I am not an engineer, so there are lots of blanks in my understanding of how those things work, but it got me wondering.
If a small turbine is more efficient than an ICE, and you can use it as a generator, why aren’t there any serial hybrids (bike or car) using it? They are small, clean, light, run on variety of fuels. You could make a far more efficient and better performing hybrid since you wouldn’t need a huge lump of batteries or a big heavy engine as a generator. Volt was heading in that direction (running serial instead of parallel) but it still uses regular motor for generating electricity. Are turbines just outrageously expensive or something? What’s the deal? :ponder
I would say two things…cost and noise.
Chrysler built a handful of a particular turbine powered car back in 63, called none the less the Turbine. They had issues controlling turbine compressor temperatures, but the big killer was the fact that the turbine had no low end torque and poor acceleration due to lack of gearbox/coupling technology.
The turbines have to be run at a specific RPM all the time to maintain efficiency for the most part. You can’t throttle them like a normal engine, and they don’t have the torque like an electric motor at low RPM. coupling a turbine to a modern CVT, or as you were aiming towards, a hybrid turbine/electric would be ideal, where the turbine would run in it’s optimal rpm all the time regardless of wheelspeed.
Noise would also be a problem to overcome as choking up a turbines discharge ramps up turbine temps exponentially.
However the cost to make a turbine engine that wouldn’t require rediculous teardown/rebuild schedules in a daily driven car would be hectic as well.
Would certainly be neat. I mean look at the y2K bike. A turboshaft powered car could have potential with the right tech behind it.
Funnily enough the Y2K is what got me thinking.
They have that big lump of a heli turbine generating absurd amounts of hp and torque, all for directly driving a motorcycle. Not sure how the throttle there works, does it just run at constant and engage/disengage the clutch?
Unfortunately I know precisely jack squat about mufflers and sound deadening. I take it mufflers restrict airflow so that wouldn’t work and as long as you got air coming in and out sound will propagate and it will be loud. How loud are microturbines anyway? I mean the flat kind coupled to a generator specifically designed to make electricity, not the thrust RC plane kind that people strap to bicycles.
It looks like they stuck those turbines into a pressurized sound-deadening chamber. Or is that just for looks? Looks a little too “conceptual”.
Amtrak used something similar in their trains: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboliner
Let’s say they get the cost (after all it’s just one moving part) and sound sorted out, how often do they need maintenance?
From what I saw modern micros have air bearings and with proper fuel and good air filtering there shouldn’t be much wear to blades or body. What exactly do they need maintained? Not being facetious, I genuinely have no idea.
Boxer, is that your post on kneeslider about Y2K from a couple days back?
In reality, only as much as their complexity requires if run within their operating parameters. My knowledge on turbines comes from my dad who before retiring designed alot of the internal bearing and bucket retention parts for GE’s gas and steam turbines, so I guess these smaller micro turbines would be a bit less susceptible to the normal wear of those monsters. Bucket wear and tightness in the hub was the biggest issue, however alot of these new hyper alloys and their derivatives are very tough. Even things like compressed graphite buckets and DLC are making their way into these things for durability. In the steam turbines the biggest issue is bucket wear at the tips, trying to keep them from becoming supersonic in that area. I imagine that these micro turbines utilize one piece turbine wheels(like you’d see in a turbocharger for example) vs individual buckets. These micro turbines run at turbocharger like speeds(50K+ RPM) whereas the larger turbines that make us our daily electricity at the powerplants turn at 3000-3600rpm, so who knows what kind of wear is subjected at that level under continuous use.
The turbines burn at extremely high temps in the combustor and staged sections gas and because of that the likely hood of carbon build up is very low, even if shit fuel is used. They can be made to run very very clean at super high temps, so you could run them on used oil right out of your own car provided it’s filtered enough to not clog the combustor nozzles.
I’d have to get Seth to chime in here. He’s working for a design company in CT that’s been dealing with turbine stuff.
It’s been a long time since this was worked into a vehicle, and we’ve come a long way in tech since then so I can’t imagine it not being possible on a small frame, reliable scale 
I don’t think so, don’t even know that forum?
Check it out, I thought it was you for sure;
http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2011/02/07/mtt-y2k-turbine-motorcycle/#comment-303048
Little O/T, but these are fuckin siiiick, and I will somehow own one someday!
nope, not me. funny though.
oh yeah turbines have been used in boats for a long time now. The Bud hydro is favorite of the turbine racing boats. Thing is just nutty.
Yeah, I just really wish a company would come out with a reasonable 25’-30’-ish boat with a smaller turbine setup(1000hp or so would do FINE). Dont get me wrong, 50’ and 4000hp+ is fuckin nutty, but well out of the normal guys pricerange!!
And in todays economy it would cost you an equal 1K in USD to fill it up with fuel oil or jet fuel to make a couple passes down lake george :rofl.
Oh without a doubt in my mind dude, I wouldnt be surprised if it was a good bit more than that! I really considered buying a 30’ twin-big block boat a few years back, but couldnt justify the payment, and spending $500+ every weekend on fuel!
Yeah, from what I’ve seen of released schematics online the one-piece wheel is the most common design, like the two below. Top one even has compressor and turbine on same disc. It’s fascinating stuff.
Looking back most of what we consider modern inventions has been invented decades, sometimes centuries ago, but couldn’t be made due to lack of technology, materials, or prohibitive cost. Those microturbines look like they just may become common given another 10-20 years and some advances in materials. I kinda hope they’ll eventually make hybrid motorcycles running these so you can pretend to pilot a little two-wheeled jet haha. And they’ll actually be ride-able as opposed to the Y2K.
Thanks for the info :thumbup
That is badass!
Lag is a problem with any Jet engine. They are not exactly on/off.