A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller.
A gas turbine, gas turbine engine, or also known by its old name internal combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part and are, in the direction of flow:
An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Aircraft using power components are referred to as powered flight. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many small UAVs have used electric motors.
The Bristol Proteus was the Bristol Engine Company's first mass-produced gas turbine engine design, a turboprop that delivered just over 4,000 hp (3,000 kW). The Proteus was a reverse-flow gas turbine. Because the second turbine drove no compressor stages, but only the propeller, this engine was classified as a free-turbine. It powered the Bristol Britannia airliner, small naval patrol craft, hovercraft and electrical generating sets. It was also used to power a land-speed record car, the Bluebird-Proteus CN7. After the merger of Bristol with Armstrong Siddeley the engine became the Bristol Siddeley Proteus, and later the Rolls-Royce Proteus. The Proteus was to have been superseded by the Bristol Orion which would have given a Britannia a 75% increase in power for cruising faster.
The Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 is a turboprop aircraft engine produced by Pratt & Whitney Canada. Its design was started in 1958, it first ran in February 1960, first flew on 30 May 1961, entered service in 1964, and has been continuously updated since. The PT6 consists of two basic sections: a gas generator with accessory gearbox, and a free-power turbine with reduction gearbox. In aircraft, the engine is often mounted "backwards," with the intake at the rear and the exhaust at the front, so that the turbine is directly connected to the propeller. Many variants of the PT6 have been produced, not only as turboprops but also as turboshaft engines for helicopters, land vehicles, hovercraft, and boats; as auxiliary power units; and for industrial uses. By November 2015, 51,000 had been produced, which had logged 400 million flight hours from 1963 to 2016. It is known for its reliability, with an in-flight shutdown rate of 1 per 651,126 hours in 2016. The PT6A turboprop engine covers the power range between 580 and 1,940 shp, while the PT6B/C are turboshaft variants for helicopters.
The Europrop International TP400-D6 is an 11,000 shp (8,200 kW) powerplant, developed and produced by Europrop International for the Airbus A400M Atlas military transport aircraft. The TP400 is the most powerful turboprop in service using a single propeller; only the Kuznetsov NK-12 from Russia and Progress D-27 from Ukraine, using contra-rotating propellers, is larger.
A turboshaft engine is a form of gas turbine that is optimized to produce shaft horsepower rather than jet thrust. In concept, turboshaft engines are very similar to turbojets, with additional turbine expansion to extract heat energy from the exhaust and convert it into output shaft power. They are even more similar to turboprops, with only minor differences, and a single engine is often sold in both forms.
The Allison T56 is an American single-shaft, modular design military turboprop with a 14-stage axial flow compressor driven by a four-stage turbine. It was originally developed by the Allison Engine Company for the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport entering production in 1954. It has been a Rolls-Royce product since 1995 when Allison was acquired by Rolls-Royce. The commercial version is designated 501-D. Over 18,000 engines have been produced since 1954, logging over 200 million flying hours.
The Bristol Orion aero engine is a two-shaft turboprop intended for use in later marks of the Bristol Britannia and the Canadair CL-44. Although the engine was built and underwent a development program, the BE.25 Orion project was cancelled in 1958 by the British Ministry of Supply in favour of the Rolls-Royce Tyne. In addition, interest in turboprop-powered aircraft was beginning to wane, because of the successful introduction of the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 jetliners into airline service.
The Rolls-Royce Gnome is a British turboshaft engine originally developed by the de Havilland Engine Company as a licence-built General Electric T58, an American mid-1950s design. The Gnome came to Rolls-Royce after their takeover of Bristol Siddeley in 1968, Bristol having absorbed de Havilland Engines Limited in 1961.
A swing-piston engine is a type of internal combustion engine in which the pistons move in a circular motion inside a ring-shaped "cylinder", moving closer and further from each other to provide compression and expansion. Generally two sets of pistons are used, geared to move in a fixed relationship as they rotate around the cylinder. In some versions the pistons oscillate around a fixed center, as opposed to rotating around the entire engine. The design has also been referred to as a oscillating piston engine, vibratory engine when the pistons oscillate instead of rotate, or toroidal engine based on the shape of the "cylinder".
The General Electric GE38 is a gas turbine developed by GE Aviation for turboprop and turboshaft applications. It powers the Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion as the T408.
The Turbomeca Turmo is a family of French turboshaft engines manufacturered for helicopter use. Developed from the earlier Turbomeca Artouste, later versions delivered up to 1,300 kW (1,700 shp). A turboprop version was developed for use with the Bréguet 941 transport aircraft.
The Napier Eland is a British turboshaft or turboprop gas-turbine engine built by Napier & Son in the early 1950s. Production of the Eland ceased in 1961 when the Napier company was taken over by Rolls-Royce.
The Avco-Lycoming AGT1500 is a gas turbine engine. It is the main powerplant of the M1 Abrams series of tanks. The engine was originally designed and produced by the Lycoming Turbine Engine Division in the Stratford Army Engine Plant. In 1995, production was moved to the Anniston Army Depot in Anniston, Alabama, after the Stratford Army Engine Plant was shut down.
The General Electric T64 is a free-turbine turboshaft engine that was originally developed for use on helicopters, but which was later used on fixed-wing aircraft as well. General Electric introduced the engine in 1964. The original engine design included technical innovations such as corrosion resistant and high-temperature coatings. The engine features a high overall pressure ratio, yielding a low specific fuel consumption for its time. Although the compressor is all-axial, like the earlier General Electric T58, the power turbine shaft is coaxial with the HP shaft and delivers power to the front of the engine, not rearwards. Fourteen compressor stages are required to deliver the required overall pressure ratio. Compressor handling is facilitated by 4 rows of variable stators. Unlike the T58, the power turbine has 2 stages.
The Garrett TPF351 is a turboprop engine designed by Garrett Engine Division of AlliedSignal Aerospace Company. Initiated by Garrett in October 1987, the TPF351-20 engine was selected by Embraer to power the Embraer/FMA CBA 123 Vector, a high-speed commuter "pusher" aircraft. It was first tested on May 19, 1989 and then ground tested and flight tested on a Boeing 720 on July 9, 1990. The first prototype CBA 123 was tested on July 18, 1990, followed by a flight to the Farnborough Air Show in September of the same year. Both programs were cancelled in 1992, when the TPF351 was nine months from engine certification.
The Pratt & Whitney/Allison 578-DX was an experimental aircraft engine, a hybrid between a turbofan and a turboprop known as a propfan. The engine was designed in the 1980s to power proposed propfan aircraft such as the Boeing 7J7 and the MD-91 and MD-92 derivatives of the McDonnell Douglas MD-80. As of 2019, it is still one of only four different contra-rotating propfan engines to have flown in service or in flight testing.
An airbreathing jet engine is a jet engine in which the exhaust gas which supplies jet propulsion is atmospheric air, which is taken in, compressed, heated, and expanded back to atmospheric pressure through a propelling nozzle. Compression may be provided by a gas turbine, as in the original turbojet and newer turbofan, or arise solely from the ram pressure of the vehicle's velocity, as with the ramjet and pulsejet.
The Allison T56 turboprop engine has been developed extensively throughout its production run, the many variants are described by the manufacturer as belonging to four main series groups.
