A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include rocket, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term jet engine typically refers to an internal combustion airbreathing jet engine such as a turbojet, turbofan, ramjet, or pulse jet. In general, jet engines are internal combustion engines.

Airbreathing jet engines typically feature a rotating air compressor powered by a turbine. With the leftover power providing thrust through the propelling nozzle—this process is known as the Brayton thermodynamic cycle. Jet aircraft use such engines for long-distance travel. For more updates and information about Jet engines, read Pritish Kumar Halder articles.

Early jet aircraft used turbojet engines that were relatively inefficient for subsonic flight. Most modern subsonic jet aircraft use more complex high-bypass turbofan engines. They give higher speed and greater fuel efficiency than piston and propeller aeroengines over long distances. A few air-breathing engines made for high-speed applications (ramjets and scramjets) use the ram effect of the vehicle’s speed instead of a mechanical compressor.

Types of jet engine

There are a large number of different types of jet engines, all of which achieve forward thrust from the principle of jet propulsion.

Airbreathing

Commonly aircraft are propelled by airbreathing jet engines. Most airbreathing jet engines that are in use are turbofan jet engines. Which give good efficiency at speeds just below the speed of sound.

Turbine powered

Gas turbines are rotary engines that extract energy from a flow of combustion gas. They have an upstream compressor coupled to a downstream turbine with a combustion chamber in-between. In aircraft engines, those three core components are often called the “gas generator”. There are many different variations of gas turbines, but they all use a gas generator system of some type.

Turbojet

A turbojet engine is a gas turbine engine that works by compressing air with an inlet and a compressor (axial, centrifugal, or both), mixing fuel with the compressed air, burning the mixture in the combustor, and then passing the hot, high-pressure air through a turbine and a nozzle.

The compressor is powered by the turbine, which extracts energy from the expanding gas passing through it. The engine converts internal energy in the fuel to kinetic energy in the exhaust, producing thrust. All the air ingested by the inlet is passed through the compressor, combustor, and turbine, unlike the turbofan engine described below.

Turbofan

Turbofans differ from turbojets in that they have an additional fan at the front of the engine, which accelerates air in a duct bypassing the core gas turbine engine. This are the dominant engine type for medium and long-range airliners.

Turbofans are usually more efficient than turbojets at subsonic speeds, but at high speeds their large frontal area generates more drag. Therefore, in supersonic flight, and in military and other aircraft where other considerations have a higher priority than fuel efficiency, fans tend to be smaller or absent.

Because of these distinctions, turbofan engine designs are often categorized as low-bypass or high-bypass, depending upon the amount of air which bypasses the core of the engine. Low-bypass turbofans have a bypass ratio of around 2:1 or less.

Ram compression

Ram compression jet engines are airbreathing engines similar to gas turbine engines and they both follow the Brayton cycle. Gas turbine and ram powered engines differ, however, in how they compress the incoming airflow.

Whereas gas turbine engines use axial or centrifugal compressors to compress incoming air, ram engines rely only on air compressed through the inlet or diffuser. A ram engine thus requires a substantial initial forward airspeed before it can function. Ram powered engines are considered the simplest type of air breathing jet engine because they can contain no moving parts.

Ramjets are ram powered jet engines. They are mechanically simple, and operate less efficiently than turbojets except at very high speeds.

Scramjets differ mainly in the fact that the air does not slow to subsonic speeds. Rather, they use supersonic combustion. They are efficient at even higher speed. Very few have been built or flown.

Uses

Jet engines power jet aircraft, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. In the form of rocket engines, the power fireworks, model rocketry, spaceflight, and military missiles.

Jet engines have propelled high speed cars, particularly drag racers, with the all-time record held by a rocket car. A turbofan powered car, Thrust SSC, currently holds the land speed record.

Jet engine designs are frequently modified for non-aircraft applications, as industrial gas turbines or marine powerplants. These are used in electrical power generation, for powering water, natural gas, or oil pumps, and providing propulsion for ships and locomotives. Industrial gas turbines can create up to 50,000 shaft horsepower. Many of these engines are derived from older military turbojets such as the Pratt & Whitney J57 and J75 models. There is also a derivative of the P&W JT8D low-bypass turbofan that creates up to 35,000 Horse power (HP).

Jet engines are also sometimes developed into, or share certain components such as engine cores, with turboshaft and turboprop engines, which are forms of gas turbine engines that are typically used to power helicopters and some propeller.

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_engine#Uses