Whittle, for the record, was an irascible hot head, hopelessly addicted to amphetimines.”

From the Wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Whittle
“By late 1941 it was obvious that the arrangement between Power Jets and Rover was not working. Whittle was frustrated by Rover’s inability to deliver production-quality parts, as well as with their “we know better than you” attitude and became increasingly vocal. Rover was losing interest in the project after the delays and constant harassment from Power Jets.”

That sums it up rather well. One of the things Sir Frank fought Rover on was curving the compressor guide vanes something Rover refused to do and which is now universally used on centrifugal compressors.

The W2B/23 became the the RB23 (when Rolls took over) which became the Welland in the first Meteors and then developed into the Derwent. All with centrifugal flow compressors.

As for Whittle being an irascible hothead, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least after putting over 10 years of work into jet engine design and manufacture with almost no help from the Air Ministry or anyone else. And then having his design handed off to Rover. He didn’t even have the money to renew his patent in (I think) 1935 when it expired.

Sorry everybody for getting OT. I’ll just add that using gas turbines in a hybrid situation could be very useful unfortunately most research on turbines are aircraft related rather than “stationary” where (in civilian use) you’re using the turbine to drive a big fan and there is ram air effect and so on.

A last word on the turbine powered locomotives I read somewhere that if moving slowly, because the exhaust was out the top, It would tend to melt/burn the roadway of bridges the the engine travelled under!

With respect, I’m not sure where you get your info from, but a family friend who actually worked on the project at Rover, John Orgille is of the opinion that the W2B as designed by Whittle, was an utter dogs breakfast in terms of gas flow. The redesigned Rover version, the B26 (which became the Rolls Royce Derwent) was an Axial flow and provided the design basis for the modern aircraft jet engine as we know it.

Whittle, for the record, was an irascible hot head, hopelessly addicted to amphetimines.

Want to see a real early gas turbine, a Rolls Royce Derwent, start & fast idle? Click here then go to “Derwent 1″ video

http://www.gasturbine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/derwent.htm

Here’s some footage of the Chrysler Gas Turbine car actually running and driving. Don’t be confused by the drag racing and hot rods driving past – listen for the turbine sound, that’s the genuine sound of the Chrysler Turbine (and pretty much any other automotive gas turbine).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IF0VbUb_Ug&feature=related

http://www.gasturbine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/derwent.htm

Go to the movie “Derwent 1″ for a nice start sequence, run to mid-idle (probably over 10,000 rpm, I’m guessing).

Then, watch this guy as he takes his Rolls Royce Derwent (attached to the back of a little snub-nose pickup) for a “little ride”

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/mitsibushi-rolls-royce-jet-truck/437655773

Here, you’ll get to see & hear the Chrysler Turbine car running. Turn up your noise, or you’ll miss the fun. (There is also drag racing with loud reciprocating engines in the background so don’t be confused by that).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IF0VbUb_Ug&feature=related

“Rover’s contribution to manufacture and design early gas turbines is difficult to overstate.”

Indeed. They set back the Gloster Meteor program by at least a year. They spent so much time arguing with Whittle and trying to “improve” on his design that the first Meteor flew with Metrovick engines. Engineless Meteors were being stored at Gloster. Finally in a lunch deal Rolls swapped a tank engine plant for the gas turbine business of Rover and the rest is history.

The emissions of this engine sorted out for automotive use (this was an article written in 1970) were able to meet 1975 auto emission standards (which I think were delayed to 1978 or so in real life) without modifications, and strangely enough, the Chrysler turbine (as seen in the car pictured above) was somewhat dirtier, but still far, far cleaner than any 1970 gasoline reciprocating engine.

As for killing people with the engine self-destructing, I think people are confusing automotive gas turbines with huge jet engines. The rotating weight in an automotive gas turbine is significantly smaller than big jet engines, and if the turbine is damaged, it does not generally come out of the side of the engine – as could be seen in the STP turbine racers during the races in the mid-late 1960’s when the blades were damaged during the race due to FOD (foreign object damage) ingested due to no air filters (which was the case in order to keep the power up for the race, of course).

Shouldn’t be any more of a danger than blown con-rod or turbocharger.

is probably more accurate. Rover’s contribution to manufacture and design early gas turbines is difficult to overstate. To this day Rolls Royce Gas Turbines engines have the ‘RB’ prefix, which is an abreviation of ‘Rover-Barnoldswick’ (although retrospectively Rolls-Barnoldswick)the name of the plant set up by Rover to manufacture the Whittle engine during WW2.

The very first car to run with a car tubine was Rover’s aptly registered ‘JET 1′ in 1950.

BUT, what to do about possible blade ejection? Wouldn’t want to decapitate passers-by or… A kevlar blade containment system might be wee bit expensive.

