International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42405-018-0134-z

ORIGINAL PAPER

Effect of Bypass Ratio on Optimal Fan Outer Pressure Ratio

and Performance for Turbofan Engines
Rui Xue1,2 · Jun Jiang2 · Anthony Jackson3

Received: 27 September 2018 / Revised: 28 November 2018 / Accepted: 16 December 2018

© The Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences 2019

Abstract
This study was carried out to explore the effect of bypass ratio on optimal fan outer pressure ratio and the performance of
turbofan engine with the same engine core. The member of Rolls-Royce Trent family, Trent-XWB, is chosen as the baseline
engine. Based on the published data, a model for the simulation of engine performance was set up. Then, a series of engine
models with different bypass ratios were established based on the same Trent-XWB engine core and the way to get optimal
fan outer pressure ratio was derived. It was concluded that for the fixed engine core, when the bypass ratio was chosen, there
would be one optimal outer pressure ratio existing which could make the thrust maximum and the specific fuel consumption
reach minimum. By comparing the performance of the turbofan engines with different bypass ratios, it shows that the increase
of bypass ratio results in higher thrust and lower specific fuel consumption. However, the additional cost like the increase of
both drag and weight needs to be taken into account at the preliminary design stage in practice.

Keywords Bypass ratio study · Optimal fan outer pressure ratio · Engine performance

Nomenclature SLS Sea level static

W Air mass flow rate
BPR Bypass ratio
COT Combustor outlet temperature
FIPR Fan inner pressure ratio
1 Introduction
FOPR Fan outer pressure ratio
HPCPR High pressure compressor pressure ratio
In the last 70 years, a great effort has been made to enhance
IPCPR Intermediate pressure compressor pressure ratio
the aircraft engine’s performance. The greatest breakthrough
IPC Intermediate pressure compressor
is the development of high bypass ratio turbofan engine. The
ISA International standard atmosphere
introduction of high bypass ratio turbofan brings not only a
LP Low pressure
big improvement in fuel economy but also a huge reduction
OPR Overall pressure ratio
in engine noise. A turbofan engine is effectively a turbojet
PR Pressure ratio
engine and uses a larger fan area that divides the incom-
SFC Specific fuel consumption
ing airflow into two streams. One stream flows into the core
and is burned with fuel, while the other stream bypasses the
B Rui Xue
ruixue@xjtu.edu.cn engine and is compressed in the bypass stage. For a modern
high bypass turbofan engine, it is composed of five key com-
1 State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of ponents: an inlet, low pressure compressors (fan and low
Mechanical Structures, Shaanxi Engineering Laboratory for
Vibration Control of Aerospace Structures, School of
pressure compressor in core engine), burner, turbines, and
Aerospace, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, nozzle.
People’s Republic of China In general, when a turbofan engine is designed for a speci-
2 AECC Xi’an Aero-Engine Control Company, Xi’an 710077, fied mission, it is desirable to minimize the fuel consumption
People’s Republic of China during operation. A well-performed engine could need a
3 Centre for Propulsion Engineering, Cranfield smaller fuel tank, which results in a lighter, more maneu-
University, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK verable aircraft with lower operating costs [1]. At present,

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influence of different parameters on turbofan engine perfor- 2 Engine Model

