergy flowrate/rate (kW); fan Fan
c Specific thermoeconomic cost (US$/kJ) fan bleed Bleed air from the fan
C Cost rate (US$/s); fuel Fuel
Cequip Equipment/System cost rate (US$/s). global Global
fu Annual utilization factor HPT High pressure turbine
W Power (kW) i Useful output flows
j Input flows
Subscripts lost Exergy loss rate
b Exergy LPT Low pressure turbine
cc Combustor mix Mixer
col Collector noz Nozzle
comp Compressor T Thrust
comp bleed Bleed air from the compressor

requirements of systems, augmenting the energy efficiency of non- use of the work potential concept [12] to evaluate the performance
propulsive systems [6]. of propulsion systems.
Different studies involving commercial aircraft systems have Therefore, the main goals of this study are:
been developed to apply exergy analysis to evaluate the replace-
ment of the conventional architecture by ‘more-electric’ ones [7,8]. To characterize the power plant operation evaluating the
Since the system energy flows are generated in the power plant, input and output exergy rates and the useful flow cost over
and the useful impact is expressed in terms of fuel consumption a complete mission;
reduction, the analysis of the aircraft engine is of fundamental To define the performance of engine components in each
interest. flight phase.
The focus of this work is the development of a model to evaluate
the performance of the energy conversion processes inside the
engine using exergy and thermoeconomic analysis as assessment
tools. Previous studies have dealt with exergy analysis applied to 2. System description and modeling
scramjet propulsion systems [9] and turbofan with an after burner
[10]; however, these studies considered one or two operational The mission profile used in this study represents a simplified
points (at sea level or in cruise conditions). Roth [11] proposes the typical commercial flight as shown in Fig. 2. The operational points

BDest,Engine BGases BFuel BAir

AIRCRAFT
BFlight BControl Surfaces
AIRFRAME

BDest,Flight BThrust

ENGINE

BFan,Air BBleed WElectric WHydraulic WMec_Hydraulic

BFan,Air,Out
HYDRAULIC
BLEED ELECTRIC
BDest,Bleed & FC
SYSTEM SYSTEM
SYSTEMS
WBleed
BECU,Inlet WCabin
BAnti-Ice,Inlet WECU
BECU,Outlet BCabin,Air,Out
BAnti-Ice,Outlet
ANTI-ICE ECU Cabin BDest,Cabin
WAnti-Ice

BQ_Leading edge BQ_Cabin

BDest,Anti-ice BHx,Air,In BHx,Air,Out BDest,ECU

Fig. 1. Demand and penalties imposed by Air Management Systems to engine and airframe.
954 C. Tona et al. / Energy 35 (2010) 952–959

Fig. 2. Flight mission profile.

considered are take-off, climbing, cruise, descent, holding and anti-ice-OFF: air is extracted from the 9th stage of the
landing. compressor.
To develop the engine numerical model, the GSP (Gas Turbine
Simulation Program) software [13] was used in order to calculate The design point for the engine was set on cruise phase: altitude
the fuel consumption, thrust and inlet air, bleed, fan air and outlet 37 000 (ft), Mach 0.77. All other phases were calculated considering
gases thermodynamic characteristics. The power plant is a classical an off-design simulation of the engine.
turbofan with separated flows, a high bypass ratio and two shafts. The numerical results were validated in the design point using
Fig. 3 shows a schematic representation of turbofan analyzed and real reference data and a mathematical model developed for this
implemented in GSP. engine with MatlabÒ [14] software. The average error based on real
Bleed air and extracted power controls were implemented to reference data is 3.3 %, and the maximum error is 8.2 %. Table 1
simulate the different energy demands of the board systems during shows some characteristics for each one of the flight phases.
the whole mission. Bleed controls were located on the fan and
compressor, and hydraulic and electric power extractions were 3. Exergy analysis
located on the turbine stages.
The compressor has two bleed air conditions in order to meet Two cases and models were considered in this study:
the demands of the anti-ice system:
i. Global model: the power plant is considered a unique open
anti-ice ON: air is extracted from the 14th stage of the system; this model allows the evaluation of the exergy
compressor; destruction and loss rates for the different flight conditions.

Fan Bleed
Flow

4
2 3

MIXER

LOW PRESSURE
10
TURBINE
1 11 12

COLECTOR NOZZLE
FAN
5 9

HIGH PRESSURE
COMPRESSOR
TURBINE

7 8
6

Compressor
Bleed Flow
Fuel

Fig. 3. GSP model.