The killer for automotive turbines, in fuel economy, is that auto engines spend so much of their time at part-throttle, where the turbine is less efficient, or idle, where the very high idle speed (among other things) makes it thirsty. Chrysler made a fair amount of progress with minimizing the acceleration lag, but when you have to accelerate the turbine from a 10,000-rpm idle to a 30,000+ peak speed, that’s going to take time. There were also problems with NOx emissions, a function of the high combustion temperatures.

The other dilemma, which cropped up with Andy Granatelli’s STP racers of the late 60s, is that turbines are more difficult to modify than a piston engine. A given piston engine can be stretched a fair amount in displacement without major reengineering, and you can soup up or detune it in a variety of ways. With a turbine, your choices are more limited — if you’re already close to the material limits of your turbine blades and bearings, you’re left with fewer options that don’t require pricey modifications like redesigning the inlet.

I think for plug-in hybrids where the engine operates primarily as a generator, small regenerative turbines have a lot of advantages, but as a main power source, I don’t see them being practical for cars.

It’s be a nice touch for, say, Saab. It’d certainly mean I wouldn’t have to wince in embarrassment at the “Born from Jets” ads.

But thirsty? Oh, yes indeed. Soldiers wouldn’t use “mpg” when talking tanks. They’d use “gallons per mile”, which was usually 2-3 gallons per mile. Yikes!!!

Freightliner experimented with having a Turbine powered truck in mid 1960s. Even in the days of $.20/gal diesel the high fuel consumption made it a dud.

Using the Turbine in the M1 Abrams was a much as a product of the pork barrel nature of US defense contracting as its technical merits.

The turbine gets roughly 1/2 the fuel economy of comparable sized tanks with a diesel such the Leopard, Lecleric or Challanger 2.

See “King of the Killing Zone” by Orr Kelly for a comprehensive history of the M1s development.

TESLA TURBINE

One incentive for turbine engine development was reducing maintenance / increasing engine service life. Into the 50’s, when auto manufacturers started looking at turbines, the buying public was still demanding more life from their cars. Turbines require no cooling system and have fewer moving parts, so should have a longer service life, than a comparable IC engine.

For a brief time, Ford actually put a turbine-powered transport truck into production. However, one of their suppliers’ plants burned to the ground. As Ford was unable to find a second source for the required turbine parts, they cancelled production.

The series hybrid turbine is an interesting idea, and potentially solves a lot of the practical problems for turbines in cars like start-up speed. Conversely, if the turbine were turning a generator powering a battery in a hybrid that generator can also be a motor – you could use the generator both as a mechanical brake and accelerator to improve turbine response if it were so desired.

While thinking of pie-in-the-sky stuff with turbines, another innovation on a hybrid series turbine would be a superconductive generator. While that sounds outlandish, given the resources and effort devoted to storing and using cryogenic hydrogen, cryogenic nitrogen by comparison is cake. Superconductors can sustain very high magnetic fields and currents for the weight of the actual superconducting material, especially in comparison to equivalent energy over copper conductors, and could be a serious weight advantage for a mobile widget like a car. By the time you count the parasitic weight of the refrigeration system, you could potentially get a turbine-superconductor setup that is not only more efficient, but actually has a higher power density per kilogram than an internal combustion motor alone, with no hybrid stuff even bolted on.

It is an interesting technical question..but I’m just thinking out loud at this point. I wouldn’t be suprised though if whoever won the Auto-XPrize had a turbine in their scheme somewhere instead of a reciprocator.

You thought right. One of the biggest logistical hurdles of the Gulf War was supplying fuel to U.S. tank units.

As someone with familiarity with the Abrams tank, I always wondered why turbines weren’t more popular in applications where high torque / steady power were needed.

Because diesel engines provide a better alternative without being succeptible to damage from dust and debris, using as much fuel, and worrying about where you’re aiming the exhaust stream.

I guess the whole turbine shebang isn’t cost effective yet. Diesel electrics locomotives cry out for turbines – but the tried and true piston engine still holds its own.

KnightRT:
In theory. In practice, noise and maintenance considerations would probably exclude it from use.

The Abrams turbine is notably quiet.

It’d have to be muffled pretty well but this is not difficult on a microturbine.

It’d take some getting used to, however, to have the engine cycling on and off, on and off.

Just as I got used to the Prius engine going on and off periodically, after awhile, you don’t even notice.

I’d love a microturbine hybrid. A hydraulic hybrid might then be more practical for automotive use, since the turbine is so small, it would not matter as much if the hydraulic system were larger than the batteries on an electric hybrid (which is why they are now limited to trucks).

This also solves the problem of not being able to produce enough batteries.

Hydraulic hybrids can also have regenerative braking to recapture kinetic energy. They’re real hybrids, too.

Did you just cut and paste and entire reply from Wikipedia? You might want to check caranddriver.com for your next review.