Centrifugal Compressors Most modern passenger and military aircraft are powered by gas turbine engines, which are also called jet engines.
All jet engines have a compressor to increase the pressure of the incoming air.
Mathematical details of this process are given on a separate slide. There are two main types of compressors used in jet engines. The compressor shown above is called a centrifugal compressor because the flow through the compressor is turned perpendicular to the axis of rotation. The other type of compressor is an axial compressor and is discussed on a separate slide. The very first jet engines used centrifugal compressors, and they are still used on small turbojets and turbo shaft engines.