Design, fabrication, and performance of a gas-turbine engine from an automobile turbocharger

Abstract

Thermal-Fluids Engineering is taught in two semesters in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To emphasize the course material, running experiments of thermodynamic plants are integrated into the course as demonstrations. The aim of this thesis is to supplement the course demonstrations of thermodynamic plants through the design and fabrication of a gas-turbine engine. The engine operates on an open version of the Brayton cycle. Students will be able to evaluate the energy conversion efficiency and net work ratio from air temperature measurements in three stages of the cycle. The gas-turbine engine is made from an automobile turbocharger for its common shaft turbine and compressor. A combustion chamber was placed between the outlet of the compressor and the inlet of the turbine. The temperature measurement system was designed from the placement of thermocouples on the outside wall of a pipe leading from the compressor to the combustor, on the outside wall of a pipe leading from the combustor to the turbine, and on the outside wall of the turbine exhaust pipe. As the temperature measured by the thermocouple will be that of the outside walls of the engine, the model will depict the cross-sectional temperature profile so the students will know the actual bulk temperature of the working fluid, air.