4
$\begingroup$

Could somebody explain impact of bleed air extract from engines on take-off N1 and EGT? As far as I know (considering 737NG) using engine bleed air decreases calculated N1 for take-off by the FMC, what is easily seen when we switch on the Packs. But I also read somewhere that take-off with bleeds on results in a higher EGT compared to no bleed take-off.

To me, this effect seems backwards. Packs draw some bleed air from the engines that would otherwise be used to generate thrust. Intuitively, then, it feels like it engine should require more thrust (higher N1) to get enough thrust

$\endgroup$
1

1 Answer 1

5
$\begingroup$

The energy for a jet engine comes from burning fuel in the combustion section. That energy does two major things: the turbine taps some of it to spin the engine (which includes the compressor, the accessory drive, the N1 fan, and, on a turboprop the really big & unducted fan out front called the prop), and the rest exits the back as thrust.

The more work the compressor is being called upon to do, the more fuel you have to burn to generate the energy to do that (assuming that you are keeping the thrust part of the output constant). Burning more fuel = higher EGT.

When you tap, or bleed off, some of that compressed air for things in the pneumatic system to use, that increases the work that the compressor has to do, compared with a baseline case where it compresses enough air for the combustion section but only that.

The maximum power available, the max N1 you're allowed, is greater when you aren't drawing that bleed air off -- and so you see the N1 limit value on the CDU go up when you turn the packs off. But that is the limit. At that higher limit, with the packs/bleeds off, your engines are producing more thrust than they are at the lower limit that's shown when the packs & bleeds are on.

If you need a certain amount of thrust to meet your requirements (accelerate/stop, accelerate/go, second segment climb, etc), then you could get that level of thrust at a similar or slightly lower N1 with the bleeds off than with the bleeds on. But, generally, flight planning doesn't work that way; if a bleeds-on takeoff gives you what you need, then you do that (and may also use less than full thrust -- with assumed temperature or derate or both). In the case where even full bleeds-on doesn't give you enough power, then you get a bleeds-off solution, and those generally don't use reduced thrust.

It's not impossible to have a reduced thrust bleeds-off takeoff, but it takes a performance calculator that gives you pretty granular control of the parameters, and there's pretty much no need to ever have both of those at once. And so the pilot-proof versions of things generally assume that if you're requesting bleeds off data, it's because you want all the performance possible, and so they give you the full power solution. But, if you had a way to specify "this much" power & no more, then you'd see that the bleeds-off N1 to give you just that much power would be either the same or a lower N1 (and certainly a lower resulting EGT) than the bleeds-on solution.

$\endgroup$
5
  • $\begingroup$ One more question - with packs off we can maintain higher N1 because we are EGT limited, so to maintain constant EGT and have bleed air for packs our N1 has to decrease, right? $\endgroup$
    – Konrad
    Commented Mar 7 at 20:36
  • $\begingroup$ I don't think the engine is usually EGT limited. EGT is related to N1, but the relationship for a new engine will be different (cooler) than for an old engine. I think that there are pressure limits that drive the max N1 for a given set of conditions, like pressure in the turbine inlet or other place/s in the engine, and we don't get told about those, since they are things we can't see or directly affect. Everything that goes into the N1 limit would be a good question -- I only have the "engineering for pilots" version, which isn't far above "engineering for dummies"! $\endgroup$
    – Ralph J
    Commented Mar 7 at 21:22
  • $\begingroup$ Okey, but why does the N1 decrease when we put the bleeds & packs ON? - as you wrote above, the compressor has to do more work considering constant thrust output, so the N1 should increase - to bled the necessary air and deliver constant amount of thrust $\endgroup$
    – Konrad
    Commented Mar 22 at 18:07
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ N1 basically is thrust. Not perfectly, but the CFM has more thrust from the fan than from the core. The EEC logic could hold fuel flow constant as the demand increases, allowing the N1 to drop (and the EGT to increase only a little), or it could add fuel to compensate for the greater demand, keeping N1 constant & more rise in EGT. What we observe when changing bleed configuration is essentially the choices made in the EEC logic, what to change in response to the new bleed load, & what to maintain. Getting into why the EEC makes particular choices is beyond the manuals given to pilots. $\endgroup$
    – Ralph J
    Commented Mar 22 at 19:11
  • $\begingroup$ The electronic engine control will keep corrected N1 or engine pressure ratio constant (depends on the manufacturer), this is a measure for the thrust level. While doing this the controller manages this within the limits for the engine P3, EGT and N1 speed $\endgroup$
    – 0scar
    Commented Mar 22 at 23:45

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.