I’m a freshman in Aircraft maintenance and my prof in Powerplant 2 (Gas Turbine Engine) explained to us about the venturi duct within the compressor of the Turbine engine. I get that the compressor increases the pressure of the air but what I don’t get is his statement that according to Bernoulli’s principle once the air passes through the inlet duct and towards the compressor the air’s pressure decreases and the velocity increases as it passes through the venturi duct the pressure only increases after it reaches the divergent part of the venturi duct before it gets to the combustion chamber.
So what I want to know is why does the pressure decrease first before it enters the compressor?
In: 1
The way I think about this situation is to know that the mass flow rate through a pipe must be constant. What goes in is what comes out.
Now if we have an upstream area that is bigger than a downstream area, like from the inlet, to the narrowest point of a Venturi, then to achieve the same mass flow rate, the downstream velocity must be higher than the upstream velocity.
From Bernoulli we introduce equivalence between upstream and downstream energies. To keep this equivalence, if the downstream velocity is higher, the downstream pressure must then go lower to compensate.
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