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Turbine

D

Doug - Iowa

Member
Just back from an aerospace show and seen two small turbines (turbojets), these things are about 8" in diameter and maybe 18" long. Develop about 45 HP each and used on UAV's.

So after reading the electric car topic below, why not try turbines in autos? GM had a couple experimental cars in the 60's I think, and I recall GE tried a turbine train engine. With the materials we have today, turbines might have decent life and performance?

I was discussing turbines in an automotive application with an old A&P mechanic a few years back, his opinion was the auto companies know that turbines killed the piston aircraft engine mfrs in the 60's and don't want the same to happen to them.
 

Chrysler tried turbines in the middle 60s. Basically, the problem was that they used too much fuel. The cheaper price(then) of kerosene didn't make up for the poor fuel milage.

KEH
 
Chrysler had several turbine research cars in the sixty's. I was spending a lot time on the road an applied to get one to test. I did not get one to drive. Never knew why but there several made.
gitrib
 
Turbines are not as thermally efficient as Diesel.
Tough they have advantages of small physical size, and extreme power to weight, they suffer in fuel economy, and environmental regulation.
My screen saver on my laptop is a photo of # X-18 GE gas turbine Loco. (located at the Illinois Railway Museum near Belvedere, Ill. It is an A and B unit of Aprox 6000hp each. Its demise was economy lack of built in weight, and maintenance issues. I have also seen the Chrysler Turbo car (at my high school in 1967 it is a neat vehicle, but the above deficiencies were its demise.
Stationary Gas turbine engines are used on auxiliary peak demand systems at many power plants, but again the reason is startup time and not efficiency. Jim
 
I think it was in the 70's that 2 turbine cars ran Indy 500. Did not win but out ran everything in the race only to be banned for the 500 in the following years.
Led
 
Andy Granatelli's red STP car. It's gearbox crapped out with only a few laps to go. Was in the lead as I recall.Far superior to the old Offenhausers of the day.
 
Janicholson, glad to see some one saved one of the "Blows", they use to run out of here. What no one said was about the terrific noise they made, but they were a hoss in there time for sure.
Num 8 had a bad wreck about the Wyo/Nebr line in the early 60's.
 
I don't remember GM having any turbine cars but as mentioned Chrysler did have. I saw them at the 1965 or 1966 Chicago Auto show where they were started so that attendees could hear them run as well as stare at them and the demo girls.

Pretty sure one of them is either in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan or in the Cord, Auburn, Dussenburg Museum in Auburn, Indiana.

The latter also has a 1966 Dussenburg which I had the pleasure of viewing at a private showing in Chicago. I tend to remember that 5 were made, body by Ghia.
 
In the late 60s, and early 70s, I remember Ford ran turbine engines in some of there semi tractors. There was some Freightlines painted red running around that had turbines in them too. They said they used too much fuel, and was way to slow picking up speed from traffic lights. Said they had the power once they got rolling, though.
 
Allis Chalmers played around with a turbine in a tractor and maybe the others did too, but a turbine doesn't have any guts when it looses speed. The poor fuel efficiency was a negative too.
 
The turbine has three significant advantages which make it a better aircraft power plant than a piston engine: It weighs much less for a given power output, vibration is less due to a piston engine's reciprocating parts, and fewer moving parts make it more reliable.

Those factors don't offset fuel economy problems, lack of low-speed torque, and emission difficulties when used in land-based vehicles.
 
I remember a story on the history channel about those expermental gas turbine locomotives.
One fellow who ran one told of the time they were stopped under an overpass with the turbine exhaust blowing under the overpass deck. He said they were stuck idling under that thing for about 20 minutes and started seeing melted asphalt running off the hot overpass deck.
 
They are using turbines in powerplants now. After going through some aerospace museums and looking at early rockets and jet engines, the operating principles are rather simple. I'd be tempted to build one if I was so inclined. Most jet aircraft have a small starter turbine to crank over the big jet engines to start them. That first high pitched whine you hear is the starter turbine.

I wouldn't want to be driving through Death Valley being low on JP4. Be a long walk to LAX with a gas can.
 
Part throttle fuel efficiency of gas turbine is terrible.
Tough to touch the fuel efficiency of a good turbo intercooled reciprocating diesel.
 
Specific fuel consumption on gas turbines is terrible. Turboprop aircraft are able to recover the thrust generated by the exhaust, not so with autos: they don't go fast enough. The main reason aircraft have switched to turbines was the maintenance costs of big recip engines. The Lockheed Super Constellation had great fuel consumption with its turbo-compound engines, but they were maintenance nightmares.

Back in the late sixties Bill Lear experimented with STEAM turbines in autos. That had more promise than gas turbines because steam turbines have great low-end torque and good fuel consumption.
 
A few years ago I visited a Satellite relay complex wich had 2 generators powered by IHC turbines, they had a third turbine for spare parts. In use, those turbine needed a 45 Ft tanker daily...
 
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