Gas Turbines & Jet Engines

By Prof. Anirban Bhattacharya | IIT Bhubaneswar

Learners enrolled: 704 | Exam registration: 102

ABOUT THE COURSE:

This course provides an in-depth understanding of gas turbines & jet engines. It consists of two parts – (a) Analysis of industrial gas turbines (b) Analysis of different types of jet engines. The first part starts from the basics of industrial gas turbines, thermodynamic processes involved, improvements such as regeneration, intercooling, reheating, and additional analysis needed for real cycles. This will be followed by system level analysis of turbojet, turbofan, turboprop, ramjet & scramjet engines. The students will analyze the effect of design parameters on the performance characteristics for each engine along with important components such as diffusers and nozzles.

Key Learning Outcomes:

> Ability to analyze industrial gas turbines & perform design point calculations

> Analyze Turbojet, Turbofan, Turboprop & Ramjet Engines

> Calculate Performance Characteristics for Different Jet Engines & Determine Optimum Design Parameters

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Undergraduate & Postgraduate Mechanical Engineering students, Aerospace Engineering students

PREREQUISITES: Basic Thermodynamics

INDUSTRY SUPPORT: GE, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, ISRO, HAL & other aerospace & power organizations

Summary

Course Status :	Ongoing
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Mechanical Engineering Propulsion Energy Systems
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	19 Jan 2026
End Date :	10 Apr 2026
Enrollment Ends :	02 Feb 2026
Exam Registration Ends :	20 Feb 2026
Exam Date :	19 Apr 2026 IST
NCrF Level	4.5 — 8.0

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Introduction to gas turbines

•What is a gas turbine?
•Working principle of a gas turbine
•Overview of components
•Applications of gas turbine

Learning Outcome: Demonstration of working of a gas turbine

Week 2: Industrial Gas turbine design & performance

•Brayton cycle
•Brayton cycle parameters – efficiency & work output
•Calculation of performance characteristics

Learning Outcome: Calculate performance characteristics of simple ideal gas turbines

Week 3: Regeneration & reheating

•Brayton cycle with regeneration
•Brayton cycle with reheating
•Combined regeneration & reheating
•Calculation of performance characteristics

Learning Outcome: Calculate performance characteristics of gas turbines with reheat & regeneration

Week 4: Intercooling in gas turbines

•Intercooled gas turbines
•Combination of reheating, intercooling & regeneration
•Comparison of performance characteristics
•Optimum design parameters

Learning Outcome: Perform comparison of performance characteristics of intercooled, reheat, and regenerative gas turbines

Week 5: Real gas turbine cycles

•Effect of irreversibility – isentropic efficiency
•Effect of kinetic energy – calculation of stagnation properties
•Other deviations – pressure losses, combustion losses, changes in mass flow rate, mechanical losses, variation of specific heat, regenerator effectiveness

Learning Outcome: Analyze real industrial gas turbine systems

Week 6: Basics of jet engine

•What is a jet engine?
•How is it related to industrial gas turbines?
•Evolution of jet engines
•Components and assembly
•Types of jet engines

Learning Outcome: Differentiate turbojets, turbofans, turboprops, and ramjets & scramjets

Week 7: Design & performance of turbojet engine

•Thermodynamic processes
•Propulsive thrust, thrust power & propulsive power, propulsive efficiency, thermal efficiency

Learning Outcome: Calculate thrust & efficiency of turbojets

Week 8: Design & performance of turbojet engine (continued)

•Analysis of diffuser
•Analysis of nozzles
•Choked & unchoked nozzles
•Afterburners
•Calculation of performance characteristics

Learning Outcome: Analyze turbojet engines, perform thrust calculations for choked and unchoked nozzles & calculate performance characteristics.

Week 9: Design & performance of turbofan engine

•Turbofan processes
•Analysis of fan; Bypass ratio & Fan pressure ratio
•High by-pass & low bypass turbofan
•Determination of performance characteristics

Learning Outcome: Analyze turbofan engines

Week 10: Design & performance of turbofan engine (continued)

•Unmixed & mixed flow turbofan calculations
•Determination of performance characteristics

Learning Outcome: Do performance calculations for unmixed & mixed flow turbofan engines

Week 11: Design & performance of turboprop engine

•Turboprop processes & thrust calculation
•Optimum design parameters for maximum thrust
•Determination of performance characteristics

Learning Outcome: Analyze turboprop engines

Week 12: Ramjet & scramjet engines

•Thermodynamic cycle
•Design calculations
•Supersonic combustion

Learning Outcome: Analyze ramjet engines

Books and references

1.El-Sayed, Ahmed F. Aircraft propulsion and gas turbine engines. CRC press, 2017.

2.H. Cohen, H.I.H. Saravanamuttoo, G.F.C. Rogers, Paul Straznicky, A.C Nix, Gas Turbine Theory, Pearson India, 7th Edition, 2019.

3.V. Ganeshan, Gas Turbines, McGraw Hill Education; 3rd edition, 2017.

Instructor bio

Prof. Anirban Bhattacharya

IIT Bhubaneswar

Dr. Anirban Bhattacharya is an Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical Sciences, IIT Bhubaneswar. He has done his PhD and Masters from IISc, Bangalore, and his B.E. from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. After his PhD, he has worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Manchester, UK and at GE Global Research, Bangalore. His teaching & research interests include applied thermodynamics, gas turbine & jet engine design, & computational modelling of thermofluid systems. For his academics and research, Dr. Bhattacharya has received the B.K. Subba Rao Gold Medal for the best PhD thesis (IISc, Bangalore), S.V. Shastry Gold Medal for best Masters Student (IISc, Bangalore), and SERB Early Career Research Award.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: April 19, 2026 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kharagpur. It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team

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