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WMO in a Gas Turbine engines?

Mt_Man

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Just wondering if anyone has heard or messed around with WMO in Gas turbines? Thoughts I had are really good filtering QC to limit wear of components/clogged fuel nozzles, thinning fuel, maybe dual tank system, and heated fuel tanks. Thinking waste turbine oil, hydraulic, atf, jet-a, or other already thin fuels out there.

Now with the operating and owning costs of a turbine would make it less then sensible.

Some searching has lead me to the m1 abrams tank engine (agt-1500). They claim to have multifuel compatibility. But that is with different types of refined fuel. Would think that there would be coking and extra maintenance involved with running sub-par fuel in anything. So extra care is prudent.

Thanks everyone for the collective knowledge about alternative fuels over the years! wonderful site!
cheers
 

Jericho

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its not quite that simple, Jet engines and a gas turbine is a jet engine, use fuel pressure servo sensors for a plethora of functions, Your "specific Gravity" of the fuel is the biggest concern, older jet engines and gas turbines had specific adjustments on the fuel control for various fuels. when the push was on to run civilian compatible fuels that were EPA compliant The USAf moved away from JP4 to A1 this ment specific gravity had to be adjusted on older engines, Many additives not present in commercial fuels were used in military engines for , Lubricity, temperature stabilization , surfactant control and water ( even to prevent slime growth plumes, because it was frequently stored in muti million gallon tanks. Your biggest concern should be the coking that comes from using poor fuel and the hot spots it generates in the combustion cans or poor starting with excessive ITT (inner turbine temperature events ) A bad fuel nozzle is an out of control torch! RPM is also a danger many civilian users fail to pay heed too, A T 41-M small gas turbine for example turns in the 40 thousand RPM range on the hot section. In the service it is surrounded by a containment shroud, weather cowling or a the body of the machinery. When they fail they are a grenade going off, They send shrapnel every where. Uncle has NEVER sold a "serviceable" small gas turbine or jet engine to the surplus market, Every jet engine whether a tiny turbine or a 100 thousand pound class turbo fan as big as your truck has a life limit on individual parts, These parts are ALWAYS harvested by the losing Propulsion shop in the Air Force BEFORE they are sent for disposition. the shop shoe horns the turn in back together with as much high time , out of time crap as they can to save the Wing funds. Not wanting to insult anyone , but the USAF does the best maintainence in Aviation in the world, the Army doesn't even compare , they do little compared to the AF and their model is different then the AF, to them a helo engine is a flying truck engine , plain and simple. They send most of their overhauls back to the contractor or manufacture. In the case iof CH 47 s they actually simply buy new replacements when they are out of TACCS , there only around 790 thousand each , cheap by jet engine standards. I spent 20 years in Jet engine overhaul and line work , I wouldn t recommend using Anything BUT THE REAL JUICE, The AF has approved synthetic fuels , but they are very expensive and not readily available, its not new, The Germans did it first in the second world war using everything from coal to banana peels.
 

Mt_Man

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Thanks Jericho, that is the info I was hoping to get. I figured it would not be that easy. haha So if you could crack distill you oil to a specific gravity of the manufacture specified fuel type, would that work? Guess one would have to get the additives to put back in too. Agree with turbines from surplus or ebay would probably be timed out and need an overhaul. How effective are "compressor washes?" Would that get rid of the majority of coke?

Now I realize if you can afford a turbine then the fuel is a cheap. So this is just for fun :beer:
 

Beyond Biodiesel

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There have been a number of experiments with burning recycled waste oils in turban engines. I think it is mostly for publicity, because, as pointed out above, the fuel is cheap compared to the cost of the engine.

However, if we are going to talk hypothetically, then, yes, I agree, the petroleum based waste oil could be cracked and fractionated. The "additive package" would not be so important, if you are trying to fuel remnants of a collapsed culture with whatever you can find. There will be gobs of dead technology sitting around for spare parts.
 

