Development of Micromachine Gas Turbine for Portable Power Generation(<Special Issue>Micro Mechanical Engineering)

Micromachine gas turbine with centrifugal impellers of 10mm diameter fabricated by 5-axis micro-milling is under development at Tohoku University, in conjunction with Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (IHI), Tohoku-Gakuin University, and Sankyo Seiki Mfg. Co., Ltd. The development is currently at the stage of proving the feasibility of the gas turbine cycle by component tests. Micro-combustors have been developed for both hydrogen and methane fuel. Over 99.9% of the combustion efficiency has been realized in both combustors and the baseline configuration of the combustor for the gas turbine is set. A compressor of 10mm diameter has been developed as a micromachined turbocharger. The performance test of the micromachined turbocharger has been started, and ran up to 566000 rpm, which is approximately 65% of the design speed. Compressor performance has been successfully measured along a constant speed line at 55% of the design speed.