We need to clarify few points regarding the two engines that TEI is building at the moment.
1. The TF6K is what TEI is aiming to fire up before the end of the year. That is an engine specifically designed for subsonic flight. It should develop around 6000lbf thrust once matured, having gone though a series of updates and improvements.
2. The TF10K is the real McCoy. It is the afterburner version of the TF6K. It should give a sudden thrust augmentation of plus 4000lbf to the TF6K to be used for supersonic flight, sudden requirement of additional thrust and for emergency situations. This amount of sudden jolt of thrust can crush a normal TF6K. A lot of parts that are produced as optimised for subsonic flight, will not be able to withstand this sudden jolt. Therefore the TF10K will have to be built to withstand this sudden extra level of thrust too.
As KAAN engines will be with afterburners, the TF10K is also an important milestone TEI has to overcome yet.
In order to achieve continuous sustained supersonic flight the engines’ nozzle design is most important. We have all heard Dr Aksit mentioning CD nozzles (Convergent/Divergent) . To understand this better one needs to look at the coarse representation of a “Laval-Nozzle”
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Here we have hot air exiting turbine where the yellow area is. The air is “converged” and constricted/choked at the throat to a high pressure to adjust mass flow rate. Before the throat the air flow is subsonic. At the throat the speed of air flow is Mach 1. But as it leaves the throat the air is released and gains speed. It becomes supersonic. This supersonic flow, thrusts the engine and the plane in the opposite direction towards supersonic speeds. By adjusting the throat convergence angle and also the opening angles of the divergence and the area of divergent nozzle, you can adjust the optimum state with which you can achieve supersonic flight.
An adjustable convergent only engine can allow a plane to reach intermittent low supersonic flight speeds. But not sustainable speeds. And not high supersonic speeds anyway. For that you need the divergence.
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An F16 engine’s divergent nozzle wide open
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An F16 engine with an adjustable divergent nozzle
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So when Dr Aksit says that they are being asked to achieve the impossible, he is not far off the truth. There is a lot of work that needs to be done before TF35K is ready. The colossal task he has undertaken is very apparent. But as a professional he must have somehow agreed to it if he did not think the goal was attainable.