Jericho

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Hey Beyond Biodiesle, lucky guy , love Sedona! , Its not really a need to re add additives , its a matter of adjusting the engine parameters to run with out them , to do that one needs a Jet Cal to trim the engine , along with the data to know what the Trim should look like, Its a matter of Outside air temperature, Barometric Pressure, Projected Turbine tempertures at known Power lever Angles in conjunction with Compressor inlet temperture and pressure not to mention combustion temps and pressure, So CIT, PLA,PB4, PB5, ITT, or TIT, depending on engine. PLA% and you hope your not dealing with a now very common variable vane geometry system, T5 is common on control systems and is the heart of the acceleration and rpm control. I cannot stress enough that the MAD MAX approach to turbine operation and maitainence is simply not possible, Disassembly of any jet engine takes training and skill along with a fair amount of special tooling that is not any where in the garage or for that matter readily available. Repair of most control subassemblies is impossible with out complex test gear , if at all, many components are only repaired at the manufacturer or depot level since the down sizing of the military, Harvesting "CANN" (cannibilized parts) will only get you so far even when you have a full shop available. Many of the seals and fragilble parts needed for reassembly are not available outside the military. Some thing as seemingly benign as a Thermocouple will likely be impposible to obtain and even then they are not universal between engine varients, and with out a jet cal one couldn't adjust it anyway.Modern jet engines ( turbo fan designations and on, ) are heavily computer controlled and there is simply no getting around that, and the nerd down the road isn't going to write new code to get around something, or repair it. It all ways looks neat to see the J 85 jet engine in a drag car at the track. But the idiots who run them and make no mistake they are playing with fire, Have no basis for trim values , no trackable excursion data ( times the engine is accelerated from power level to power level , how fast how hard, ) to base time change of industry known life limited components and most of all no containment for the compressor or turbine assemblies. Wait until they compressor stall the engine and shuck a turbine or send the fan right out the front, game over, and sadly for a large number of people in the stands. Biased YUP, done a lot of crash investigations ( aircraft crash) and ground mishap investigations, the only reason the military death rate is so low is redundant safety measures, almost stifling at times , but comprehensive. Don't laugh too loud, but the average Jet shop in the airforce mops floors more than the navy swabs the decks, FOD is deadly, and cleanliness is godliness in the Air Force Propulsion shops, By the way most have WHITE floors so one can see a 1/4 inch round washer less than 18 gauge from hundreds of feet laying flat. (used to superglue them to the floor and watch the Chief try to pick them up ) Water washing does nothing for coking in the fuel nozzles, It is used most heavily on A 10 a Wart hogs to remove gun gas from the compressor blades, The powder leaves a sticky residue that slows the blades and reduces Fan Speed to less than safe levels. It has NO cleasneing effect on the fuel nozzles at all . C 130s ( t56- 7 or 15 engines also water wash) aircraft flying at low level across sea water are washed to rinse corrosive salt residue, ( navy does the most of that ) Easiest way to clean a fuel nozzle is to simply change it, quick job for a good jet troop on most engines. Not trying to sound all mighty or discourage you, Just wanted to let you know how much more complex a turbine is than most people think, and some of the tiny turbines are much worse in complexity than the large turbo Jets
 

Jericho

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last I noticed the AF book of replacement cost pegged a F 100/129 engine used in the F16 at around 4.2 million with core exchange. ( yup even the AF does core exchanges lol ) the fuel control alone for some engines runs in the low 1 million range to 2.3 million each, and one person can lift it and drop it on the floor all in the same day! :!:
 

frank8003

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see post #6, I concur.
I got paid to refurbish-rebuild 100's of dual fuel manifolds for dual spool jet engines.
What was not mentioned yet is the tools you have to make or acquire to get the job done.
Remember that it is all built to be as light and strong as possible requiring very special technique
and the information you may need is not out there on google.
Suffice it to say that using anything but the approved fuel/fuel controls, and you'll get it lit off once but then it is scrap.
IMG_7892.jpg
 

Jericho

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not nessacarily, what model of GTCP do you have in your unit, I assume you have a 397, or 71A or Gtcp 36-50 or something along those lines. Some of the older power units use basic engine control system , usually a centrifulgal 3 speed switch . Franks picture is a fuel nozzle cluster for a can annular combustion system All dual spool means is thet you have and N1 and N2 compressor rotors ( n1 is at the front, N2 is next inline) along with corresponding "tied" turbine rotors , generaly this was common in Turbo jet engines , it is varied in Turbo fan models. Turbo Prop and Turbo shaft engines Thats a nice example of a fuel nozzle tool in the photo, Frank is right in that many specialized tools are used to work on them. I used to burn thru 50 thousand pounds of fuel in a simple full afterburner run and call for refuel 3 or four times on long runs. Small GTCPs are much more miserly but still GTCPs are not fuel efficent A British Lightning Fighter would burn its entire fuel load in about 8 minutes in full afterburner,
 

