Patent ID: 7424413

Claim:
A method for optimizing the efficiency of an exhaust system of a gas turbine engine including a nacelle, comprising: (a) selecting a plurality of nacelle parameters from the group consisting of the fan nozzle exit station (FNE), the core nozzle exit station (CNE), the core cowl angle (THcc), the plug angle (Thplug), the fan nozzle area ratio, the core nozzle area ratio and the core cowl cooling vent location; (b) holding at least one of the FNE and the CNE constant and varying at least one of the THcc and the Thplug to define a plurality of discrete exhaust system configurations; (c) converting the exhaust system configurations to corresponding solid models; (d) generating a corresponding mesh from each of the solid models; (e) performing a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis on each mesh to generate exhaust system performance data for each of the exhaust system configurations; (f) processing the exhaust system performance data to determine a thrust coefficient for each of the plurality of exhaust system configurations; and (g) comparing the thrust coefficients of at least two of the exhaust system configurations and selecting the exhaust system configuration having the greatest thrust coefficient.