Alternative engines

Roger Heflin rah at horizon.hit.net
Fri Apr 23 01:18:08 GMT 1999



On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, Kurek, Larry wrote:

> > Chrysler came out with a turbine powered car in 1962 or 
> > 1963... never made
> > it into production and the test drivers said it took forever 
> > to get up to
> > highway speed... Once it got up there though, they said it 
> > would accelerate
> > pretty well.
> 
> Huh? How does it accelerate if it has no torque? Maybe they just didn't gear
> it correctly. Maybe a CVT type of transmission is needed to keep the rpm up
> and multiply the torque accordingly. With electronic controls, it would be
> an interesting project...run the turbine at a constant speed, and do all of
> the throttle control/etc off the trans...hmmm..
> 
The problem is that the gearing would need to horribly high to make it
work when the car was moving really slow, now if you made it hybrid
vehicle (motor/generater set with turbine running the generator) it
could probably be made to work, it just may not be cost effective.

The M1 tanks use turbins for power, and they are quite loud, but I
have been told that they are quieter that the diesels the previous
generation used at full bore.  I don't know how they made them work
in a tank and solved these problems.  

				Roger




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