Mt_Man

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Thanks for your imput guys. Really do appreciate the candid responses. Think you guys are thinking to big. Turbo prop or helo turbines was more of what I was thinking, more steady state running, not wild power changes and afterburner-ing dragsters. Haha On the smaller size and civilian for readily available parts. Also less likely to throw a turbo fan blade (not talking about the cold or hot section blades). Much simpler design too. I would not need the thrust those engines would put out. So if you follow all manufacture specified life limited parts, overhaul times, hot/cold section inspections, proper start-up/shut-down procedures(no hot starting), temperature and torque limits. That should make them pretty safe from catastrophic failure, right? Pratt & Whitney pt-6 new is somewhere around $500-700k. There are overhauled ones, plus t53, 250-c20 or 250-c18, that are very common in the civilian helicopter world. Cheers
 

Beyond Biodiesel

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From discussions with an engineer who was working on installing peaker plants, they commonly use turbines that are powered off natural gas lines, which suggests to me these turbines are not as expensive as described above.

The whole reason why Rudolph Diesel invented his compression ignition engine was to burn coal dust, which in the late 19th century was a through-away by product of the coal industry. While his engine ran on coal dust it did not run for long.

So, It has occurred to me that a turbine engine used for power generation could be designed to burn anything from coal dust, and sawdust to WMO, to natural gas or hydrogen. Of course it would have to be tolerant of a wide range of fuels. This means that turbine engine is likely to be radically different than turbine engines that are used in aircraft.
 

frank8003

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From discussions with an engineer who was working on installing peaker plants, they commonly use turbines that are powered off natural gas lines, which suggests to me these turbines are not as expensive as described above.
So if anybody wants a P&W engine CG4 [J57 to the J75 to the CG4] a South Florida power company is offing about 50 of them. It will just fit in the back of your Deuce. Need a fuel tanker too.
CG4 is the ground bound version of the engine. Here you'll like this.
12092011 525.jpgView attachment John Glenn J57.PDF
 

Jericho

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No not at all, your missing the imperitive, Jet engines used in aircraft use Jet I as the fuel source,and have to have controllability and atmospheric change envelopes, Power plant turbines are static and vary little in operating RPM The turbines used in power plant operations use LNG ect as a fuel source but operate slightly different STEAM driven turbines are basicly just a compressor and turbine section with the steam , for example , nuclear powered, coming from a remote combustor. some are just a turbine used to harvest the energy. LNG turbines can be steam powered, LNG heated, or a compressor, combustor, turbine and gear box always have to have a gearbox some where. The J-79 J- 57 dirivitive models in photo above are just the core basicly, A B1 kit would have adapted it for different aircraft mounting , controls were vary different than the Jet aircraft type, I have worked both , and the J 57 model in the steam mode in a LPL plant J 57 was the most common engine in the AF for thirty years used In fighters bombers tankers even the U2. I may be wrong but I know the cost of internal components and seriously doubt if even a peaker plant would sell installed stationary for less then 1 mil. (serviceable with warrenty.) Worked one at the Cog railway once, J 57 they bought out of time from the Canadian AF was still 80 grand worth of danger. General electric is the most common power plant turbine manufacturer. If the turbine has no gearbox its a turbo shaft in the most basic design, worked them all turbo jets, recips , turbo fans, shafts props, tiny turbines and steam , fighter bomber , cargo, ground support, power production, pneumatic production, but in the end if its a GTCP 36-50 that two guys can lift into positon or 397-71A for start air to a 100 k class turbo fan , a jet engine is a jet engine. Even the reverse flow PT 6 . J57 was a fixed blade geometry engine with a bleed valve to prevent stalls, The J 79 was a variable vane engine , used to prevent stalls
 

Jericho

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but in answer to you question, if you treat them right they last last last ( 5000 hours was about right for a TF 34 100 A) , tiny turbines get a lot of abuse, GTCP 36-50s ran to failure, but generally about 4 to 5 hundred hours between major breakdowns and component changes, Get A 71 A from a H model C-130, makes electricity air hyd and heat. as does the GTCP 36-50 from the A 10 A . J 75s are a huge old turbo jet , used in F105 thuds, a beast, could take 20 mm direct hits and come home
 
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