H-Magjet 4400 hybrid turbofan ramjet engines

[blackkite]

Hi!　HyperMach SonicStar engine.
http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US20110138765A1/US20110138765A1-20110616-D00000.png

http://hypermach.com/?page_id=66

The SonicBlue vision is the development of revolutionary engine design to fundamentally change the way aero gas-turbine engines operate in order to significantly improve the performance of aircraft systems.

a.Hybrid engine technology developed to offer a highly efficient, supersonic, variable bypass fan ratio engine design.
b.The engine operates electrically by generating a large amount of on-board electric power through its superconducting electric turbine ring generator system.
c.Engine produces sufficient power to operate the multi-stage counter rotating, superconducting, dual ring motor electric bypass fans and superconducting electric ring motor axial compressor, power generation and thrust comes from 5-stage superconducting axial turbine.
d.The 54,700 thrust class S-MAGJET engine (two engines) described is optimized to fly the HyperMach SonicStar aircraft at 62,000 ft, at a specific fuel consumption below 1.05 at Mach 3.3, this performance will be unprecedented and will welcome in a new era of the future of aerospace transport.
e.Electrical generation is provided by superconducting ring generators that are powered by the high velocity exhaust thrust from the combustor section of the engine.
f.The bypass fan is a twin fan system in which one fan counter rotates with the other fan, which reduces aerodynamic swirl and drag.
g.The bypass fan configuration is not constrained by a drive shaft, heavy gears and complex gear boxes, nor complex lubrication systems and it can be run at an optimal rotational speed so as to maximize its efficiency at any aircraft velocity, or altitude.
h.The bypass fans running independently from the compressor can be run at much slower speeds than the compressor, this means a more efficient RPM for the fan blade design of the S-MAGJET, a low bypass fan supersonic engine design.
i.Lower operating RPM speeds afford the use of wider blades, raising aerodynamic efficiency and thrust per horsepower, making the engine architecture greatly more efficient than the current art of engine designs.
j.Light weight superconducting ring motors with integrated cooling for the compressor do not require a drive shaft, nor the bypass fans or the superconducting ring generators of the power turbine, a “hollow-core shaft-less” tunnel is left in the center of the hybrid electric turbine which now carries additional bypass air.
k.Bypass air as the major component of thrust, rather than the hot exhaust from the power turbine being utilized as thrust is a more efficient method of producing thrust for propulsion in turbines.
l.Supersonic-Magnetic Advanced Generation Jet Electric Turbine (S-MAGJET), the majority of electric power produced off the power turbine via the superconducting ring generators is directed forward through a proprietary electric power management system to run the electric bypass fans and the electric compressor. This electrical independence of the bypass fan from the multi-stage axial compressor raises overall efficiency of the engine by 70% alone.

 

[J.A.W.]

Any evidence of modelling/cyber &/or real metal tests done yet - on this device - as proof of concept?

 

[blackkite]

Any evidence of modelling/cyber &/or real metal tests done yet - on this device - as proof of concept?

Yes I want to know about this ,too.
Also I want ask what is the difference between H-MAGJET and S-MAGJET?

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20140306197762

Engine testing began in 2005 and 2006 and its initial findings led to a contract from the US Air Force and Rolls Royce. “With projects like this, and the risk and time, we build small first and then build full scale... On the airframe side we have been working on the design of SonicStar (and) we start tests in the wind tunnel in the States this spring,” he said.

“An invention needed to be created to go to the next level on the propulsion side... Then we will have an aircraft that could change the world and how we operate for air transport on the civil side... Ideally we would like to have the project in one region, maybe the Middle East, with one government or investment arm... one location would be ideal,” he added. – SG

 

[ouroboros]

I think the S to H change reflects that the SonicStar is now advertising mach 4 speeds, so instead of Supersonic, they mean to say Hypersonic. The greater changed functionally is that not only is this a 100% indirect drive turbine with MHD acceleration afterburner, but it also will be generating sufficient excess power that they want to utilize it to power the plasma sheath drag reduction systems that help them to achieve that mach 4 speed. Most of the excess power would be delivered to the nose for what they describe as a plasma cone for sonic compression mitigation, with additional use on the engine inlet spikes.

Now, the 100% indirect drive electric engine trying to achieve something similar to a geared turbofan alone would have been difficult enough, but at least the distances would be short and tweaking the fan/compressor/turbine ratios might make the energy delivery easier as they could be multiples of one another simplifying the ring motor design and associated power electronics, but now they are talking about sending megawatts of power from the rear to the front of the plane to power the drag reduction plasma sheath, and that seems to be an added headache (definitely more superconducting cable).

