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My name is Joachim Kurzke and I am living in the small town Dachau near to Munich in Germany. The picture shows me with my grandson Felix who will take over my software business some time in the future...
For 28 years I have worked on gas turbine performance simulation at MTU Aero Engines. Since 1991 I have developed in parallel to my main job the GasTurb program and the accompanying software.
In October 2004 I retired from my job at MTU which allows me spending more time for further developing my software as well as for consulting and teaching gas turbine performance.
As you can see, Felix has still some problems with the flight attitude of an aircraft...
My Experience with Gas Turbine Performance
As an employee of MTU Aero Engines I have worked on gas turbine performance prediction and engine test analysis between 1976 and 2004. Among the engine projects were the Turbo Union RB199 and the Eurojet EJ200 (both are mixed flow turbofans with afterburner), the helicopter engine MTR 390, several business jet engines in collaboration with Pratt&Whitney Canada, and the big fan engines PW2037, V2500 and PW4084, where MTU collaborates with Pratt&Whitney East Hartford, USA.
In the early phase of the EJ200 project (the engine for the Eurofighter) I was for several years head of the international working group for performance prediction and engine test analysis. Later I was head of the MTU performance department and in the last 4 years before my retirement in 2004 I have worked as engine performance consultant.
Furthermore, I am a member of a RTO AVP Working Group which prepares a report entitled "Performance Prediction and Simulation of Gas Turbine Operation". RTO AVP is an acronym for the Research and Technology Organisation of NATO, Applied Vehicle Technology Panel. RTO AVP is a successor of the Propulsion and Energetics Panel of the former AGARD organisation. (AGARD = Advisory Group for AerospaceResearch and Development). The final report of this working group will be published in 2007.
Until 2004 I was also a member of the SAE In-Flight Propulsion Measurement Committee E33 which reviews industry methods and state-of-the-art on in-flight thrust measurement & prediction and its uncertainty.
Publications
During my time at the Flight Propulsion Institute of the Technical University of Munich, Professor H.G.Muenzberg the book "Gasturbinen - Betriebsverhalten und Optimierung", Springer-Verlag, 1975 was published with me as the lead author. Many of the formulae and algorithms used within GasTurb can be found in that book, which is unfortunately no longer available.
In the AGARD lecture series 183, "Steady and Transient Performance Prediction of Gas Turbine Engines", I was one of the authors.
A few years ago the AGARD Working Group 24, of which I was a member, published the Advisory Report No. 332, "Recommended Practices for the Assessment of the Effects of Atmospheric Water Ingestion on the Performance and Operability of Gas Turbine Engines".
Since 2005 I am one of the lecturers in a gas turbine performance seminar held at Cranfield University, UK every year.
During the 1995 ASME conference in Houston,TX, USA the first paper about GasTurb was published. This was followed by a long row of presentations at the yearly Turbo Expo of the International Gas Turbine Institute IGTI. For a full list go to the Publications page.
About GasTurb
PC programming was my second job while working at MTU. Until 1995 I used Borland Turbo Pascal, and since then Borland Delphi. My aim is to make programs which are as user-friendly as possible. The technical content and all correlations and mathematical algorithms used within GasTurb can be found in textbooks, NASA publications and other open literature.
The ideas contained within the program are my own, and my work on it is independent of my work at MTU. The component maps offered together with GasTurb are all taken from open literature.
Last update
09 Jul, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Joachim Kurzke