The present invention relates a jet engine of small size, light weight, high output, low vibration and high reliability, which is enabled to operate extremely near a man such as within a range of 2 m by reducing the noise and the temperature of the jet engine.
In 21th century, the transfers of traffic facilities from public ones to personal ones are becoming causes for changing the living environmental structures and the social structures drastically as suburban retail trades in the narrow national land of Japan. However, these transfers of the traffic facilities from the public to the personal are realized only on the land. This belongs to only the technical problem. With a sufficient technical backup, if any, the transfers of the aerial traffic facilities, which are only public at present, to the personal ones are believed to occur. The technique for solving that technical problem has been proposed in JP-A-2005-138641 (Patent Document 1). By applying this technique, it is possible to acquire the means for a man to go freely in the air. This means has to be backed up by an engine, which allows a man to fly freely in the air.
Here in JP-A-11-301596 (Patent Document 2), there is disclosed a technique on a jet engine silencing device, which is called the fence type engine runup silencing device. However, this technique relates not to an internal structure of the jet engine but to a silencing technique for silencing the jet engine on the ground with a fence.
“Investigations (1st Report) on Space Moving Robot” written by Hiroya Iwata, Association of Measurement Automation Control, Papers of Lectures of System Integration Branch, 2004
The propeller propulsion employed in the conventional small airplane uses a propeller having a diameter of 1 m or more so that it is remarkably dangerous for the persona use. In addition, most propeller propulsion airplanes use piston engines so that they have high vibrations to lower the reliabilities of the engines themselves and the electronic devices.
Moreover, the engine to be used for the traffics to transport a small number of persons is required to have the following strict conditions:
1. Small size; 2. Light Weight; 3. High Output; 4. Low Vibration; 5. Low Noise; 6. Safety; and 7. Reliability.
The most possible conventional art for this engine a jet engine or an electric fan. However, this electric fan finds it difficult to solve the problem of the light weight including the battery. On the other hand, the jet engine has problems in the noises especially at a high speed rotation and in the temperature rise in the gas, and finds it important to retain the safety.
Therefore, the present invention has a main object to provide a jet engine which is made safe in the injected exhaust gas by reducing the influences of heat, and an object to provide a jet engine which is suited especially for a small airplane.
The present invention is a technique for adding a low noise and a safety by lowering the exhaust gas temperature, to a jet engine of a small size, a light weight, a high output, a low vibration and a high reliability so that the jet engine can operate extremely near a man.
At first, there are described the features of the small size, the light weight, the high output, the low vibration and the high reliability intrinsically belonging to the jet engine are described. The jet engine has a structure including a compressor, a combustor and a turbine so that it operates only with the rotational motions. As a result, the jet engine has far less vibrations than those of the internal combustion engine having reciprocating pistons. Moreover, the jet engine of the traffic facilities for personal uses has a thrust of about 500 N so that it has a small compressor diameter and a high rotation speed. Therefore, the vibrations are more lowered than those of the jet engine of the conventional art. The low vibration means that the stresses at the individual portions become relatively constant to the time axis so that they provide a high reliability. Moreover, the jet engine has a high output per weight next to that of a rocket engine so that it has a high output in a small size and with a light weight.
However, in addition to the compression of the intake air, a jet flow of a high speed is generated by the thermal expansion accompanying the combustion, with a defect that a large noise is generated. Moreover, the jet engine for the personal traffic facilities is arranged near the man, and rotates at a high speed. As a result, this high-frequency noise from the compressor obstructs the practical use of the jet engine.
In order to solve these problems, the noise insulation has to be made, but this noise insulation and the retention of the jet flow speed are contrary to each other. If the noise insulation is made complete, the flow speed is theoretically zero to raise a contradiction that the jet engine cannot be used as an engine. In the conventional art, a jet airplane carrying the jet engine is so large-sized that the engine is spaced and blocked from a passenger compartment being pressurized. Therefore, the noise prevention is thought sufficient, if it is solved near an airport. Therefore, the noise insulation of the jet engine of the conventional art is performed at the time of increasing the bypass flow and mixing the ambient air through a metallic diffuser and by means of a noise absorber called the “lining” having a honeycomb member reinforced by a porous surface material. In the structure of the large-sized jet engine of the conventional art, the honeycomb is sandwiched by a back skin and the porous metal sheet or composite member.
In the jet engine for the personal traffic facilities, the noise source itself is small because of the small engine size, but the man has to exist near the engine and to be light, so that the structure like that of the jet engine of the conventional art cannot be adopted.