 C. Tona et al. / Energy 35 (2010) 952–959 955

Table 1 were used for both references. Fig. 4 presents the control volume
Flight phases characteristics with anti-ice OFF. considered in the global model for a turbofan engine.
Flight phase Height (m) Mach number Time duration (min) Thrust (N) The exergy balance for this control volume is shown in Eq. (1):
Take-off 0 0.20 1 28,268
Climb 6,096 0.57 12 13,652 B1 þ Bfuel ¼ B12;lost þ Wex þ Bcomp bleed þ Bfan bleed þ BT
Climb 10,668 0.66 4 8,634
Cruise 11,277 0.77 34 7,713
þ Bdestroyed (1)
Descent 10,668 0.77 4 2,478
Descent 6,096 0.62 11 2,509
Table 2 presents exergy rates for the different flows during
Holding 4,572 0.40 10 13,193 cruise phase for both reference systems. It can be seen that taking
Landing 0 0.20 0.5 2,095 the reference state on earth gives a negative value for the inlet air
exergy, due to the smaller pressure of this flow compared to the
reference pressure.
ii. Local model: the power plant is studied analyzing its equip- Furthermore, it is important to mention that, when the refer-
ment one by one, using local balances for each component in ence is attached to the engine, the exergy of the thrust is related to
order to evaluate its performance and thermoeconomic cost. the kinetic exergy of the exhaust gases, i.e., the kinetic exergy of the
exhaust gases is equal to the exergy of the thrust plus an exergy
To direct the study, the following assumptions were made: destruction rate associated to the energy conversion process and an
exergy loss rate associated to the exhaust gases. The term B12,lost in
(a) All gases were modelled as ideal gases; Eq. (1) represents this exergy loss rate. When the reference is fixed
(b) The fuel is kerosene (JET-A1), its chemical formulae is C12H23; on the ground, the term B12,lost accounts for the exergy of stream 12
(c) The fuel physical exergy is not considered; that is no further used.
(d) All engine equipment are considered adiabatic;
(e) Heat exchangers (air-fuel, fuel-oil) are not considered. 3.2. Local model

EESÒ [15] software was used to implement the analysis. As for the local model, exergy balances are developed for each
component, defining its efficiency and performance related to the
3.1. Global model power plant global values. Such analysis allows the identification of
the components that contribute most for the exergy destruction
The first step to evaluate the exergy content of an energy flow is inside the engine. Hence, these results might define optimization
the definition of a reference state. Generally this choice is easy, priorities among the system and direct investment to where solu-
because the system under evaluation is fixed upon the earth or its tions will be more cost-effective or exergy-efficient.
altitude is constant. Analyzing a flight vehicle or a jet engine, In this analysis, the reference state for the exergy calculations
operating in high altitude and different environmental conditions was set by the stagnation air temperature and pressure for each
during the flight, makes it more difficult to choose a unique refer- flight phase [16]. Again, as a first approach, standard chemical
ence [16]. Szargut’s environment gives negative values for some exergies given by Szargut et al [17] were used.
exergy flows in these conditions [17]. For this reason, preliminary
analysis were performed using two different reference systems, 3.3. Exergy analysis results
one fixed on the ground and one attached to the power plant. Thus,
when the reference is fixed on the ground, Szargut’s environment 3.3.1. Global balance
was considered, and, when attached to engine, the reference state Table 3 shows the distribution of output exergy flows for all the
was set by the stagnation outside air temperature and pressure for flight phases. The exergy efficiency is defined as the ratio of sum of
each flight phase. In addition, as a first approach to the exergy the thrust and bleed exergies (formed by air bleed and extracted
calculations, standard chemical exergies given by Szargut et al [17] power) to the fuel exergy:

B1 B12

Bfan bleed Bcomp bleed Wextracted BT Bdestroyed

Sea Level

Fig. 4. Global model control volume.

