George Brayton

Engineer and inventor — George Brayton (Rhode Island, 1830 – Leeds, 1892) was an American mechanical engineer, a pioneer of combustion engines. Around 1872 he developed and patented a constant-pressure combustion engine, one of the first commercial internal combustion engines. The thermodynamic cycle he devised, the Brayton cycle, involves continuous combustion at constant pressure and is today the operating principle of gas turbines and jet engines. Although his original engines were rather inefficient compared with later ones, his thermodynamic scheme proved fundamental a century later with the development of jet aviation.

Curiosity

An engine based on Brayton’s design was used by George Selden in the famous patent application for the automobile, and Henry Ford later won a landmark legal case by showing that his own engine, of the Otto type, was different from the Brayton engine.

Theories and contributions

• Brayton cycle — Constant-pressure cycle of gas turbines and jet engines; efficiency as a function of the pressure ratio $r_p$: $\eta = 1 - r_p^{(1-\gamma)/\gamma}$.

Present in chapters

12

Linked atoms

1 linked atom.

12 Cicli e macchine termiche

• Named cycles