Experimental Study on Thermal Insulation and Cooling for Rotor/Bearing Area in 500W Class Micro Gas Turbine Generator

) ABSTRACT Development of long-term mobile energy sources for mobile robots or small-sized unmanned vehicles are actively increasing. The micro gas turbine generator (MTG) is a good candidate for this purpose because it has both of high energy density and high power density, and 500W class MTG is under development. The designed MTG can be divided into 2 main parts. One part consists of motor/ generator and compressor, and the other one consists of combustor, recuperator and turbine. 500W class MTG is designed to operate at ultra-high speed of 400,000 rpm in high turbine temperature over 700 ℃ to improve the efficiency. Because the magnetism of NdFeB permanent magnet for the motor/generator could be degraded if the temperature is over 150-200 ℃, MTG needs the thermal insulation to block the heat transfer from combustor/turbine side to motor/generator side. Moreover, the motor/generator is allocated to get the cooling effect from the rapid air flow by the compressor. This study presents the experimental results to verify whether the thermal insulator and air flow are effective enough to keep the motor/generator part in the low temperature less than 100 ℃. From the motoring test by using the high temperature test rig, it was confirmed that the motor/generator part could maintain the temperature less than 50 ℃ under the condition of 1.0 bar compressed air.