Micro Gas Turbine With Ceramic Nozzles and Rotor: Part 2

In order to develop a micro gas turbine with high turbine inlet temperature and thermal efficiency, a series of running tests has been carried out. J-850 jet engine (Sophia Precision Co., Ltd.) was chosen as a baseline machine. The turbine nozzle and the rotor are replaced by type SN-01 (Otsuka Ceramics Co., Ltd.) and type SN-235 (Kyocera Corporation) ceramic elements, respectively. By using type 3a engine, we succeeded one-hour running test of the engine without cooling and severe damages. The turbine inlet temperature was higher than 1000 °C. The rotating speed was about 120,000 rpm. Performances of the type 3a engine (with ceramic nozzle and rotor) and the type 1 (with Inconel alloy nozzle and ceramic rotor) were compared as follows: At the same rotation speed, turbine inlet temperature of the type 3a became higher than that of the type 1. Simultaneously, fuel consumption of type 3a was larger than that of the type 1. Thrust of the type 3a was slightly larger than that of the type 1. Those results imply that the thermal efficiency of type 3a is slightly, 2%, lower than that of the type 1. The present sealing configurations between ceramic nozzle-vanes and their holder plate and ceramic rotor-housing and metal combustion chamber were found to work well.Copyright © 2006 by ASME