956 C. Tona et al. / Energy 35 (2010) 952–959

Table 2
Table 4
Exergy rates for the different flows during cruise.
Exergy efficiency in each flight phase.
# Description Exergy flowrate (kW)
Phase Anti-Ice system Exergy efficiency (%)
Ground Engine 1 OFF 10.06
reference reference 2 OFF 20.71
1 Collector inlet 202.8 588.6 3 OFF 24.07
2 Fan inlet 792.0 423.6 4 OFF 26.46
3 Fan outlet to mixer 2114.6 1862.0 5 OFF 20.37
4 Fan bleed 42.3 37.3 6 OFF 13.94
5 Fan outlet to compressor 392.8 340.4 7 OFF 16.34
6 Compressor bleed 43.7 42.5 8 OFF 5.87
7 Compressor outlet 3456.3 3490.0 1 ON 10.55
8 High pressure turbine inlet 8303.6 8734.0 2 ON 21.01
9 Low pressure turbine inlet 4611.1 5055.0 6 ON 14.86
10 Low pressure turbine outlet 2421.0 2875.0 7 ON 17.44
11 Mixer outlet 2984.5 3477.0 8 ON 8.14
12 Nozzle outlet 349.4 3385.0
Fuel 7186.0 7168.8
Thrust 1745.5 1745.5
Fan power 2071.6 2071.6 the exergy loss associated to this flow (since it includes the
Compressor power 3546.6 3546.6 conversion of kinetic energy into thrust). On the other hand, using
Extracted power to hydraulic and electric 16.4 16.4 the reference fixed on the ground gives smaller values for the
systems
thermo–chemical exergy of the exhaust gases, leading to higher
values of exergy destruction. All in all, the relation of total irre-
P versibilities to the exergy input in both cases is very similar, inde-
Bi pendently of the reference chosen.
i To investigate the complete flight, an integral analysis was
hb ¼ P (2)
Bj considered. This study allows relating the destroyed exergy
j
(proportional to thrust and fuel flow) for each phase to its time
The results for the complete mission are presented in Table 4, duration. Thus, it is possible to identify the critical phases during
including anti-ice OFF and ON conditions, and the reference state the mission. These results are presented in Table 5, which shows
fixed on the ground. that cruise is the flight condition of maximum exergy destruction
Table 4 and also Fig. 2 show that: since it is the longest, followed by take-off (maximum thrust
required) and holding phases.
Cruise is the design and longest phase. It presents the
maximum exergy efficiency (26%), demonstrating that the 3.3.2. Local balance
engine design point is the most efficient one; For each flight phase, it was calculated the distribution of irre-
The exergy efficiency, lower than 10% during take-off, versibilities among components. In the nozzle, the exergy balance
increases during the mission reaching its maximum value in considered the variation between the inlet exergy (stream 11 in
cruise. After the cruise, the efficiency decreases reaching its Fig. 3) and the total outlet exergy (stream 12 in Fig. 3).
minimum value during landing (6%);
Exergy losses are a function of the aircraft speed and thrust. B11 ¼ B12 þ Bdestroyed (3)
This leads to an interesting result: a better efficiency is obtained Another exergy balance was set by the difference of stream 12
mainly by reducing exergy losses and not by decreasing the exergy and the thrust exergy to calculate the destroyed exergy
engine destroyed exergy. associated to the thrust generation from the kinetic exergy of
During landing phase with anti-ice system ON the exergetic stream 12 and the lost exergy associated to thermo–chemical and
bleed flow value is near to thrust exergetic value. the residual kinetic exergy (relative velocity of the exhaust gases) of
stream 12.
Considering the reference state attached to the engine, and that
the thermo–chemical and part of the kinetic exergy of the outlet B12 ¼ BT þ Bdestroyed þ B12;lost (4)
gases as an exergy loss, the results are very similar to the ones in
Tables 3 and 4. Hence, the use of different environment references In this way, it is possible to evaluate the exergy destruction of
does not give any misleading results regarding the engine effi- the energy conversion process associated to the thrust generation.
ciency. However, the change in the environment reference leads to Table 6 shows the total destroyed and lost exergy in each
a different distribution of the irreversibilities between destroyed component for the complete flight.
and lost exergy. Whenever the reference is set to the engine, the Components that destroy more exergy are those related to the
thermo–chemical exergy of the exhaust gases is high, increasing more irreversible processes, such as combustor and mixer. Their

Table 3
Exergy rate distribution in anti-ice OFF flight conditions.

Phase Destroyed exergy (%) Lost exergy (%) Thrust exergy (%) Bleed and extracted exergy (%)
1 64 26 9 1
2 68 11 20 1
3 71 5 23 1
4 69 5 25 1
7 71 13 15 1
8 83 11 4 2
 C. Tona et al. / Energy 35 (2010) 952–959 957

