Heat Exchanger for Waste Heat Recovery of an Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine (Black Team)

Discipline: MAE

Advisor: Rhett Jefferies

Our team has designed a heat exchanger for a LEAP-1B engine, used on aircraft such as the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320neo. The goal is to capture waste heat from the engine and transfer it to a supercritical CO₂ system. The waste heat can come from sources such as the exhaust flow, the blade-cooling air, or even oil cooling. The CO₂ is the working fluid of a Brayton cycle that generates electrical power for the aircraft’s onboard components. Using waste heat to power the electronics reduces the amount of work drawn from the engine shaft and can boost efficiency. The design of this heat exchanger presented a few challenges, such as a requirement to achieve a 400 kW heat transfer target and keeping pressure losses and weight low enough for integration in an aircraft. Our team performed thermal calculations, geometric sizing, and simulations to predict heat transfer performance, pressure drop, and structural integrity. To validate the LEAP-1B design, we developed a subscale prototype that will be tested in a GE J85 jet engine exhaust stream. Experimental data from this test will be used to confirm that the design can scale to a full LEAP-1B engine application.

Back to Showcase