Seems that, a land based engine where the MHD segment is pure decelerator would potentially be interesting as a power generator and as a engine concept demo, if the power output works as suggested.

 

[blackkite]

Thanks! You are sharp.

 

[DSE]

I think the S to H change reflects that the SonicStar is now advertising mach 4 speeds, so instead of Supersonic, they mean to say Hypersonic.

Except hypersonic is generally accepted to mean Mach 5 and above in the community. You may remember the call out in this regard when the X-51 had issues and failed to achieve Mach 5.

Edited...
Note from the Saudi Gazette link above it doesn't even come close to Mach 4:

The SonicStar jet will be designed to reach speeds of up to Mach 3.6

 

[tartle]

Link to the company's explanation.....i.e. Mach 4 is hypersonic!?

 

[KJ_Lesnick]

This is incredibly complicated: Are they talking about using a turbojet to drive magnets to spin the fan and accelerate the flow through the engine?

 

[ouroboros]

This is incredibly complicated: Are they talking about using a turbojet to drive magnets to spin the fan and accelerate the flow through the engine?

It's a little more complicated than that. Perhaps the best analogy is a turbojet where the shaft is replaced by the electric equivalent of a CVT. The intention is to decouple (loosely couple?) the RPM of any given compressor or turbine stage from the others by going shaftless, which dramatically frees up the design space for an engine. Assuming the electrical losses of converting and modulating power from turbine/power stages to compressor/fan stages can be overcome, hence the superconductor usage. There are examples in industrial pump/turbine systems where the equipment is linked electrically rather than physically, but usually for very different reasons, where the losses incurred are tolerated, or the increased weight is allowable. To actually pull it off on a flightweight engine is very difficult.

NASA, in it's N+3 work, seems to think a LNG fueled turboelectric airplane is possible (particularly for a distributed propulsion system) if it uses fuel cooled high temperature superconductors. The NASA designs typically are BWB's featuring two wingtip conventionally designed turboshaft engines driving superconducting generatos, feeding a long array of wing embedded superconducting electric propulsor fans. One of the participants in the studies (ES Aero) went back and looked at the numbers, and claims a N+2 class 737 sized aircraft is doable with advanced (but not superconducting) motors/generators. That design is a midwing turboshaft generator feeding an inboard boxwing array of large embedded electric fans.

Indirectly driven fans are not a new thing, as past work into compressor bleed bypass air tip turbine driven fans has a long lineage, particularly in VTOL work. In such applications, lift fan needs are grossly out of sync with forward propulsion. One solution there is to physically decouple the lift fan and send most high pressure air from a low bypass ratio turbojet's compressor stage to the lift fan via ducts. There it drives a tip turbine ring, with the lift fans blades on the inside of the ring. Variations exist, such as hot bypass, where raw combustion gases are bypassed prior to going through the main turbojet tubine, and warm bypass, where some combination of post turbojet turbine exhaust gases and bleed compressor air is used to increase mass flow and cool the gases to not melt the ductwork.

VTOL lift fans were not the only application of indirectly driven fans. There was serious research into parallel fan configurations for military jets where bleed air drove a fan or compressor that was next to the main compressor. I don't recall the main reasons why, but something about mass flow/pressure being too high after the main compressor.

With the renewed interest in electric propulsion systems, looking again at electrically driven fans shows interesting possibilities. With sufficient temporary power storage, it's possible to exceed the turbine response to propulsion demands for short durations (the oft cited spool up lag for aborted landings being why turbofans are unpopular for certain cargo missions, compared to turboprops, though turboprops cheat by having pitch control).

As for this engine design though, it's seriously pushing the limits of credibility. At the very least, until there's a test bench level demo of the cycle, people will have a hard time believing. But, precisely because of the decoupled nature of the parts of the cycle, individual stages can be tested separately for viability before doing an all up test bench demo. Such a test bench demo need not even be a complete engine, again having each stage be shown in parallel rather than series configuration but connected electrically together.

 

[steelpillow]

Most of the claimed advantages were implemented in the Rolls-Royce RB211 half a century ago. It was a three-spool, high-bypass ratio turbofan. The main difference here is the proposal to create electrical "virtual driveshafts" using superconducting technologies. This may well be 70% more efficient than a single-spool turbojet festooned with theoretical reduction gearing, but than an RB211 and its descendants? Sorry, I don't see it.