I wonder, if operating kerosene lamps with rapidheater had any influence on invention of the jet engine by Sir Frank Whittle and Dr. Hans von Ohain?... Carbon blocked vapourizers -- where we know it from? Combustion chamber. Whittle jet engine. History.
Hi Mark I have two miniature gas turbines ( it's my other passion ) and I start them in a similar process to lighting lanterns. Behind the combustion chamber are two ring mains of fuel, one for gas and one for kero. As we would preheat our lamps with meths, I preheat my turbine with gas to warm up the vaporisers sufficiently so that the gentle introduction of kero is instantly vaporised and ready to do the business just the same as our lamps then I switch of the gas. And interesting question though Cheers
When I was a bit younger (say, in '60/'70s) I was a great fan of the turbines for propulsion of the land vehicles. My article from 2004 about turbine cars. I also read about an NZ guy, who in his Kiwi Shed built a turbine engine -- for to cool a beer (it uses huge amounts of air, which decompressed is cooling a beer... 8) Well, used fuel costs more, than the beer, but there is a huge fun factor ) I hope someone may enlighten me... Your answer suggest that I am not on the totally wrong path...
Hi Mark I built my own turbine too ! I'm a machinist by trade and have had a passion for miniature gas turbines for some years now. I belong to another forum based association of engineers that build homemade turbines ( I have the ability to manufacture but not the brains to design such things so I use their input and technical prowess to help me build ) just like CPL As for the amount of air used, I can tell you that a miniature gas turbine such as mine running in anger sucks in 200 litres of air Per second ( in real terms that's in the region of 20 buckets of air per second ) Cheers
Fancy bringing one of those to Newark if your coming Ray? I haven't seen one of these yet and would just love to see one working.
Hi Matt I'll see what I can do matey I do need a couple of hybrid bearings that retail at £100 a pair which I can't quite afford right now (divorce is expensive) If I knew how to upload a vid of it running i would Cheers
Okeydokey, we'll have a good time all the same if you can't. Hybrid bearings sound interesting, I'm off to google that. EDIT: Googled it, interesting stuff, I've learnt something new today.
In short Matt, silicone nitride balls in cageless stainless steel races allow turbines such as mine to reach there design limit of 120,000 rpm without disintegrating standard stainless bearings give up beyond 80,000 rpm
***k me! Is it not silicon nitride, though? Silicone has it's uses but not in a gas turbine, surely...
The one I've made is in bits awaiting my bearings, but I'll bring it along to Newark for anyone that's interested in seeing inside one of these things Cheers
Looking forward to it Ray. We'll get a few drinks down you and perhaps you can make the sound effects to go with it.
I am also looking forward very much to seeing the baby jet. Having worked around jet engines most of my life I still have my ear defenders but sorry that I will not need them until the bearings arrive. Will be a great day when it is running Ray. Steve. PS. I'll bring the lubricant .
