enginehistory.org

jjuutinen · Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 180

Anyone can point to good sources dealing with aircraft steam turbine projects?

gryan · Guest

All I can think of is Ricardo mentioning that using steam engines in aircraft meant they wouldn't lose power with altitude. He did make the proviso that whatever was providing the heat would have to unaffected by altitude for this to hold.

An interesting question. What do you have in mind?

Regards

Gerald

jrussell · Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 55 Location: Portland, Oregon

I assume you already have these - but just in case. Try naca.larc.nasa.gov/reports/1948/naca-rm-e7j01/ and osti.gov.energycitations/products.biblio.jsp?osti_id=4752035.
Both are from the days when Nuclear = Good. The thought of the massive NB-36 being converted to Nuclear turboprop kind of leads you to wonder what these guys were thinking of. On one of my sight seeing trips, I have always wanted to swing by the Idaho National Atomic Labratory site and check out the HTRE project test engine. If you are not familiar with this one, GE took (as I remember) two j79 engine cores, and hooked them up to a nuclear reactor as a heat source. This thing is so big it had to be constructed on a rail car! When it was tested, they merely blew the engine exhaust ( Highly Radioactive, as you can imagine) out to the atmosphere. Kind of like project Pluto, only a turbo jet, instead of a ram jet. there is a DOE document that may still be on the web detailing the supposed clean up the test site went through - not too convincing. I can't for the life of me figure out why the rest of the world was so concerned about the Russian and American Nuclear programs. Wink

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It runs best just before it blows!

jrussell · Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 55 Location: Portland, Oregon

For a picture of HTRE-1 check out airfields-freeman.com/ID/airfields_ID_N.htm - it is enormous. Your tax dollars at work.
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It runs best just before it blows!

jjuutinen · Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 180

I am only interested in turbines powered by boilers, not nuclear powered things.

jrussell · Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 55 Location: Portland, Oregon

Do you have any information on ones that were not proposed to use a nuclear heat source? I would love to see an engineering anaylsis as to installed weight.
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It runs best just before it blows!

jjuutinen · Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 180

Sorr, no info at all. That is why this topic exists:) As an aside, Essex class carriers plant weighed about 3495 tons (dry) and had a design hp of 150,000 hp. It should be remembered that no ship has ever used a reciprocating (steam or internal combustion) plant of that size. Even gas turbine installation are sually limited to less than 100,000 hp.

jrussell · Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 55 Location: Portland, Oregon

Just found an interesting example at luft46.com/prototyp/me264. One proposal was to power it with a steam turbine, using powdered coal and petroleum as fuel.They were looking at 6000shp per engine.My question as to installed weight was refering to total installed system weight, including fuel. A steam system requires a lot of ancilliary systems such as econimizers, steam drums, dryers, etc, which adds a LOT to the total installed weight, which would have to be compensated for somewhere to make it feasable. They do not scale down well. I keep getting this mental picture of a "black gang" stoking coal into the firebox, working behind each engine in the wing Wink

_________________
It runs best just before it blows!

jjuutinen · Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 180

The Essex class machinery weight includes everything, including props and shafting (over 300 tons alone).

Jukka

dstauffer · Joined: 17 Oct 2005 Posts: 8

Goeffry Smith's excellent book, Gas Turbines and Jet Propulsion has a chapter on steam turbines for aircraft power. This book, copyright in 1944 is a bit rare to find, but some used book sites on net have listed it occasionally.

jjuutinen · Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 180

Regarding the plans for the Me 264, I recommend Forsyth&Creek´s newish book on the subject. What is amazing about the steam turvbine project is the aimed SFC of 190 g/hp/hr and the weight of less than 1 kg/hp. The SFC figure seems amazing given that e.g. Bismarck´s plant was using over 300 g/hp/h though it is said that German naval steam plants suffered from abnormally poor efficiency, especially considering their high pressure and temperature.

pshort · Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 06:06 Post subject:

http://www.enginehistory.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=349

jjuutinen · Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 180

Peter, do read the book I mentioned for it has better info on the Me 264 project than the refs you referred to.