Table 5 and flowrates of the engine was developed based on the results of
Total destroyed exergy in the various flight phases with anti-ice OFF. the exergy analysis. Two different analyses were performed:
Phase Total destroyed exergy (%)
1 4 Global power plant production cost evaluation, considering
2 25 only the inlet and outlet flows (air, fuel, exhaust gases, thrust
3 5 and bleed exergy rate and extracted power), as shown in Fig. 4;
4 36
Local power plant production cost evaluation, taking into
5 3
6 9 account each power plant component and its relative input and
7 19 output exergy rates and flowrates, as shown in Fig. 3.
8 <1

contribution to the total exergy destruction is between 50% and 66% 4.1. Global power plant production costs evaluation
depending on the flight phase. Also, the destroyed and lost exergy
associated to the generation of thrust is very significant. The sum of Following the same approach used in the exergy evaluation of
the combustor, mixer and thrust generation losses represents up to the power plant, two reference systems were adopted: one fixed
83% of the total irreversibilities, being 80% on average. Besides, upon earth and the other fixed to the engine.
Table 6 shows that the main distribution of irreversibilities does not For both reference systems, the cost balance is:
change considerably during the mission.
More over, the following remarks can be drawn: Cfan bleed þ Ccomp bleed þ Cex þ CT ¼ C1 þ Cfuel þ Cequip (5)

Engine destroyed exergy is inversely proportional to thrust No cost is assigned to stream 12 exergy, since part of it is con-
and represents between 70% and 80% of the total irreversibil- verted into thrust and part is either destroyed or lost in the exhaust,
ities. During phases of high and medium thrust, this value is as discussed previously. Also, Table 7 presents economic data used.
approximately 70%, while during low thrust phases it can reach Making use of the thermoeconomic specific cost (c ¼ C/B) [18],
85%; the equality criterion was used in this analysis, considering the
For the whole flight, the components that destroy more exergy same thermoeconomic specific costs for all the useful products
are the combustion chamber and the mixer; [18]:
The appraisal of optimization studies involving engine compo-
cT ¼ ccomp bleed ¼ cfan bleed ¼ cex ¼ c (6)
nents must consider technological and economics aspects. Thus,
not necessarily the most irreversible components are the better
focus of an optimization process. For instance, considering the Cequip þ cfuel Bfuel
c ¼
‘more-electric’ architectures it seems important to validate the BT þ Bcompr bleed þ Bfan bleed þ Wex
variation on the exergy performance of equipment involved on Cequip c
bleed air and extracted power: fan, compressor and turbines; ¼ þ fuel (7)
BT þ Bcompr bleed þ Bfan bleed þ Wex hGlobal
Fan and compressor destroy more exergy than turbines;
The lost exergy is directly proportional to thrust (or to relative Eq. (7) indicates that the cost of the products is a function of the
speed of exhaust gases). The higher the lost exergy, the higher capital cost and the efficiency of the engine associated with the fuel
the thrust is (or the relative speed of exhaust gases). cost. Thus, the minimization of the product cost is related to the
decrease of the capital cost or the increase of the exergy efficiency
Fig. 5 presents the Grassmann diagram in cruise phase, using the of the system. In the development of Eq. (7) it was considered that
reference attached to the engine to avoid negative values for stream 1 is costless (C1 ¼ c1 ¼ 0).
exergy. This diagram shows that 22.5% of the inlet exergy is used for
thrust and 1.3% as input to systems based on compressor air bleed.
4.2. Local power plant production costs evaluation
4. Thermoeconomic analysis
The local thermoeconomic analysis allows calculating both the
In order to determine the utilities exergy based production useful product costs and the internal exergy rate costs. For this
costs, a complete evaluation of the cost of the different exergy rates evaluation, the local model is the same used in the local exergy
analysis. Again, the equality criterion was used to attribute cost for
more than one stream leaving each control volume.
Table 6 Cost balances applied to components shown in Fig. 3 are as
Relative destroyed and lost exergy in anti-ice OFF conditions. follow:
Destroyed/Lost exergy (%) Flight phase
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Collector:
Inlet 2 3 3 3 3 3 2 <1
Fan 5 5 4 4 6 6 5 3
Compressor 6 6 6 6 7 8 6 10
Fan duct 1 1 1 1 3 3 1 1
c1 B1 þ Ccol ¼ c2 B2 (8)
Combustor 32 33 31 33 34 37 33 44
HP turbine <1 <1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Fan:
LP turbine <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 <1
Turbine duct <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 <1
Mixer 19 20 19 20 20 21 19 22
c2 B2 þ Cfan þ Wfan cfan ¼ c3 B3 þ c4 B4 þ c5 B5 (9)
Nozzle <1 2 1 2 2 2 1 <1
Shaft friction 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1
Thrust generation 32 27 31 28 21 16 28 15 c3 ¼ c4 ¼ c5 ¼ cfan bleed (10)
958 C. Tona et al. / Energy 35 (2010) 952–959

Fig. 5. Grassmann diagram during cruise phase.

