Turbines operating with supersonic flows offer a potential reduction of the power plant size as a result of the increase in specific mass flow rate and higher specific power. This paper presents the first one-dimensional methodology to evaluate the performance of turbines operating with axial supersonic flow, which represents a necessary step towards the optimized design. The predicted evolution of the losses with inlet Mach number (M_(inlet)=1.5 - 3.0) and the influence of the chord to pitch ratio were confirmed through comparisons with three dimensional RANS evaluations. The paper presents an analysis of the most relevant sources of entropy, which in the investigated operating range, are caused by the leading edge shock waves. Finally, the proposed methodology narrowed the design space to all operable configurations and searched for an optimal design that maximizes the work output.
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