Query: Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems Gas Turbine Engines

Candidate papers:

abstract: The confluence of market demand for greatly improved compact power sources for portable electronics with the rapidly expanding capability of micromachining technology has made feasible the development of gas turbines in the millimeter size range. With airfoil spans measured in 100's of microns rather than meters, these microengines have about 1 millionth the airflow of large gas turbines and thus should produce about one millionth the power, 10 100 W. Based on semiconductor industry derived processing of materials such as silicon and silicon carbide to submicron accuracy, such devices are known as micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) Current millimeter scale designs use centrifugal turbomachinery with pressure ratios in the range of 2:1 to 4:1 and turbine inlet temperatures of 1200 1600 K. The projected performance of these engines are on a par with gas turbines of the 1940s. The thermodynamics of MEMS gas turbines are the same as those for large engines but the mechanics differ due to scaling considerations and manufacturing constraints. The principal challenge is to arrive at a design which meets the thermodynamic and component functional requirements while staying within the realm of realizable micromachining technology. This paper reviews the state of the art of millimeter size gas turbine engines, including system design and integration, manufacturing, materials, component design, accessories, applications, and economics. It discusses the underlying technical issues, reviews current design approaches, and discusses future development and applications.
author_names: A H Epstein
title: Millimeter Scale, Micro Electro Mechanical Systems Gas Turbine Engines
year: 2004

abstract: The confluence of market demand for greatly improved compact power sources for portable electronics with the rapidly expanding capability of micromachining technology has made feasible the development of gas turbines in the millimeter size range. With airfoil spans measured in 100's of microns rather than meters, these "microengines" have about 1 millionth the air flow of large gas turbines and thus should produce about 1 millionth the power, 10 100 W. Based on semiconductor industry derived processing of materials such as silicon and silicon carbide to submicron accuracy, such devices are known as micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) Current millimeter scale designs use centrifugal turbomachinery with pressure ratios in the range of 2:1 to 4:1 and turbine inlet temperatures of 1200 1600 K. The projected performance of these engines are on a par with gas turbines of the 1940's. The thermodynamics of MEMS gas turbines are the same as those for large engines but the mechanics differ due to scaling considerations and manufacturing constraints. The principal challenge is to arrive at a design which meets the thermodynamic and component functional requirements while staying within the realm of realizable micromachining technology. This paper reviews the state of the art of millimeter size gas turbine engines, including system design and integration, manufacturing, materials, component design, accessories, applications, and economics. It discusses the underlying technical issues, reviews current design approaches, and discusses future development and applications.
author_names: A H Epstein
title: Millimeter Scale, MEMS Gas Turbine Engines
year: 2003

abstract: The confluence of market demand for greatly improved compact power sources for portable electronics with the rapidly expanding capability of micromachining technology has made feasible the development of gas turbines in the millimeter size range. With airfoil spans measured in 100's of microns rather than meters, these "microengines" have about 1 millionth the air flow of large gas turbines and thus should produce about 1 millionth the power, 10 100 W. Based on semiconductor industry derived processing of materials such as silicon and silicon carbide to submicron accuracy, such devices are known as micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) Current millimeter scale designs use centrifugal turbomachinery with pressure ratios in the range of 2:1 to 4:1 and turbine inlet temperatures of 1200 1600 K. The projected performance of these engines are on a par with gas turbines of the 1940's. The thermodynamics of MEMS gas turbines are the same as those for large engines but the mechanics differ due to scaling considerations and manufacturing constraints. The principal challenge is to arrive at a design which meets the thermodynamic and component functional requirements while staying within the realm of realizable micromachining technology. This paper reviews the state of the art of millimeter size gas turbine engines, including system design and integration, manufacturing, materials, component design, accessories, applications, and economics. It discusses the underlying technical issues, reviews current design approaches, and discusses future development and applications.
author_names: A H Epstein
title: GT 2003 38866 MILLIMETER SCALE MEMS GAS TURBINE ENGINES
year: 2003

