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posted by Fnord666 on Monday September 10 2018, @09:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-cool-development dept.

Southwest Research Institute engineers are developing a cooled, radial gas turbine for a small generator that provides thousands of hours of electricity to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a significant improvement to current UAV turbines that only operate a few hundred hours before wearing out.

Turbines are rotary mechanical devices that, when combined with a generator, produce electrical power.

"This turbine is part of a generator that's similar to what the average person might use to generate electricity in their home when the power goes out," said David Ransom of SwRI's Mechanical Engineering Division. "The version we're creating is more compact and efficient, tailored to the needs of a small, unmanned aircraft."

The problem with current small turbine models is that during the generator's combustion process, the turbine is constantly bathed in high temperature gas that ultimately damages or destroys it.

"The hotter the turbine gets, the better its performance," Ransom said. "But these smaller turbines can't survive the temperature, so we've designed one that has tiny airflow passages that cool the turbine without sacrificing the power of its performance. Normally with small turbines you have to make a choice between performance or reliability, but we're making it possible to have both."

SwRI has worked with internal passages of high temperature turbines on large version used in power plants and passenger airplanes. To create the small, intricate design with internal air passages, engineers are using a new selective laser melting (SLM) machine, which builds metal parts layer by layer. The new SLM machine, which arrived at SwRI in December 2017, sets itself apart from other 3D printers in that it's built to craft layered and highly detailed metal parts rather than plastic ones.

[...] "Generators that provide power to us and to big aircraft already have cooled turbines, whereas a generator of this size for a small craft does not," Ransom said. "It's an exciting engineering challenge, and having the ability to print parts with the SLM machine is a real advantage."


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  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday September 10 2018, @04:05PM (6 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 10 2018, @04:05PM (#732787) Journal

    the generator is similar. And two things can be similar in lots of ways

    If your generator's only similarity to your typical home model is that it uses moving magnets to make electricity, then it's also "similar" to the sun's magnetosphere.

    I.e., not remotely.

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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 10 2018, @04:13PM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday September 10 2018, @04:13PM (#732791) Journal

    What an interesting article! What is a "turbine", again? What if I do not want to generate electricity, and instead just appreciate impelled radial motion for its own sake? Why do the words "3-D printing" make people into maroons?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @04:22PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @04:22PM (#732798)

    Okay, but do you have some reason to believe that's the only similarity, or are you just being silly on purpose? Possible similarities that come to mind include similar mechanical and electrical power, similar load characteristics, and similar control systems (more-or-less a simple RPM-governor).

    • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Monday September 10 2018, @04:37PM (3 children)

      by Osamabobama (5842) on Monday September 10 2018, @04:37PM (#732808)

      You are completely disregarding the massive differences between the Otto cycle and the Brayton cycle. The former has constant volume heat addition, while the latter has constant pressure heat addition. To assert similarity between two generators working with these two completely different thermodynamic processes is to be deliberately obtuse.

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      • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday September 10 2018, @09:28PM (2 children)

        by deimtee (3272) on Monday September 10 2018, @09:28PM (#732922) Journal

        To be pedantic, neither generator uses either cycle. The engines that drive the generators do. It is possible (but unlikely) that the generators are identical except for some gearing to adjust the input rpm.

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        • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Monday September 10 2018, @10:14PM (1 child)

          by Osamabobama (5842) on Monday September 10 2018, @10:14PM (#732944)

          I suppose that means it's time to hash out the semantic subtext of this discussion. It's almost as if we are pretending that the word 'generator' has only one precise meaning and that the other guy must be confused about something else, based on how he used that word. That meaning is, of course, a component that turns rotary motion into electrical current. Those of us wise in the ways of technology realize, as well, that a generator needs a prime mover, such as (in this case) a piston engine or a turbine engine, without which it will not function. To speak of a turbine as a part of a generator is ridiculous, and indicates a gross misunderstanding of how things work.

          However, there is an equally acceptable meaning for 'generator' that has been in use for decades, and that meaning refers to the entire assembly whose function is to output electrical power. These may be more precisely referred to as motor-generators, or turbo-generators, but the lack of precision doesn't negate the overall meaning. For these items, the prime mover is a component of the whole. This is the meaning used in the article's quoted summary.

          I realize that being pedantic can be fun, and I had fun with my earlier comment that intentionally misunderstood the prior comments, but now I find myself wondering if the discussion of the improved thermodynamics would have been further along had we all just skipped it.

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          • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday September 10 2018, @10:39PM

            by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 10 2018, @10:39PM (#732953) Journal

            I find myself wondering if the discussion of the improved thermodynamics would have been further along had we all just skipped it.

            The mechanical engineer in question in explaining the relevance of his work by basically saying that "this thingy can be connected to a generator which is like a generator" in broad terms (redundant nonsense) and "this device attaches to a generator, and that generator is itself like a generator very, very specific but completely unrelated in kind, size, design, and application" in a more specific sense (just nonsense).

            Either way it's sleight-of-mouth that pulls any discussion away from the device or its relevance, and explains it in terms that are less useful than even "Libraries of Congress" or "school buses" or "elephants" or "typed double-spaced sheets of (letter/A4) paper" which at least are units of measure, to a degree.

            And I agree, it's hard to say whether just letting nonsense flow right by vs. saying "hey, that's nonsense" improves a given discussion. I think the edge often goes to having the ancillary discussion about whether the nonsense itself furthers the original discussion. My position is no (I think it distracts and distorts), others have responsible opposing views.