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.
16-511: 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 Eland was first tested in flight in 1953 in a Vickers Varsity aircraft. Further flight proving was carried out from 1955 using the first production Airspeed Ambassador 2. The Eland
32-413: A gear reduction system, and the shaft output. The gas generator creates the hot expanding gases to drive the power section. Depending on the design, the engine accessories may be driven either by the gas generator or by the power section. In most designs, the gas generator and power section are mechanically separate so they can each rotate at different speeds appropriate for the conditions, referred to as
48-527: A ' free power turbine '. A free power turbine can be an extremely useful design feature for vehicles, as it allows the design to forgo the weight and cost of complex multiple-ratio transmissions and clutches . An unusual example of the turboshaft principle is the Pratt & Whitney F135 -PW-600 turbofan engine for the STOVL Lockheed F-35B Lightning II – in conventional mode it operates as
64-629: A niche as a powerplant for turboshaft-driven helicopters in the 1950s. In 1950, Turbomeca used its work from the 782 to develop the larger 280-shp Artouste , which was widely used on the Aérospatiale Alouette II and other helicopters. This was following the experimental installation of a Boeing T50 turboshaft in an example of the Kaman K-225 synchropter on December 11, 1951, as the world's first-ever turboshaft-powered helicopter of any type to fly. The T-80 tank, which entered service with
80-517: A sustained high power output, high reliability, small size, and light weight. These include helicopters , auxiliary power units , boats and ships , tanks , hovercraft , and stationary equipment. A turboshaft engine may be made up of two major parts assemblies: the 'gas generator' and the 'power section'. The gas generator consists of the compressor , combustion chambers with ignitors and fuel nozzles , and one or more stages of turbine . The power section consists of additional stages of turbines,
96-689: A turbofan, but when powering the Rolls-Royce LiftSystem , it switches partially to turboshaft mode to send 29,000 horsepower forward through a shaft and partially to turbofan mode to continue to send thrust to the main engine's fan and rear nozzle. Large helicopters use two or three turboshaft engines. The Mil Mi-26 uses two Lotarev D-136 at 11,400 hp each, while the Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion uses three General Electric T64 at 4,380 hp each. The first gas turbine engine considered for an armoured fighting vehicle,
112-486: Is a state design bureau that creates drafts and plans for aircraft engines in Zaporizhzhia , Ukraine whose products are widely used in both civil and military aircraft , most notably by Antonov , Beriev , Ilyushin , Tupolev , Mil and Yakovlev . The design bureau works closely with Motor Sich , the turbine manufacturer located in Zaporizhzhia which produces those engines . Polish manufacturer PZL-Mielec used
128-558: The GT 101 which was based on the BMW 003 turbojet, was tested in a Panther tank in mid-1944. The first turboshaft engine for rotorcraft was built by the French engine firm Turbomeca , led by its founder Joseph Szydlowski . In 1948, they built the first French-designed turbine engine, the 100-shp 782. Originally conceived as an auxiliary power unit , it was soon adapted to aircraft propulsion, and found
144-645: The Soviet Army in 1976, was the first tank to use a gas turbine as its main engine. Since 1980 the US Army has operated the M1 Abrams tank, which also has a gas turbine engine. (Most tanks use reciprocating piston diesel engines.) The Swedish Stridsvagn 103 was the first tank to utilize a gas turbine as a secondary, high-horsepower "sprint" engine to augment its primary piston engine's performance. The turboshaft engines used in all these tanks have considerably fewer parts than
160-632: The time between overhauls . The CC-106 had its Elands replaced with the Allison T56 turboprop and the CV540 was re-engined with the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp piston engine. Potential production applications which were subsequently cancelled were the Westland Westminster heavy-lift helicopter and the Fairey Rotodyne gyrodyne . The Rotodyne operated as an autogyro in forward flight using
176-507: The Eland turboprops. For vertical flight the rotor was driven using an auxiliary compressor clutched to each Eland. They supplied compressed air to a combustion chamber at each rotor tip. A turboshaft Eland is on display at the Helicopter Museum , Weston-super-Mare . Data from Flight 29 August 1958 p.340 Comparable engines Related lists Turboshaft Turboshaft engines are commonly used in applications that require
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#1732855737522192-711: The Lotarev D-36 in 1971. This organization is now known as Ivchenko-Progress ZMKB and is based in Ukraine. Their engines are being operated successfully by numerous airlines around the world, including Volga-Dnepr , Antonov Airlines, Enimex , and Polet . In January 2015, Diamond Aircraft of Austria announced the first flight of the Diamond DA50 -JP7 powered by a 465 hp AI-450S turboprop engine developed by Ukraine's Motor Sich JSC and Ivchenko-Progress. However, Diamond ended up getting EASA certification on its DA50 RG model with
208-916: The Progress ZMKB AI-25TL engine in the PZL M-15 Belphegor cropduster. Both the largest plane in the world, the Antonov An-225 Mriya and the largest helicopter, the Mil Mi-26 , are powered by Progress/Lotarev engines. The bureau is administered by the Ukrainian Defense Industry and the Ministry of Industrial Policy. The Company has been involved for 60 years in the design of engines to power aircraft and helicopters of various types, and also designs drives and special equipment for industrial applications. Three notable designers have led
224-454: The development during this time: Initially General Oleksandr Ivchenko designed piston engines. These engines were denoted AI. Work on their first turbine engine, the TS-12, began in 1953. Since the beginning of the 1960s the company have been developing bypass gas turbine engines. Under the direction of Volodymyr Lotarev, the organization developed the first operational Soviet high-bypass turbofans,
240-650: The piston engines they replace or supplement, mechanically are very reliable, produce reduced exterior noise, and run on virtually any fuel: petrol (gasoline), diesel fuel , and aviation fuels. However, turboshaft engines have significantly higher fuel consumption than the diesel engines that are used in the majority of modern main battle tanks. Ivchenko-Progress Ivchenko-Progress ZMKB ( Ukrainian : Запорізьке машинобудівне конструкторське бюро «Прогрес» ім. О.Г.Івченка , Zaporizhzhia Machine-Building Design Bureau "Progress" State Enterprise named after Academician O.H.Ivchenko ), formerly OKB-478 and Ivchenko Lotarev ,
256-598: Was dropped from production when Napier was acquired by Rolls-Royce Limited in 1961. The only production applications for the engine were two variants of the Convair CV-240 family , the Royal Canadian Air Force Canadair CC-109 Cosmopolitan and the civil Convair CV-540 . The military and civil operators had perpetual trouble with the engines which were considered complex. Due to their unreliability The Department of Transport reduced
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