Development of micro-turbo charger and micro-combustor as feasibility studies of three-dimensional gas turbine at micro-scale

A gas turbine at micro-scale is under development at Tohoku University in conjunction with Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (IHI). The development of the engine is currently at the stage of experimentally proving the component performance required to realize the Brayton cycle. The component tests are split into two activities at current stage to separate the effect of the heat transfer from the combustor to the compressor, which was shown to have large effect on the component efficiency, by previous studies. Current objective of the tests is to clarify whether the gas turbine at micro-scale is feasible from the point of performance change due to the scaling effect. A micro-turbocharger has been developed to prove the performance of the compressor and the bearing. It has been started operating and the micro-turbocharger tests are currently underway. Micro-combustors have been developed to find the appropriate configuration of the micromachine gas turbine. It has successfully been designed and tested to achieve 99.9% of combustion efficiency with both Hydrogen and Methane fuel.