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Over the last couple of weeks, I have been fiddling around with the design of my gas turbine engine, and have
produced a few improvements in its performance. I have also taken some much better photos, which show the
details of construction of the latest version quite well. First, here are four pictures that show the engine from
the front, left side, rear, and right side respectively.

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A number of modifications have been made to the original engine design. First, I located and sealed a number
of air leaks in the combustion chamber. These were around the joint between the base plate and the chamber
itself, around the spark plug, and between the compressor and air inlet on the chamber. I used standard
silicone sealant on these joints. The base plate was lightly oiled before being loosely clamped to the chamber
rim, which had a layer of sealant smeared around it. This is so that the sealant does not stick to the base plate
while it cures, allowing the plate to be removed without having to replace the seal every time. I also sealed
the output of the combustion chamber to the turbine inlet manifold with car exhaust paste, which is the only
thing I could think of that would take the temperature. This seal does need to be replaced whenever the
engine is disassembled. Assembled and disassembled views of the combustion chamber are shown below.
Note the discolouration of the flame holder. The bottom picture is a shot into the end of the combustion
chamber. It shows the air jacket tube quite well.

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Larger versions of the above images can be downloaded below:

Front view (40k)
Rear view (53k)
Left View (31k)
Right view (46k)
Combustor assembled (40k)

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Combustor disassembled (47k)

Combustor internal view (44k)

In addition to this, I fitted an oil tank and more effective pump, which can be seen in the photos. It is the
metal box under the engine. It holds approximately 1 litre of oil, which is currently a home-made turbine mix
consisting of 50% 32W hydraulic oil and 50% WD40. This mixture has a very low viscosity, and seems to
hold up to the high temperature quite well. The two small green plastic valves that can be seen in the right
side view are part of the oil circulation system. The top one is a bypass valve, which allows oil from the pump
output to be fed back into the tank. The lower one varies the flow of oil into the turbine bearings. The oil
return is from the bottom of the turbine housing. The return line is a short piece of 6mm ID hose, and the rest
of the oil lines are 3mm ID silicone rubber tubing. Together, the valves allow a variable amount of oil to be
passed through the turbine bearings, without changing the pump speed. This simplifies the system, as the type
of pump I used does not work very well when the voltage is varied to change the flow rate, and an alternative
pump, such as a car oil pump, requires a much more powerful motor, hence a bigger power supply. Since this
engine uses a small lead-acid battery as the power source, I felt it was better to use the smaller pump. Since I
already had one, I saved a bit of money.

After about an hour and a half total running time, I stripped the turbocharger completely, and inspected the
bearings. Aside from a small amount of carbon deposits on the front of the turbine end of the bearing (due to
oil leakage), there is no more apparent wear than when I first got the thing. As a result, I feel fairly sure that
the lubrication system works reasonably efficiently.

I also added a simple compressed air starter to the engine. This consists of a short length of 6.5mm OD
stainless steel tube, connected to a 3/8 " BSP ball valve via a compression fitting and some 3/8-1/4" BSP
adapters. The whole assembly is mounted to the engine frame by means of a short piece of 25mm x 3mm mild
steel plate. The end of the tubing is bent at an angle such that the air jet hits the compressor blades at right
angles, in the direction of rotation. Again, this system was made from spare parts left over from previous
projects. The compressed air line connects to the top of the valve via a short hose and a quick-release air
coupling. This can all be seen in the front view photo above. The compressor used is a small 25L unit
producing about 8cfm at 115 psi. When the valve is opened fully, the air jet spins the turbine up to about
12000 rpm, or it can be opened just a small amount, allowing the turbine to be spun at more or less any speed
below this. The whole system makes starting very quick, easy, and reliable. I will eventually replace the
manual valve with a solenoid operated one, but at the moment I don't want to spend the money for a new
valve, and don't have any surplus ones available.

I have also added a couple of switches to the control box, one turning on the ignition and the other turning on
the oil pump. The two 4mm sockets under the switches are the tachometer outputs, and the EGT
thermocouple connection is via a miniature type K plug. The instrumentation used for measuring the speed
and temperature is the yellow multimeter seen in the photos. This is an M285 'gold' series multimeter from
Maplin Electronics, which cost about 40 UKP. It is very useful for this sort of thing, because in addition to the
usual voltage, current, resistance, etc. ranges it measures frequency to 200 kHz, and temperature to 2000 deg.
F or about 1800 deg. C, via a type K thermocouple. As a side note, a cheap way of getting a number of
thermocouples is to buy a coil of type K extension cable, cut it to length, and weld one end of each piece with
an oxyacetylene torch. The cost of a 10m coil is about 10 UKP, as opposed to about 8 UKP for a single 1m

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thermocouple with a plug attached. The plugs only cost about 90 pence each.

The end result of the above modifications is an engine the now runs cooler and more efficiently, and is much
simpler to start. The EGT at 20000 rpm is now approximately 430 deg. C, and is only about 470 deg. C at
40000 rpm. It rises to around 750 deg. C during the acceleration phase, and drops to about 350 deg. C during
deceleration. The turbine blades not longer glow at all under most circumstances. I assume that the improved
performance is mainly due to improved airflow through the combustion chamber, and partially due to better
lubrication and thinner oil.

The engine idles at more that 20000 rpm with the fuel valve open about 1/4 of a turn. I am in the process of
building some measuring equipment to determine what this is in terms of flow rate and pressure, but is
certainly isn't a very large amount of fuel. I have found it to be possible to idle the engine down to about
12500 rpm with care, although at this speed you must open the fuel valve very slowly, or the engine does not
speed up, it merely heats up! The noise level has risen slightly, probably due to increased turbulence around
the compressor intake because of the starting gear.

My experiments with water injection have had mixed results. I fitted a small injection port to the combustion
chamber, about 90 degrees around the circumference from the spark plug. This can be seen in the left side
view picture above, with a piece of silicone rubber tubing attached to it. I originally intended to pump in
water using another windscreen washer pump, but it turned out that the pump couldn't work against the
chamber pressure! I then tried injecting water with a large syringe. This worked, and I got an immediate
increase in rpm and decrease in EGT, along with a nice cloud of steam out of the exhaust. However, I also got
a combustion chamber full of water. I think that the position and attitude of the water jet, and the flow rate,
are wrong. The next try will be with a garden type mister, to spray a fine mist of water directly into the air
intake. This will, hopefully, work much more efficiently.

I have also dug out an old oil furnace pump, which I will use for the liquid fuel injection experiments. This is a
small (15cm x 10cm x 10cm) unit that produces about 15-20 bar, which will give a nice flame when I have
made a suitable nozzle. I will try coupling it to a low speed high torque DC motor, and varying the flow rate
by means of a high pressure hydraulic needle valve, which I have a few of. As in the oil pump system, this is a
bit easier and rather cheaper than controlling the motor speed. I should have this system built in a week or so,
and will update this page with the results.

I recently showed a friend of mine the engine, which fascinated him. A friend of hisis, or at least was, a
turbocharger engineer, and my friend is trying to get his friend to send me a lot of data on various turbos, and
hopefully point me in the direction of some better used turbochargers than the one I currently have. Another
friend of mine, however, when shown the engine running, summed up his opinion in two words. "Run. Fast."
Back to the beginning of turbines. Back

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