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Turbine Update

Our team is working with Dan Granett on the boundary layer turbine (see former blog entry). This will be a profound improvement over the Lister for electrical generation. It will be fired by a Babington burner with a flash steam generator. Here are simplified designs from Dan:

Note that the design is scaleable and DfD (Design for Disassembly). Compression collars bind the structure together. Off-the-shelf components are used, including pipe sections for the outer casing. There are small bolts for putting the casing together. Seals will be made with gasket sealer. By increasing the main casing pipe section lenth and adding more disks, power output may be scaled. For those of you who appreciate simplicity of design, this is – once again – pure passion, straight from the fiery American underground.

Here is the picture of the nozzle and exhaust that shows how the turbine will be driven – by any working gas – such as steam:

Data from published engineering journals in the 60’s showed efficiency of 25%. Here we expect about 4 kW+ of electrical generation, when coupled directly to a generator.

The design has been simplified to the point that we decided to build the thing in-house. There’s a simplified balancing procedure that we will use for the finished rotor.

We need a 12″ lathe, an air compressor, and a micro drill for fabricating the Babington burner nozzle. Let us know if you have any leads.

3 Comments

  1. Stephane Jean

    Hi, i need to produce electricity with waste oil boilers, so i need a turbine and a generator to do that. I need to produce aprox. 85kw per day (3.5kw/hour) for my home.
    I’m interest about your turbine!

    Thank You
    Stephane JEan

  2. Marcin

    It turns out from further research that steam engines are the technology of choice for 500 hp and under energy systems. Does anyone dispute this point?

    Please email us at opensourceecology at gmail dot com if you’d like to be part of our combined heat and power development project.

  3. Andy Mahoney

    If you are looking for a Babington Burner Nozzle for your turbine project I actually hand make them.

    I send them worldwide.

    http://www.homebrewpower.co.uk/html-shop-products/babington-burner-nozzles-for-sale.html