mance has been widely investigated. However, few studies
were focused on how to find parameters to optimize the To carry out the investigation of the influence of bypass ratio
engine performance at the preliminary design stage. There- on engine performance, a proper baseline engine should be
fore, the selection of the best values for the basic engine chosen and an engine model, which is used for performance
design variables is quite important at the preliminary design simulation needs to be set up. So, the Rolls-Royce engine
stage. Trent-XWB was chosen as the baseline engine in this study.
It was found that optimal values of variables such as Rolls-Royce Trent-XWB engine is the one member of the
bypass ratio (BPR) and fan outer pressure ratio (FOPR) could Rolls-Royce Trent family. It is a series of high bypass ratio
affect the values of the key performance parameters sig- turbofan developed from the Trent 1000, and is designed
nificantly. Determination of the optimal FOPR is important specifically for the Airbus A350 X WB. A picture of Rolls-
because, given all other variables such as the overall pressure Royce Trent-XWB is shown in Fig. 1.
ratio (OPR), bypass ratio, and combustor outlet temperature Table 1 shows the list of the main engine performance
(COT), the optimum value of FOPR simultaneously ensures found in the public domain of this chosen baseline engine.
maximum net thrust and minimum specific fuel consumption The engine is a three shaft turbofan and its bypass ratio is 9.3.
(SFC) [1]. Thus, the optimal FOPR achieves the two, usu- It has a single stage fan with the diameter of 3 m. The mass
ally contradictory, goals of jet engine design [1]. In Guha’s flow of the engine is approximately 1440 kg/s and the OPR
study [1], two explicit equations have been derived to solve is about 52 [4]. At international standard atmosphere (ISA)
the optimum fan pressure ratio. The results computed by condition, its take-off thrust is 422.6 kN, while the specific
this correlation were compared with the simulation results fuel consumption is unknown. These data were gathered from
obtained by commercial performance software and showed Jane’s ‘Aero Engines’ [5], Wikipedia and some Rolls-Royce
good consistency. In addition, research carried out by Mill- documents and have been checked with different sources.
house et al. [2] showed that although the most fuel-efficient Based on the Rolls-Royce Trent-XWB engine data in open
values of such parameters as bypass ratio and compression domain, a turbofan engine model has been created under the
pressure ratio depend on the integrated effects of the various environment of GasTurb 10 [6]. Figure 2 shows the stan-
flight altitudes, Mach numbers, and thrusts required through- dard station numbering for turbofan engine model which
out the mission, it is possible to heuristically locate the most is used to label the cross-section parameters of each com-
efficient fan compressor pressure ratio to complement other
engine parameters independent of the mission [2]. There-
fore, the conclusions for the optimal FOPR obtained at the
design point could also be applied into off-design analysis
throughout the whole flight mission.
In the view from division of components, a turbofan
engine can be regarded as a turbojet core plus the bypass
fan. Therefore, to focus on the parameters of fan, the core
engine is fixed in this study. Thus, the parameters of the
core, such as inlet air flow, OPR, COT, component efficien-
cies as well as the bleeding for cooling, are kept constant.
Based on the same core engine, engine models with differ-
ent bypass ratios were established first. After the optimal
FOPR has been determined and then taken into the perfor-
mance simulation, the performance of engine is obtained and Fig. 1 Rolls-Royce Trent-XWB [3]
analyzed in the last section. From the development trend of
turbofan engine, the value of bypass ratio becomes higher and
higher for civil engines due to the increasingly stringent noise Table 1 Rolls-Royce Trent-XWB engine characteristic implemented in
the model [3]
emission regulations and fuel economy requirement. Thus,
different from the previous studies on the issue of optimal Specification Value
fan pressure ratio, which employed ‘old gas turbine engine Take-off thrust (kN) 422.6
model’ whose bypass ratios were low or intermediate, this Bypass ratio 9.3
study uses the modern turbofan engine with the high bypass
Fan diameter (m) 3
ratios as the research model. Thus, the results obtained in this
Mass flow (kg/s) 1440
article could be used as a reflection of the current aeroengine
Overall pressure ratio 8.400
technology and provide a reference for the future direction.

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Fig. 2 Rolls-Royce Trent-XWB

performance model [10]

ponent in performance simulation. The development of the component efficiencies of the core, are fixed. The fuel flow
model was done to achieve a deviation of 2% between the for all the series of the engines is the same as well. Therefore,
performances of the real engine and the results from engine any increase in net thrust is originated in the improvement of
performance simulation. A good matching of the engine in the SFC and vice versa.
terms of design-point performance has permitted the con- Suppose the BPR of the turbofan is μ, then the net thrust
sequent implementation for seeking the optimal fan outer of the engine can be represented in Eq. (1):
pressure ratio and studying the influence of bypass ratio on
engine performance. As most of the performance data was
at sea level static take-off conditions, the design point of the FN  W (VC − V0 ) + μW (VB − V0 , (1)
model engine was established at this condition. The known
parameters, bypass ratio, inlet mass flow and overall pressure
where W is the air mass flow of the core, VC is the core
ratio, were kept consistent in the model. In addition, as the
jet velocity, V0 is the flight speed and VB is the bypass jet
data of Rolls-Royce Trent-XWB engine are not sufficient in
velocity.
public documents, some input values of the parameters like
Then, the net thrust will be maximum when:
the component efficiencies and the air bleed for cooling were
reasonably estimated and assumed according to the newest
technology. Then, the pressure ratio distribution for the com- ∂ FN
 0, (2)
pression system and the combustor outlet temperature were ∂ VB
varied in the reasonable ranges until the target thrust was
matched with the data from open domain.
so that

