Aerospace Propulsion option - MSc in Thermal Power and Propulsion

Cranfield University

To make you familiar with design, operation, computation and performance criteria of gas turbine (GT) combustion and reheat systems and to explore issues related to gas turbine pollutant emissions.

To familiarise you with engine systems or engine designs for stationary and aero gas turbines and technical reporting by examples and sources systematic analysis.

To inform you of the different types of gas turbine engines; their applications, on-design, off-design and transient performance. To provide you with the ability to undertake gas turbine component performance calculations, diagnostics and to perform evaluations of gas turbine performance, and deterioration.

The importance of technology leadership in driving the technical aspects of an organisation’s products, innovation, programmes, operations and strategy is paramount, especially in today’s turbulent commercial environment with its unprecedented pace of technological development. Demand for ever more complex products and services has become the norm. The challenge for today’s manager is to deal with uncertainty, to allow technological innovation and change to flourish but also to remain within planned parameters of performance. Many organisations engaged with technological innovation struggle to find engineers with the right skills. Specifically, engineers have extensive subject/discipline knowledge but do not understand management processes in organisational context. In addition, STEM graduates often lack interpersonal skills.

To familiarise you with the common problems associated with the mechanical design and the lifting of the major rotating components of the gas turbine engine.

To equip you with background knowledge of aircraft propulsion, component performance integration.

To familiarise you with compressor and turbine aerodynamic design and performance by instruction, investigation and example.

To introduce you to the technology of gas turbine blade cooling through analytical and practical approaches of heat transfer principles, convection cooling, impingement film transpiration cooling and liquid cooling.

Students must submit a design or research thesis. This may be delivered through collaboration with an industrial sponsor or driven by the research interests of the Thermal Power MSc academic team. The thesis should set out the results of a structured programme of work and demonstrate your ability to conduct focused investigations, to test ideas (your own or those of others) and to obtain appropriate conclusions. The results of the research programme should be set in the context of related work previously produced by others. You are required to communicate your findings in a thesis written in the style of a detailed document describing previous work, methods employed, results, conclusions, and recommendations. You should explain, discuss and evaluate the ethical, environmental, economic and social implications of the results and findings. The Thesis must be an independent, detailed, self-standing document, describing to potential industrial sponsors the context, value, and outcomes of the work.