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The propulsive efficiency is always less than one, because conservation of momentum requires that the exhaust have some of the kinetic energy, and the propulsive mechanism (whether propeller, jet exhaust, or ducted fan) is never perfectly efficient. It is greatly dependent on exhaust expulsion velocity and airspeed.
The ratio between a propeller's efficiency attached to a ship and in open water (′) is termed relative rotative efficiency. The overall propulsive efficiency (an extension of effective power ()) is developed from the propulsive coefficient (), which is derived from the installed shaft power modified by the effective power for the hull with ...
where is propulsive efficiency (typically 0.65 for wooden propellers, 0.75 metal fixed pitch and up to 0.85 for constant-speed propellers), hp is the engine's shaft horsepower, and is true airspeed in feet per second, weight is in lbs. The metric formula is:
The advance ratio is critical for determining the efficiency of a propeller. At different advance ratios, the propeller may produce more or less thrust. Engineers use this ratio to optimize the design of the propeller and the engine, ensuring that the vehicle operates efficiently at its intended cruising speed, see propeller theory.
Plot of instantaneous propulsive efficiency (blue) and overall efficiency for a vehicle accelerating from rest (red) as percentages of the engine efficiency. In the ideal case is useful payload and is reaction mass (this corresponds to empty tanks having no mass, etc.). The energy required can simply be computed as
The efficiency of this conversion (Froude or propulsive efficiency) reflects work done in the 1800s on ship propellers. The relevance for gas turbine-powered aircraft is the use of a secondary jet of air with a propeller or, for jet engine performance, the introduction of the bypass engine.
In reciprocating and propeller engines, disk loading can be defined as the ratio between propeller-induced velocity and freestream velocity. [citation needed] Lower disk loading will increase efficiency, so it is generally desirable to have larger propellers from an efficiency standpoint.
The following table gives the efficiency for several engines when running at 80% throttle, which is approximately what is used in cruising, giving a minimum SFC. The efficiency is the amount of power propelling the plane divided by the rate of energy consumption. Since the power equals thrust times speed, the efficiency is given by