Optimized modeling of energy and environmental metrics of mixed flow turbofan engine used regional aircraft

Abstract

As a kind of gas turbine engines, turbofan engines have powered a number of aero-vehicles in aviation sector. The necessity of turbofan with higher energy efficiency has been greatly drawn attention since these are operating dependent to fossil fuels. In this study, energy and emission metrics of fifty-one mixed flow turbofan engines (MFTE) with different bypass ratio, overall pressure ratio and fuel flow are modeled with multi-regression (MR) method. The obtained models are subjected to metaheuristic approaches involving genetic algorithm (GA) and simulated annealing (SA) so as to decrease error of the models. According to MR findings, rated thrust of MFTEs is estimated with 1.4877 of minimum square error (MSE) whereas GA and SA make it lower as 1.3404 and 1.2524, respectively. On the other hand, NOx emission index of MFTEs is predicted with relatively low coefficient of determination (R-2) as 0.8620. However, its accuracy is enhanced to 0.8633 (with GA) and 0.8655 (with SA). Finally, exergy efficiency of MFTEs is estimated the highest model correctness with GA. Namely, R-2 of the model is computed as 0.9280 with GA and 0.9277 with SA. Without applying these methods, its R-2 is obtained as 0.9263 with MR. When considering these outcomes, thanks to modeling and optimization methods, prediction of performance and emission indexes of mixed flow turbofan engines could be performed with lower error values. It is thought that the study helps in prediction of environmental effect regarding turbofan engines that are utilized at busy airports.