 
∂ VC
3 Method of Obtaining Optimum Fan Outer W + μ  0. (3)
∂ VB
Pressure Ratio

In general, the low pressure (LP) turbine was used to drive Consequently,
the bypass fan. Therefore, when the engine core and BPR are
fixed, there will be an optimal fan outer pressure ratio which ∂ VC
could lead the key parameters of the engine like net thrust  −μ. (4)
∂ VB
reaching highest and SFC being lowest. This relation was
introduced in Ref. [7] and has been put into use for analysis
in Ref. [8]. The fixed engine core implies that the flow con- In addition, for a turbojet engine, the kinetic energy added
dition at the inlet of the core, as well as the OPR, COT and to the air system through the engine is,

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Fig. 3 Optimum of FOPR at

SLS ISA

1 fan and the core engine equals the transfer efficiency, ηtrans .
KE  W (VJ2 − V02 , (5)
2 The equations above were first published in Ref. [9] and then
highlighted in Refs. [1] and [8]. For the turbofan engine,
where VJ is the velocity of the exhaust gas which is assumed when FOPR increases, VB increases, while VC decreases.
to be fully expanded in this study. So if a fan is added to the The derivation above shows that, for the fixed engine core
turbojet with a BPR of μ, then the added kinetic energy is and a given BPR, there must be a value of FOPR which gives
changed to: a particular velocity ratio that could obtain the maximum
1  2  1   thrust for the engine. This velocity ratio, which also equals
KE  W VC − V02 + μW VB2 − V02 /ηtrans , (6) to the transfer efficiency showed in Eq. (9), is suggested to
2 2
be in the range of 0.75–0.82 in Ref. [8].
where ηtrans is the transfer efficiency, which represents the To obtain this optimal value, the shooting method is
efficiency of the kinetic energy being transferred from the employed to obtain the optimal FOPR value in this study.
core stream to the bypass stream, and it can be defined as: That is, by selecting different FOPR values within a certain
range, running engine performance simulation, and then the
K E B
ηtrans  , (7) performance results of the net thrust and specific fuel con-
K E − K E C sumption are plotted against the variation of FOPR (the core
was fixed) in one graph. So, the FOPR value corresponding
where K E B means the kinetic energy added to the bypass
to the peak point of the thrust (or the lowest value of SFC) is
fan airstream and K E C is the kinetic energy added to the
the optimal value of the required solution. Taking the base-
core.
line engine with BPR  9.3 as an example, Fig. 3 shows the
As the kinetic energy is constant and other parameters of
results of the performance simulation when FOPR is varied
core engine are fixed, take derivative of Eq. (6) with respect
from 1.4 to 1.6. In this figure, as in other figures to follow, a
to VB , and make it equal to zero:
dual set of vertical axes is used to allow both characteristics
   
∂KE 1 ∂ VC μ to appear on the same plot; net thrust is to be read from the
 W 2VC +2 VB  0. (8) right side, and SFC from the left. The velocity ratio VB /VC
∂ VB 2 ∂ VB ηtrans
was also plotted in the same figure for checking as well. It
Then by taking Eq. (4) into Eq. (8), it could be obtained: can be seen that at the given set of engine parameters, SFC is
minimized (and net thrust maximized) at a single outer fan
VB ∂ VC −ηtrans −ηtrans pressure ratio. The optimal FOPR is about 1.6 and the corre-
 ×  (−μ) ×  ηtrans . (9)
VC ∂ VB μ μ sponding velocity ratio VB /VC is about 0.78 at the point of
the optimum FOPR in this figure. This value matches well
This means that the engine will achieve the maximum
with the range 0.75–0.82 suggested above.
thrust when the ratio of the jet velocity between the bypass

