Abstract
During a recent tour of the United States, it became evident to the author that there is no standard American method for gas-turbine or for axial-compressor calculations. Apparently, each firm goes its own way without much regard for precedents, competitors, or textbooks. In view of the wide diffusion that British data had in this country during the war, it might have been supposed that the Howell (1) method would have been generally used. However, although the actual data given by Howell are considered very reliable, his calculation method is not much used. In practice, calculations seem mostly to be influenced by Keller (2) and, to a much lesser degree, by Traupel (3). The same situation can be noted as regards gas-turbine-cycle calculations; the paper by Soderberg and Smith (4) is generally well known, but no standard system seems to prevail. To simplify matters, it will be assumed that general American practice can be represented by the methods given in Professor Zucrow’s (5) recent book and in the papers by Ponomareff (6), and Howell (1), as regards axial compressors.
