Subject: Direct drive turbine diameter
From: Rotary Engine
Date: 2/11/2008, 11:55 AM
To: AARotary Engine



        >      Truck engine manufacturers are jumping on the TC band wagon.
        >      Pratt & Whitney Canada are trying to patent the turbo
   compound
        >      rotary so I would not be a bit surprised if they were not
       building
        >      some hardware to try it. At least I hope so.
        >
        >      I find it interesting that Pratt & Whitney US and Pratt &
       Whitney Canada
        >      is allied with Rocketdyne.
        >
        >      http://utc.com/
        >
        >      Rocketdyne was rumored to be working on the TC rotary here
       in SoCal.
        >
        >      Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
        >
        >
        >
        >      Paul,
        >
        >      Was messing around with e-shaft direct-drive turbocompound
       concepts..
        >
        >      Roughly what's the diameter of the flywheel on a 13b? At
       6000rpm an 18
        >      inch wheel has a tip speed around 325mph and a 24 inch wheel
       has a tip
        >      speed around 450mph.
        >
        >
        >      Also, does anyone have some calcs for determining average
       flow velocity
        >      based on volume and pipe diameter? Need to figure out what
       diameter
        >      direct drive wheel would be required to interface well with
       the exhaust
        >      flow.
        >
        >      Maybe a 2:1 planetary reduction - the tc turbine 2x the
       e-shaft speed
        >      would make the interface between the exhaust and the turbine
       more
        >      efficient.
        >
        >      I wonder if a turbo compound could drive through a small
       automotive
        >      torque converter - ideally with an electric lockup. They
       seem pretty
        >      robust and there are lots of different versions out there.
        >
        >      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque_converter
        >
        >      It occurs to me that the rotary engine might have a big
       advantage when
        >      considering a direct drive (or close ratio) turbo compound -
       high
        >      continuous RPM. This can make the size of the wheel smaller
       and yet
        >      still have the tip speed close to the flow speed of the
   exhaust.
        >      There's no way a direct drive would work on a big diesel..
       Aircraft
        >      operations have it easier too - essentially one continuous
       RPM whereas
        >      road going applications require quite a bit of dynamic
       range. Even for
        >      a tractor-trailer engine which is mostly continuous
   operation.
        >
        >
        >      Matt-
        >
        >      The ring gear is about 12 inches in diameter.
        >
        >      Well you can start with the volume and speed of air going in
       as a start
        >      and knowing air temp of the exhaust you can figure the
   volume
        >      and speed of the air coming out. Assume the pipes are the
       same size.
        >      Then
        >      you add heat which increases the volume and speed coming
   out.
        >
        >      V1 x T1 = V2 x T2 Temperature must be in Rankin. V is
   volume.
        >
        >      Pressure is constant.
        >
        >      T1 is 100 F or 560 Rankin
        >
        >      (V1 x T1)/T2 = V2
        >
        >      T2 is 1700 F or 2160 Rankin
        >
        >      Speed of the air going in is V1/Area = Speed in.
        >      Speed coming out is V2/Area = Speed out.
        >
        >      I suspect the mass flow is the same as matter can nether
        >      be created nor destroyed except by fission.
        >
        >      A 13B pumps as much air as a 2.6 liter piston engine which
       is about
        >      230 CFM at 6000 RPM and a VE of 80%
        >      At a VE of 100% it would be about 275 CFM.
        >      With a p-port the VE is 120% so it would pump about 330 CFM.
        >      See the attached chart.
        >
        >      Assume it is two 2 inch intake pipes so area would be 6.28
       square inches
        >      or .0436 square feet. Speed going in would then be 7,568
       feet per minute
        >      or 126 feet per second or 185 MPH going in.
        >
        >      Coming out it would be 2160/560 x 126 FPS or 486 FPS.
        >
        >      A turbine generates max HP when the blade velocity is
   half the
        >      flow velocity. That is because the turbine torque is max at
       zero RPM and
        >      zero at max flow velocity when the flow and the blade are
       both going
        >      the same speed. HP is the product of torque times RPM. See
       the attached
        >      chart.
        >
        >      So size the turbine so the blades are going 243 FPS or
   165 MPH.
        >
        >      I'll leave the turbine diameter as an exercise for the
       student :)
        >
        >      You can speed up the air coming out by necking the output
       pipe area down
        >      (at the expense of slight back pressure) and slow the air
       down by
        >      diverging
        >      the pipe area. Also you can use a variable nozzle like
       modern turbo
        >      chargers
        >      to tailor the best turbine HP to the e-shaft RPM and the
   turbine
        >      diameter.
        >
        >      Check my arithmetic and physics. I could be wrong.
        >
        >      Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
        >
        >      Paul,
        >
        >      In the gas law Volume is inversely proportional to the
       temperature.
        >
        >      PV=nRT
        >
        >      or
        >
        >      (P1 x V1) / T1 = (P2 x V2) / T2
        >
        >      with a constant pressure
        >
        >      V1 / T1 = V2 / T2    or    (V1 x T2) / T1 = V2
        >
        >      Joel
        >
        >
        > I had (V1 x T1)/T2 = V2  My mistake.
        >
        > I should have known that is what happens when you skip steps :)
        >
        > Thanks for catching that Joel
        >
        >
        > Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.



       Paul,
       Mass flow out is higher because of the products of combustion.
       You are adding fuel in the engine.

       Bill Schertz

       Thanks Bill.
       True but it is 14 pounds of air to one pound of fuel.
       When fully leaned it could be 18 pounds of air to one pound of fuel.
       I did not consider that significant when determining the rough
   diameter
       of the turbine.
       --
       Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.

   Thanks for all of the input.

   I am guessing that this experiment will require a few iterations of
   design to make it work effectively.  The trick is to figure out how to
   do the iterations cheaply...

   Along those lines, I think it might make sense to build the first TC's
   driving a simple/cheap dyno instead of direct driving the e-shaft.  If
   everything is working well we might expect to get as much as 50hp from
   the TC from a p-port 13b?  I've got a buddy that worked for a locomotive
   manufacturer.  We'll have to talk about how expensive a 50hp alternator
   would be..


   Matt-


   50 HP... 37 Kwatt should be able to heat your house with 30 1.2 Kw
   electric  room heaters :)

   --
   Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.



When dynamic braking diesel-electric locomotives drive big resistor
grids and then have cooling fans to keep the temps in check.  Something
similar here would work fine.  The only hard part is to find a big
surplus alternator/generator..


Matt-



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