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Table 2 Parameters of Rolls-Royce trent-XWB performance model Table 3 The isentropic efficiency and polytropic efficiency for different
(SLS ISA take-off) components
Parameter Value Parameter Value Component Isentropic efficiency Polytropic efficiency

BPR 9.300 OPR 51.970 Outer LPC 0.9145 0.9200

W (kg/s) 1440.000 COT (K) 1881.740 Inner LPC 0.9161 0.9200
FIPR 1.400 F N (kN) 422.600 IP compressor 0.8679 0.9000
FOPR 1.600 Fuel flow (kg/s) 3.325 HP compressor 0.8793 0.9000
IPCPR 8.400 SFC [g/(kN•s)] 7.869 Burner 0.9995 –
HPCPR 4.500 V B /V C 0.774 HP turbine 0.9000 0.8900
IP turbine 0.9000 0.8901
LP turbine 0.9000 0.8782
As the change of FOPR is based on a constant core in this
study, the sum of the kinetic energy increase in the two jets is
Table 4 Shooting range for performance simulation
essentially constant and very small changes are made to the
thermal efficiency, which can be ignored. Thus, the change BPR Shooting range of FOPR
of SFC with FOPR can be investigated from the change of
9.3 (baseline) 1.40–1.65
the propulsion efficiency. From this figure, it could be vividly
12 1.44–1.50
explained why the value of FOPR too high or too low makes
15 1.34–1.40
SFC worse. When the FOPR increases, the VC decreases, as
20 1.25–1.29
more energy is taken from the core flow by the LP turbine to
25 1.16–1.23
drive the higher pressure ratio fan. VB increases at the same
time. So, VB /VC monotonously increases with FOPR in the
figure. If the value of FOPR is too high, so much energy
will be taken to drive the fan. Thus, the total pressure of the 4 Effect of BPR on Optimum FOPR
core exhaust will fall below the atmospheric pressure, which and Performance of Engine
leads the air to go the wrong way through the engine core.
In this situation, the velocity of the core is near zero and After the engine model and the method of obtaining optimal
the propulsion efficiency ηprop−turbofan [shown in Eq. (10)] is FOPR have been verified in previous section, then a series
quite poor. So, the SFC will get worse when the FOPR is too of engine models with different bypass ratios were created
high. Meanwhile, when the value of FOPR is too low, VC based on the same core with Rolls-Royce Trent-XWB. So, the
is high, while VB is low. So, the fan is nearly not working study of the effect of BPR on optimal FOPR and performance
at all in this condition and the engine is just like a turbojet. could be carried out.
The propulsion efficiency ηprop−turbojet [shown in Eq. (11)] As illustrated in the previous section, when the core engine
is now used and it is also quite poor when the core velocity is is fixed, for one BPR, there is an optimal FOPR value which
high. Thus, the SFC will get worse as well when the FOPR is makes the thrust maximum and SFC minimum. So, the per-
too low. In a word, for both cases, as FOPR is too low or too formance simulation for different bypass ratios was carried
high, the propulsive efficiency and the corresponding SFC out and the corresponding optimum FOPR could be obtained.
are made worse. The shooting ranges of FOPR used for performance simula-
tion at different bypass ratios are shown in Table 4 and the

ηprop−turbofan  2 μ(VB − V0 ) + (VC − V0 )]/[μVB2 + VC2 , curves for solving the optimal FOPR are presented in Fig. 4.
In addition, it is noted that as there is a change in fan outer
(10) pressure ratio, the value of fan inner pressure ratio (FIPR)
should be altered. The relationship between FOPR and FIPR
ηprop−turbojet  2/[1 + (VC /V0 )]. (11)
can be illustrated as:

Finally, taking the obtained optimum FOPR as the input

(FIPR − 1)
data, the model of Rolls-Royce Trent-XWB was established  C, (12)
(FOPR − 1)
and its performance was calculated. A summary of the model
parameters is shown in Table 2 and the efficiency of the pri-
mary engine components such as compressor, burner and where C is a constant. For the baseline engine whose BPR
turbine is illustrated in Table 3. Other details of the station equals to 9.3 and FOPR equals to 1.6, the value of FIPR is
values of the engine model are not shown here for brevity. 1.4. So by taking the values of FOPR and FIPR of baseline

