Core Tech
Pressure Ratio, Turbine Entry Temperature, Multifuel Combustion
Pressure Ratio
With pressure ratio and hence temperature ratio featuring heavily in specific fuel consumption in heat engines, a key feature of the development at HyperGen will be focused on a large increase in efficiency via more competitive compression ratios, as Microturbines are currently generally limited to a single stage centrifugal compressor:
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Microturbines, ~3:1 - ~4:1
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Pratt and Whitney PT6A, ~7:1 - ~10:1
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Mazda Sky Activ-x 16.3:1
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Typical Diesels, ~14:1 - ~25:1
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Rolls Royce Advance3, 60:1
Turbine Entry Temperature
An increased compression ratio will lead to increased temperatures out of the combustion chamber, and the limit for this is what the materials can withstand, particularly the first stage turbines which are also under significant mechanical stress. For this reason, HyperGen is developing new concept turbines with the goal of improving TET over the typical un-cooled radial turbines which are used in many microturbines.
Multi-Fuel Combustion
One of the reasons for choosing microturbines, and one of HyperGen’s goals is to increase the adoption of alternate liquid and gas fuels and decrease fossil fuel usage and associated emissions. Combustion at constant pressure offers many advantages over combustion at constant volume when working with different fuels. There are also a number of other benefits such as no need for a water jacket and significantly cleaner burn resulting in lower particulates, and less harmful by products.