Welcome to the first Huracan official release! This release marks the beginning of Huracan as a fully functional engine modelling and simulation library, if still growing in scope and ambition.
At the moment of this release Huracan can model:
- Single and multiple stream engines with an arbitrary (within thermodynamic sense) number of components, connected by an arbitrary number of shafts
- Reheating and intercooling
- Electrical systems drawing power from the engine
In terms of engine analysis, it can:
- Log the total temperature and pressure at each stage
- Calculate the exit velocity and exit area for all flows with an exhaust
- Calculate the thrust, jet power and available power of each flow in a system, as well as of the system in its entirety
- Calculate the thermal, propulsive and total efficiency of each flow in a system, as well as of the system in its entirety
- Calculate the fuel mass flow and specific fuel consumption of a stream or system
- Plot the stream or system's T-S, p-V, H-p and T-p graphs
Huracan uses the standard ideal gas model, accepting variable constant pressure specific heat capacities and specific heat capacity ratios as a function of gas temperature, and it currently uses a simple fuel model consisting of the fuel's lower heating value and mass flow. Compression and expansion processes are considered adiabatic, and heat exchange processes are considered isobaric, allowing pressure ratios to be input by the user.
Lastly, it:
- Automatically allows for the retrieval of system data from stream objects when such are integrated into a system
- Automatically generates stages names for each component in the cycle
- Allows the retrieval of stream or system components by their stage names
As it currently stands, Huracan is a useful tool for preliminary analysis of engine designs and educational purposes, satisfying its main objectives. In the future, it shall incorporate alternative propulsion technologies and mass estimation techniques, among other features.
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