About the Gas Turbine Laboratory
The concept of an MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory was formulated not long after the first jet engines were successfully run. Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Professor J.C. Hunsaker, who was one of the pioneers of aviation in this country and who was a member of the original National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (the forerunner of NASA), brought together a group of American industries who donated funds for the construction of a laboratory devoted to jet propulsion. A plaque commemorating the 1947 dedication now hangs in the main laboratory. From that beginning, the GTL evolved into what we believe is a world-class institution for teaching and research in aeropropulsion and turbomachinery technology. The research carried out in the laboratory has changed with the interests of the participants, but we have always sought to carry out the type of work that leads, rather than follows, the state of the art.
The research at the GTL is focused on advanced propulsion systems and turbomachinery with activities in computational, theoretical, and experimental study of:
loss mechanisms and unsteady flows in fluid machinery,
dynamic behavior and stability of compression systems,
instrumentation and diagnostics ,
advanced radial fluid machinery for turbocharging, energy conversion, and rocket propulsion,
gas turbine engine and fluid machinery noise reduction and aero-acoustic,
novel aircraft concepts for reduced environmental impact,
hybrid-electric propulsion systems for electrified aviation and power generation,
multi-phase and non-ideal fluid machinery design such as supercritical carbon dioxide compressors.
Examples of past research activities include, (1) the first implementation of a three-dimensional computation of the flow in a transonic compressor, (2) the concept of blowdown testing of transonic compressors and turbines (thereby enabling these machines to be used for university scale experiments), (3) the work on "smart engines", in particular active control of turbomachine instabilities, (4) the research project on "micro engines" which involved extensive collaboration with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, (5) the "Silent Aircraft Initiative" which was a collaborative project with Cambridge University, Boeing, Rolls Royce, and other industrial partners to dramatically reduce aircraft noise below the background noise level in a well-populated area, and (6) the research project on an advanced commercial aircraft configuration with a boundary layer ingesting, embedded propulsion system dubbed the double bubble D8 concept funded under the NASA N+3 program and in collaboration with Aurora Flight Sciences and Pratt & Whitney,
The laboratory maintains strong ties with industry and government research in the area of propulsion and turbomachinery technology, as well as with other academic institutions who are leaders in this field. For example, GTL has collaborative projects with major American aeroengine manufacturers, as well as European and Japanese companies, so that there are many connections between the work in the GTL and “real world” problems. Research support also comes from NASA centers. In addition to inhouse experimental work, research is also sometimes carried out at government or industry facilities.