Peter,
I assume the embarrassing statement from somebody here, you point out, are contributed to me, so I will respond accordingly. First about Dr. Bob Abernethy:
From his web site, Bob Abernethy.com:
Dr. Robert B. Abernethy is known worldwide for his expertise in jet engine performance, measurement uncertainty analysis and Weibull analysis. He joined Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in 1955. He retired from Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in 1987 after 32 years as Manager of Reliability, Safety, Maintainability, and Statistical analysis to teach Weibull analysis. He holds the patent on a feature of the J58 Pratt & Whitney engine that powers the world’s fastest aircraft. His invention converts the afterburning turbojet into a partial ram jet at high Mach number.
Dr. Abernethy did indeed write a number of books and publications which are listed on his web site.
Bear in mind 'Bob' designed and built real engines that made money. He didn't write textbooks.Read the patent and then tell us what you have learned.
Bob didn't design and build real engines, he happened to come up with a solution to a problem that a real engine was having and it fixed that problem, making it a money maker instead of a money loser. Actually teams of people design jet engines, not one individual.
First, best not to believe what you read on the internet.
It is where I got the Abernethy/P&W patent some time ago but thought it might be too technical for some to fully understand. Also, Abernerthy's web site would be a source of information I would believe.
Read the patent and then tell us what you have learned.
I've read the patent. You do know that patents are written to generally disclose the invention, but, not to give too much information away. A couple of things I will point out to you:
From the patent:
A second solution to the flow blockage problem has been suggested in the form of mechanical rotation of the stator vanes in the front and rear compressor stages to improve the air angles. This proposed solution has several severe disadvantages in that the stator control must be precise and the angular rotation would have to be different for each compressor stage. Consequently, an intricate control mechanism would be required and malfunction of the control would be disastrous. In view of the complexity of the control mechanism, leakage through the actuating mechanism would be almost impossible to eliminate. Further, engine weight would be substantially increased thereby and it would be almost impossible to rotate the stator vanes to an angle which would be optimum for both stator vane angle and its associated blade air angle, whereas, my recover bleed air engine rematches both vanes and blades.
Actually, this would have solved the problem in the compressor which had two different problems, Stall and Choked, however, it happened there was patent for this feature: Us Patent 2,931,168 titled Variable Stator Engine Control System, Application Date - 5/24/1955, Patented 4/5/1960, Assigned to General Electric Company. You can easily hold the actuator arm in one hand and the piston controlling the arm in the other, not that heavy, and leakage is not a problem, Would have required modifications to the compressor casing and vanes, plus some time, but the patent was a problem.
Pratt & Whitney therefore modified their JT-11 by installing a series of fixed flow-vanes downstream of the 4th compressor stage
From the patent claims:
A plurality of guide or turning vanes are positioned within fish-tail inlet to smoothly guide the bleed air into ducts which are of substantially circular cross section.
I could go on, but I think you can see the information I provided is not embarrassing even if you may think so. I think Gums is right, forget the names, the engine worked and Dr. Abernethy had a great idea....
TD