Table 7 Mixer
Data used for the exergy based costs analysis.

Fuel specific initial cost (US$/GJ) 9.022 c10 B10 þ c3 B3 þ Cmix ¼ c11 B11 (18)
Power plant economic life (years) 25
Annual utilization factor 0.285
Total capital cost (US$) 2,000,000 Nozzle

Compressor:
c11 B11 þ Cnoz ¼ cT BT (19)
c5 B5 þ Ccomp þ Wcomp ccomp ¼ c6 B6 þ c7 B7 (11)
The solution of this set of equations gives the values of each one
of the production costs of the utilities of the power plant.
c6 ¼ c7 ¼ ccomp bleed (12)
4.3. Fuel and power plant components costs

Combustor The fuel considered is aeronautical kerosene JET-A1. Data used

for the economic model are presented in Table 7. The fuel specific
initial cost includes logistic costs and was evaluated as 50 (US$/t)
[8]. Capital cost of the power plant and its components were
c7 B7 þ cfuel Bfuel þ Ccc ¼ c8 B8 (13) evaluated using DAPCA method [19]. The considered components
costs are evaluated as a total engine cost percentage and are pre-
sented in Table 8.
The engine annual operating cost was calculated as the sum of
High pressure turbine
the equipment cost rate, the operating and maintenance cost rate
and the fuel cost rate multiplied by the annual utilization factor, fu:
!
X
c8 B8 þ CHPT ¼ ccomp Wcomp þ c9 B9 (14) Ctotal ¼ Cequip þ cfuel Bfuel f u ¼ 1;694;000ðUS$=yearÞ (20)
i

ccomp ¼ c9 (15)
Table 8
Components initial costs.

Component Capital cost (US$)

Low pressure turbine
Power plant 2,000,000
Collector 100,000
Fan 340,000
Compressor 440,000
c9 B9 þ CLPT ¼ cfan Wfan þ cex Wex þ c10 B10 (16)
Combustor 280,000
High pressure turbine 360,000
Low pressure turbine 240,000
Mixer 80,000
cfan ¼ c10 ¼ cex (17) Nozzle 160,000
 C. Tona et al. / Energy 35 (2010) 952–959 959

Table 9 reference attached to the engine, the maximum efficiency is 23.7%,

Global exergy based costs analysis. since the exergy of the incoming air is no longer negative (a 11%
Product Ground reference Engine reference decrease). Hence, as the specific thermoeconomic cost of the products
Fan bleed (US$/t) 5.74 5.07 is related to the capital cost and the engine exergy efficiency associated
Compressor bleed (US$/t) 27.21 26.52 with the fuel cost, when the reference is fixed on the ground this cost
Electrical power (US$/MWh) 367.92 368.64 should be smaller. However, the decrease in the cost is not as high as
Hydraulic power (US$/MWh) 367.92 368.64 the efficiency due to the capital cost, meaning that the capital cost has
Thrust (US$/MWh) 367.92 368.64
a higher impact on the cost than fuel cost on the final products, 71%
and 29% respectively for the cruise phase. This justifies the use of local
balances to determine the product cost as they associate the correct
Table 10
Local exergy based costs.
participation of the capital cost on the cost formation of the products.
Regarding the irreversibilities in each flight phase, cruise has the
Flow Cost
highest total exergy destruction (36%), even though it has the higher
Fan inlet (US$/t) 0.06 exergy efficiency. This is a consequence of the duration of the phase
Compressor inlet (US$/t) 1.69
(the most inefficient phase is landing, which lasts 0.5 min).
Combustor inlet (US$/t) 18.87
High pressure turbine inlet (US$/t) 36.39 The local exergy analysis showed the distribution of irreversibilities
Low pressure turbine inlet (US$/t) 22.12 among the engine equipment, defining that the most inefficient
Mixer inlet (primary flow) (US$/t) 13.29 components are the combustion chamber and the mixer, responsible
Mixer inlet (secondary flow) (US$/t) 1.94
for 50-66% of the total destroyed exergy. Furthermore, it was shown
Exhaust nozzle inlet (US$/t) 3.96
Fan bleed air (US$/t) 1.94
that the thrust generation accounts for between 15% and 35% of the
Compressor bleed air (US$/t) 10.86 total irreversibilities, being higher for phases that demand more
Total extracted power (US$/MWh) 131.70 thrust.
Thrust (US$/MWh) 380.88 The presented power plant exergy and thermoeconomic analysis
is a useful methodology of verification and comparison which can be
4.4. Results used to evaluate alternative aircraft systems and configurations.

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