Small gas turbine design: a total technology educational experience

This paper describes the progress made on a small gas turbine design project undertaken by 45 final year engineering students and 15 members of staff spread across four engineering departments at Imperial College, and held over a 3-year period. The students were provided with state-of-the-art software including ProEngineer®, ANSYS®, Star CD® and the Concepts® turbomachinery design tools and the result has demonstrated that realistic designs can be produced by undergraduates with the guidance of experienced gas turbine engineers. This paper also examines the progress made, the educational goals achieved and the design and analytical lessons learnt.