abstract: MIT is developing micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) based gas turbine engines, turbogenerators, and rocket engines. Fabricated in large numbers in parallel using semiconductor manufacturing techniques, these engines on a chip are based on micro high speed rotating machinery with power densities approaching those of their more familiar, full sized brethren. The micro gas turbine is a 2 cm diameter by 3 mm thick Si or SiC heat engine designed to produce about 10 W of electric power or 0.1 N of thrust while consuming about 15 grams/hr of H2. Later versions may produce up to 100 W using hydrocarbon fuels. This paper gives an overview of the project and discusses the challenges faced in the design and manufacture of high speed microrotating machinery. Fluid, structural, bearing, and rotor dynamics design issues are reviewed.
author_names: A H Epstein

Stuart A Jacobson

Jonathan M Protz

Luc G Frechette
title: SHIRTBUTTON SIZED GAS TURBINES: THE ENGINEERING CHALLENGES OF MICRO HIGH SPEED ROTATING MACHINERY
year: 2000

abstract: Micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) offer many advantages for sensing a variety of physical parameters such as accceleration, pressure and temperature. Their small size allows them to operate in close proximity where conventional sensors cannot be introduced especially for thermal measurements. Temperature measurement and control is of fundamental importance to the optimal operating conditions of materials and machinery such as gas turbine engines, space exploration, etc. The temperature characterization will allow proper diagnosis of operating conditions and hence the optimization of controls and environment in order to augment performance and useful lifetime. MEMS based thermal measurements will be very useful as they are sensitive to small fluctuations in the operating conditions. Here, this paper proposes a novel MEMS based bimorph optical device as a thermal sensor. The paper includes the theoretical and experimental analysis on the thermal behavior of optical MEMS devices under different geometrical and parametric conditions. The paper also presents the static and dynamic behavior of optical MEMS based devices under different thermal environments. The results obtained verify the validity of the proposed designs for thermal sensing.
author_names: Gino Rinaldi

Muthukumaran Packirisamy

Ion Stiharu
title: Optical MEMS based bimorph for thermal sensing
venue: Photonics North
year: 2004

abstract: There have been umpteen efforts in the past to convert an automotive turbocharger, consisting of a compressor and a turbine mounted on the same shaft, into a miniaturized gas turbine engine or micro gas turbine engine (mGTE) This paper presents the development of turbocharger based mGTE and its integration with an electrical power pack. This mGTE is used for validating the concept of electro mechanical interaction of these systems leading to electric power generation. The selection and sizing of the turbocharger center housing rotating assembly for the engine is carried out considering a wide range of industrial/consumer applications. All static parts including combustor have been designed and developed in view of the potential applications. The fuel air mixture when burnt in the combustor expands across the turbine and exits through the exhaust nozzle to produce thrust. The energy in the exhaust gas is utilized for running the power turbine which in turn is connected to an alternating current (AC) generator to produce electric power. A generator control unit that built in the alternator was used for voltage regulation. A control architecture has been designed to moderate the mGTE exhaust gas bypass valve in case of over speeding of the alternator. Also, a resistor based variable load bank was designed to demonstrate generator performance. The system can be made to run on multiple fuels (for example, bio gas, diesel or kerosene) with small changes to the combustion chamber. Few potential applications of the mGTE integrated power generator include decentralized power generation (microgrid) combined heating and cooling and laboratory platform for universities. The technology and system architecture developed for mGTE can be leveraged for applications such as Urban Air Mobility (UAM) electric propulsion.
author_names: K N Sudheendra

