Performance Analysis of Heat Recovery System for a Turbofan Engine Using Intercooler and Recuperator via Aspen Plus

Greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming in which carbon dioxide is the best known. Having a heat recovery system by using heat exchangers in the engine helps not only improve the performance of the engine but also reduce the temperature of the exhaust gases that will be eliminated as waste heat into the atmosphere. The main objective of the introduction of intercoolers and recuperators is to reduce thrust specific fuel consumption whilst increasing the thrust and reducing emissions. This article focuses on the analysis of intercooling and recuperation to be integrated into a typical turbofan engine via process simulation software - Aspen Plus. The main objectives of the study are to determine the increase of thrust, performance of the engine with the positioning of heat exchangers, and the improvement of Thrust Specific Fuel Consumption (TSFC) with the integration of heat exchangers. For the first objective, thrust increased in both recuperated and intercooled cycles by 1.14% and 1.31%, respectively. Finally, for the second objective, a decrease in TSFC for both recuperated and intercooled cycles shows that both the heat recovery systems have an improvement in TSFC.