A worked Brayton-cycle turbofan performance case study — core and bypass stream thrust from compressor pressure ratio and turbine inlet temperature, a specific fuel consumption calculation, and a bypass-ratio sensitivity comparison.
The project brief: estimate cruise thrust and specific fuel consumption for a representative mid-size turbofan (OPR 24, turbine inlet temperature 1,450 K, bypass ratio 5, 40 kg/s core airflow) at Mach 0.78 and 35,000 ft, using the same idealized Brayton-cycle method a propulsion engineer runs before handing a design to a full cycle deck. Framed as this program's baseline propulsion-performance project, it walks the core stream, the separately-ducted bypass stream, and the combined total thrust and fuel flow calculation in full.
This module works the whole cycle the way a propulsion engineer actually would: compressor and turbine temperature ratios from OPR and TIT, a fully-expanded core jet velocity, a fuel-air ratio from the combustor energy balance, a separate fan-stream thrust calculation, and a re-run of the whole bypass stream at a higher bypass ratio to quantify the real thrust and fuel-efficiency trade that has driven turbofan design for decades. The full worked numbers, complete performance parameter table, and finished sensitivity comparison are part of the unlocked module below.