Post by CMDR_Boom on Sept 23, 2019 10:58:45 GMT -5
Greetings from a long time lurker. I've got a bit of an issue I'm trying to solve for a 2-phase project. For a little lead-in information, the first phase is I'm about 95% completed on a turbocharger-based gas generator sized around a 3lm33 Schwitzer I've had laying around for about 10 years and a handful of 60s era jet engine parts I've modified to suit the maths. It's purpose is really a testbed for a process I'm engineering. I'm waiting on a few electronics to come in, get it working on propane or whatnot, then move to phase 2 when successful. Not concerned about this part.
Along the way of sourcing parts for the Schwitzer build, I picked up 2 sizeable compressor wheels with the intention of proving scalability for the process (albeit by building a larger engine, and maybe throwing in some prototype components while I'm at it). One compressor wheel has a 5/8ths shaft size, is probably a cast aluminum something or other, and I'm guessing it was designed for heavy industry IC engines/generators judging by the profile. The 2nd I'm pretty sure is a Garrett unit off an aircraft or APU of unknown origin, has a 1 1/8th shaft hole, is of significantly heavier material (steel/alloy/Element X?), and probably the one I'll end up using.
The core problem is that both of these large compressor wheels (both are just about or over 6 7/8ths/170mm in diameter) rotate CCW and for the life of me, I can't find a suitable turbine wheel to match short of parting one off of an APU, which for the ones on ebay that I can find, would defeat the purpose of building around either of these wheels, and I still wouldn't know which rotation orientation they employ.
And besides all of that, a whole engine is way out of budget for this at the moment... =)
Getting a shaft machined for either wheel isn't too big a deal, but at the moment I'm almost at the stage of upsizing a turbine wheel from a smaller unit through a series of molds and casting my own. (Yes, it's doable and somewhat insane that I've done that much research and sourcing materials to prove its plausibility!)
Where does one get just the hot end of a suitable turbine, and preferably the housings?
The housing I can (and probably will) fabricate if push comes to shove, but it'd be awfully nice to have a professionally machined turbine wheel sized to match the comps.
Along the way of sourcing parts for the Schwitzer build, I picked up 2 sizeable compressor wheels with the intention of proving scalability for the process (albeit by building a larger engine, and maybe throwing in some prototype components while I'm at it). One compressor wheel has a 5/8ths shaft size, is probably a cast aluminum something or other, and I'm guessing it was designed for heavy industry IC engines/generators judging by the profile. The 2nd I'm pretty sure is a Garrett unit off an aircraft or APU of unknown origin, has a 1 1/8th shaft hole, is of significantly heavier material (steel/alloy/Element X?), and probably the one I'll end up using.
The core problem is that both of these large compressor wheels (both are just about or over 6 7/8ths/170mm in diameter) rotate CCW and for the life of me, I can't find a suitable turbine wheel to match short of parting one off of an APU, which for the ones on ebay that I can find, would defeat the purpose of building around either of these wheels, and I still wouldn't know which rotation orientation they employ.
And besides all of that, a whole engine is way out of budget for this at the moment... =)
Getting a shaft machined for either wheel isn't too big a deal, but at the moment I'm almost at the stage of upsizing a turbine wheel from a smaller unit through a series of molds and casting my own. (Yes, it's doable and somewhat insane that I've done that much research and sourcing materials to prove its plausibility!)
Where does one get just the hot end of a suitable turbine, and preferably the housings?
The housing I can (and probably will) fabricate if push comes to shove, but it'd be awfully nice to have a professionally machined turbine wheel sized to match the comps.