Kumar Sakinala

Davendar Kashireddy

Somashekhar M Maheswarappa Hosamane

Vadiraja Upadya

Deepak Kumar

Louis Cheng
title: Study of electro mechanical interaction in micro gas turbine engine generator system for more electric applications
venue: 2019 AIAA/IEEE Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium (EATS)
year: 2019

abstract: In this study, the on going research into the improvement of micro gas turbine propulsion system performance and the suitability for its application as propulsion systems for small tactical UAVs <600 kg) is investigated. The study is focused around the concept of converting existing micro turbojet engines into turbofans with the use of a continuously variable gearbox, thus maintaining a single spool configuration and relative design simplicity. This is an effort to reduce the initial engine development cost, whilst improving the propulsive performance. The BMT 120 KS micro turbojet engine is selected for the performance evaluation of the conversion process using the gas turbine performance software GasTurb13. The preliminary design of a matched low pressure compressor (LPC) for the proposed engine is then performed using meanline calculation methods. According to the analysis that is carried out, an improvement in the converted micro gas turbine engine performance, in terms of thrust and specific fuel consumption is achieved. Furthermore, with the introduction of a CVT gearbox, the fan speed operation may be adjusted independently of the core, allowing an increased thrust generation or better fuel consumption. This therefore enables a wider gamut of operating conditions and enhances the performance and scope of the tactical UAV.
author_names: James Large

Apostolos Pesyridis
title: Investigation of Micro Gas Turbine Systems for High Speed Long Loiter Tactical Unmanned Air Systems
year: 2019

abstract: In this brief, we propose and develop estimation, prediction, and health monitoring methodologies for nonlinear systems by modeling the damage and degradation mechanism dynamics as "slow" states that are augmented with the system "fast" states. This augmentation results in a two time scale (TTS) nonlinear system that is utilized for the development of decoupled slow and fast health estimation and prediction modules within a health monitoring framework. Specifically, a TTS filtering approach based on ensemble Kalman filters is developed by taking advantage of the singular perturbation model reduction technique. Our proposed methodology is then applied to a gas turbine engine that is affected by degradation phenomenon due to the turbine erosion. Extensive comparative studies are conducted to validate and demonstrate the advantages and capabilities of our proposed methodology when compared to the well known nonlinear particle filtering (PF) approach that is commonly utilized in the literature.
author_names: Najmeh Daroogheh

Nader Meskin

Khashayar Khorasani
title: Ensemble Kalman Filters for State Estimation and Prediction of Two Time Scale Nonlinear Systems With Application to Gas Turbine Engines
venue: IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology
year: 2019

abstract: Principles of selecting the characteristics of electric drives of fuel supply systems of a gas turbine engine are considered, which allow minimizing their mass. A concept for selecting electric drive parameters for the EGTE fuel supply system pumps has been developed. It is used 5..7 times overload capacity of brushless DC electric drives, taking into account the distribution of the required power in a typical flight cycle and the use of electric drive cooling. This allowed for an electric drive with a power of 25 kW to reduce the mass of the electric motor from 21 kg to 10 kg (2.1 times) with the mass of the control unit 3 kg (33.3% of the electric motor mass)
author_names: Oskar Gurevich

Anatoliy I Guliyenko
title: Concept to select characteristics of electric drives for fuel supply systems of aircraft gas turbine engines
venue: 2019 International Conference on Electrotechnical Complexes and Systems (ICOECS)
year: 2019

abstract: The article discusses the possibility of improving the main characteristics (efficiency, specific thrust) of a gas turbine engine by using liquefied natural gas (LNG) as fuel. This possibility is considered on the example of using as fuel instead of aviation kerosene on PS 90A and NK 93 engines. The parameters of the engine were determined at various stages in the cruise flight mode when operating on kerosene and LNG. The parameters evaluating the fuel consumption of the engine are calculated and compared for both fuels. The performance characteristics for kerosene and LNG were evaluated in the system of the Tu 330 subsonic transport aircraft. Energy losses during storage of cryogenic fuel on board the aircraft are estimated.
author_names: Dmitry Uglanov

Roman A Panshin

Alexandra B Shimanova

Evgeny S Gaev
title: Improving the Efficiency of Gas Turbine Engines Through the Use of LNG
venue: 2020 6th International Conference on Mechanical Engineering and Automation Science (ICMEAS)
year: 2020