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Fig. 4 FOPR optimization for different bypass ratios

engine into Eq. (12), the constant C is 0.67. Thus, the value
of FIPR at other bypass ratios could be expressed as:

FIPR  1 + 0.67(FOPR − 1). (13)

Meanwhile, to keep the overall pressure ratio constant, the

pressure ratio (PR) of the intermediate pressure compressor
(IPC) also needs to be adjusted. Based on this relationship,
the IPC pressure ratio could be calculated. So when the FOPR
was obtained, the corresponding FIPR and IPC pressure ratio
can be directly calculated as well. These three parameters at
different bypass ratios are shown in Fig. 5. In this figure, the
value of IPC pressure ratio is to be read from the right side,
and optimal FOPR and FIPR from the left using the same Fig. 5 Optimal FOPR, FIPR and IPC pressure ratio at different bypass
scale. It could be seen that as the bypass ratio increases, the ratios
optimal FOPR and the FIPR increase while the IPC pressure
ratio decreases. FIPR is smaller than FOPR and as bypass
ratio increases, the difference of these two parameters is or two may need to be added to the IPC. This would not
gradually reduced. It is worth noting that at a high BPR, be a problem because with the increase of diameter, the fan
the pressure ratio of the IPC would be quite high that a stage needs to be moved away from the core to give sensible annu-

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Table 5 Performance data at

different bypass ratios Parameter Value

BPR 9.3 12 15 20 25
W core (kg/s) 139.8
W (kg/s) 1440.0 1817.5 2236.9 2935.9 3635.0
FIPR (optimum) 1.40 1.31 1.25 1.18 1.15
FOPR 1.600 1.465 1.370 1.276 1.220
IPCPR 8.40 8.98 9.41 9.97 10.23
HPCPR 4.5
OPR 51.97 51.98 51.98 51.99 51.99
COT (K) 1881.74
F N (kN) 422.6 471.0 518.5 587.3 646.7
Fuel flow (kg/s) 3.325 3.324 3.323 3.322 3.321
SFC [g/(kN•s)] 7.869 7.057 6.409 5.656 5.135
V B /V C 0.774 0.793 0.795 0.803 0.812

lus shapes between fan and core. Therefore, extra length is 5 Conclusion
available consequently [8].
After the input parameters of the series of engines having In this study, Rolls-Royce Trent-XWB was selected as the
been obtained, the performance of each engine was computed baseline engine and a series of engine models were created.
and the major results are listed in Table 5. Detailed results for Based on the same engine core, the optimization of the fan
different sections of components are not presented here for outer pressure ratio was derived. It has been shown that the
brevity. The air mass flow of the cores is the same, while the optimal fan outer pressure ratio achieves the condition that
air mass flow of the engines varies with the BPR. Accord- the ratio of the jet velocity between the bypass fan and the
ingly, the FIPR as well as IPC pressure ratio was adjusted to core engine equals the transfer efficiency, namely, VB /VC 
maintain the same OPR. The COT was kept constant to keep ηtrans . The performances of the engines at optimal FOPR
the same core performance as well. condition with different bypass ratios were studied. From
In addition, it can be seen that the fuel flow, which should the analysis of the performance results, it is concluded that
be constant for all the engines, is slightly different from each the engine with higher BPR could produce higher thrust and
other. This is due to the fact that the component efficien- lower SFC. However, other factors also need to be taken
cies were kept constant for each engine, while the pressure into account to measure the overall engine performance in
ratio distribution was changed. Similar differences can also practice.
be observed in some other parameters. Though the com-
ponent efficiencies were not altered to eliminate the small Funding This work has been supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 51706170) and China Postdoctoral
differences, most of the results were not influenced in this Science Foundation (Grant no. 2017M623185).
study. Meanwhile, with the increase of BPR, the SFC of the
engine decreases and the net thrust increases gradually. This
means that the performance of the engine will be enhanced Compliance with ethical standards
with higher BPR. However, the increase of BPR also leads
to larger front area which leads to the increase of the drag Conflict of interest The authors declare that there is no conflict of inter-
as well. The additional length and weight are also impor- est.
tant factors that should be taken into account at conceptual
design stage. In addition, as more strict noise regulations are
required to satisfy at present, noise generation also needs to References
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