Comment by actionfromafar
4 hours ago
Think if it like this - is the turbine exhaust hot? Then you are losing energy.
You can extract more energy by adding stages but that increases weight.
While a small and light weight diesel engine is already very close to the theoretical limit.
>Think if it like this - is the turbine exhaust hot? Then you are losing energy.
Turbines for land uses have heat exchangers to get a lot of this back. Even after those the turbine is still lighter for a given power output and lifetime. But normal engines are a lot cheaper.