New Cheap Rugged Turbine

wrote:
A new turbine has been announced which is claimed to have unprecedented
low cost and ruggedness:

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Article...n+turbines.htm

http://www.swri.edu/4org/d18/mechflu...rb/radflow.htm

How significant is this announcement? How low-cost is low-cost? How
rugged is rugged?
What is the tradeoff to this design? Lower energy efficiency?

I like the idea, although I wonder how the turbine works. Does it work,
like spinning fireworks, by slinging the air in a radial way? In that
case, it is probably less effective than a conventional turbine. Also,
the combustion part seems a bit "wasted area" to me (I know you need
combustion, but you would rather not have placed it on the disc). I
think you run into trouble with this design if you make it too large,
for both rotating-mass reasons and turbine earodynamical reasons.
Still, combining all the rotating parts of a jet engine into one is
something brilliant.

What new applications will it enable or make practical? Turbine
lawn-mowers? Turbine-powered bicycles? New personal aircraft? Moller
SkyCar? Helmet-mounted turbine helicopter blades?

One of the first applications that springs to mind is model aircraft.
Simplicity is very important there and fuel efficiency comes second. You
could build real turbine model helicopters for a reasonable price.


Comments plz?

(Btw, just as an aside -- what is a 'nanotechnology gas turbine'
anyway? Is that one of those experimental dime-sized turbines etched
from a silicon wafer that can be used to power a laptop or PDA?)


I do not know what the engine will do at extremely low Reynolds numbers,
although I think you can construct the disc in such a fashion that the
flow has no choice but to "follow the lines". I don't have a the
faintest idea how effective it would be at a sub-milimeter scale.

You could build tiny maintenance robots with it (to revise or check a
conventional turbine ), but I'm afraid the military would be
interested first to build deadly bugs.

Best regards