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Locost with a differance.
Oliver Coles - 24/3/06 at 09:55 PM

How does the idea of a gas turbine locost sound? In the seriously distant future i plan to build a locost with one of those rover gas turbines that they were playing with in the 50's.

David Jenkins - 24/3/06 at 10:05 PM

Fine, as long as you don't mind using paraffin/kerosine (which you'll have to pay duty on) at under 5mpg.

Simon - 24/3/06 at 10:19 PM

A better idea would be to modify a gas turbine to a turbofan, but still have a PTO.

That way, when emissions are tested it'll more or less be blowing warm air straight through (with a little co2)

ATB

Simon

Fatgadget - 24/3/06 at 11:28 PM

Back to the future..Look no further...

Found this here

bigandy - 25/3/06 at 09:38 AM

quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
Fine, as long as you don't mind using paraffin/kerosine (which you'll have to pay duty on) at under 5mpg.


There's absolutely no reason why a Gas turbine can't be run on some of the cheaper fuels available, like LPG for example. The power output maybe slightly down at a similar turbine RPM when compared with paraffin or Jet A1 fuel, but not by much.

In fact, running a turbine on a fuel that is naturally gaseous, has many benefits, such as easy starting, improved combustion characteristics, and a slighty fast throttle response.

In some of my many daydeaming sessions at work, I have often thought about how best to harness the power of a turbine engine in a car, and I have come up with the best way to use the turbine to generate electricity, and use that to power an electric motor to drive the car. That way you can use a nice torquey electric motor with 95% of the rated torque available from 0rpm, and run the turbine at it's most efficient RPM range, and not have to worry about excessive lag in the response from the turbine accelerating etc etc.

Cheers
Andy

Russ-Turner - 25/3/06 at 10:25 AM

Fantastic write up in Motorsport this month about the use of turbines in racing. One fifth of the moving parts as a piston engine. Nothing sliding back and forth , the parts are lightly stressed so the unit is light. No cranks, pistons or valves, so there's minimal friction and, apart from its high speed bearings, no need for an oil system. The flowing air through it keeps it stable. Virtually no vibration, isn't fussy about fuel. Any flammable liquid will power it, from avagas to after shave. Including diesel. It runs very lean so emits almost no noxious CO gas. Needs no warming up, you can't over rev it, needs little maintenance. Overall it's compact, and they claim you can buy a motorbike today powered by a 300b.h.p. gas turbine.
Throttle response is said to be slow though and they swallow alot of fuel.
The Rover B.R.M. was at Goodwood a few years ago,. I think it finished tenth at Le Mans in the hands of Hill and Stewart out of interest.

Oliver Coles - 25/3/06 at 10:30 AM

quote "Fine, as long as you don't mind using paraffin/kerosine (which you'll have to pay duty on) at under 5mpg."

I was reading up on rover turbines on the internet and they say that the 320bhp engines did between 20-25mpg. Plus that power came from a engine that weighed 60KG, which is nearly half my weight.

Oliver Coles - 25/3/06 at 10:34 AM

I believe this the super bike that was mentioned.
http://www.marineturbine.com/motorsports.asp

ChrisGamlin - 26/3/06 at 08:27 PM

Also have a search for the "Howmet TX" gas turbine car that raced with some success in the 1960s and was a lot more powerful than the Rover.
We had a Rover gas turbine at uni (Brunel) which we were allowed to play with in our final year, from what I recall it was ludicrously noisy and didnt make a lot of power, not much over 100bhp ISTR.