I just wanted to know how much air PER METER a GE90 turbofan engine sucks in considering the same thrust output at different altitudes to better understand how the engine can travel further while burning the same amount of fuel at cruise level.
As we all know, air gets thinner as we go higher. The engine operates at a certain air-fuel ratio, and that means that at ground level where air is thicker the engine needs to travel less metres to ingest enough air to combust a unit of fuel then when it is at, say, 35.000 feet.
I found elsewhere that the GE90 operates at an air-fuel ratio of 33,3:1 meaning that it needs 33,3kgs of air to combust 1kg of fuel.
What I'd like to know is how many metres it has to travel to ingest said mass of air at ground (sea)level with a density of 1,2985 kg/m3 at 19C° and at 11.000 metres with a density of 0,3639 kg/m3 at -56,5C° (values taken from the table at this page)
Can anybody provide any help?