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Although a relatively small industrial nation, Canada has a very well-developed gas turbine industry with both an original design and manufacturing capability and a large industrial user base. Research and teaching at Carleton University has focused on the needs of the Canadian industry over many years. The paper gives an overview of the propulsion content of the programs at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as offered to students in both Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. A short course presented regularly to designers and users of gas turbines is also briefly described.

The variable geometry compressor has been studied to determine if it can offer the prospect of a solution to the part load performance problem which is mechanically simpler and hence less expensive than current modifications. The two most common modifications of this type are the variable geometry turbine and General Motors' Power Transfer scheme. The former is the better known, but the latter has been gaining acceptance and may now indeed have more potential than the variable geometry turbine. However, when one realizes that both these methods may become less attractive as turbine inlet temperatures are raised to improve performance, modification at the cold end of the engine seems to present a reasonable alternative. The proposed variable geometry compressor cycle is designed around part load conditions, with maximum power being obtained by opening the guide vanes and increasing the rotational speed of the compressor.

Methods of simulating gas turbine transient behavior are reviewed. Two digital computer methods are described, one assuming instantaneous flow match and the other making use of intercomponent volumes to compute the rate of change of pressure at different locations. Results are shown for a variety of engines, good agreement between engine test and simulation being achieved in each case.