According to the invention, therefore, there is adopted the means, as has been nonsense in the conventional art, for using the glass fibers in the exposed state, although the glass fibers have never been employed in the jet engine. Thus, the jet engine can realize the drastically low noise with the low weight and can make no one feel hot, even touched, by the improvement in the insulation. Moreover, the jet engine for the personal traffic facilities sets the combustion temperature to the heat resisting maximum for the refractory metal of nickel group. Thus, the jet engine is characterized in that the glass fibers can thermally stand only with the cooling boundary layer by the bypass air.
In order to solve the problems thus far described, therefore, according to the present invention, there is provided a jet engine including: a combustor unit arranged at a center thereof; an intake compressor; a combustor; a turbine for driving the intake compressor; and a fiber sound absorber member disposed on the inner circumference of an intake duct around the suction side of the combustor unit and an exhaust duct around the exhaust side of the combustor unit, the fiber sound absorber member being covered with a net for keeping the shape of the duct inner surface and having a surface exposed to the inside of the duct.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, further including: a fiber sound absorber member disposed on the inner circumference of an intake duct around the suction side of the combustor unit.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein the fiber sound absorber member is glass wool.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, further including: a second sound absorber member having a sound absorbing frequency band different from that of the fiber sound absorber member, the second sound absorber member being disposed around the fiber sound absorber member.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, further including: a second sound absorber member having a heat resisting temperature different from that of the fiber sound absorber member, the second sound absorber member being disposed around the fiber sound absorber member.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein the second sound absorber member is made of a foamed material.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein the foamed material is foamed polyurethane.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein the foamed material is foamed metal.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, further including: a third sound absorber member having a sound absorbing frequency band or a heat resisting temperature different from at least the second sound absorber member, the third sound absorber member being disposed around the second sound absorber member.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein a bypass air flow from the intake port for bypassing the combustor is guided in the inner face of the fiber sound absorber member.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein the bypass air flow cools the sound absorber member.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein the bypass air flow suppresses the exhaust resistance by covering the surface of the sound absorber member with a low-temperature air boundary layer.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein the net covering the duct surface is made of a meshed refractory metal.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, further including: an intake cone disposed a the center of the intake duct of the combustor unit; and a sound absorber member disposed in the intake cone.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein the outer circumference section of the intake cone is equal to or larger than the outer circumference of the combustor unit.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein fibers are used as the sound absorber member to lower the noise; an air boundary layer of low noise is formed by the bypass air flow to lower the temperature; and the protection at the turbine broken time is ensured by the double-casing having the second sound absorber member and by the meshed refractory metal is given to make the operation extremely near a man.
Further, there is provided the jet engine, wherein a hydrogen gas under a high pressure is used as a fuel.
The jet engine of the low noise, the low temperature, the small size, the light weight, the high output, the low vibration and the high reliability of the present invention is enabled, by using the inexpensive and simple traffic facilities of personal use, not to contribute to realization of the air personal traffic facilities but also to be applied to the unmanned air physical distribution system because of its safety, so that the safety even at the engine stop can be retained.
The invention succeeds in the drastic noise reduction to 20 dB by manufacturing the sound-proofing structure using the glass fibers, which have been accepted as unusable on principle as the existing sound-proofing structure of the jet engine. More specifically, the invention is realized by a jet engine comprising a combustor unit arranged at its center and including an intake compressor, a combustor and a turbine for driving the intake compressor. In the jet engine, a sound absorber member of fibers is so disposed on the inner circumferences of an intake duct around the suction side of the combustor unit and an exhaust duct around the exhaust side of the combustor unit as is covered with a net for keeping the shape of the duct inner surface and as has its surface exposed to the inside of the duct.
The flow of techniques to progress from machines through electronically controlled machines to robots is penetrating at present into all transportation machines including automobiles. Of these, the aerial mobility (or aviation) having less collision risks excepting those at the takeoff or landing time has already been in the robotic progress for military uses. The invention assumes as its applications the system, in which the aerial space is industrially utilized at a low risk by constituting the personal traffic system lightening the takeoff or landing risks in the air. The invention is practiced as the power for a flying vehicle suited for that system or for a space moving robot, and assumes its fields of applications, as shown in
The performances required for the flying vehicle to be released from the takeoff or landing risks are the three points: a low stalling speed, a low sinking rate and the use of the jet engine. For the low stalling speed of those requirements, the retention of safety for the stalling is essential so long as the principle employing the lift is used, and the safety is drastically enhanced to facilitate the takeoff or landing by suppressing the stalling speed to 25 Km/hour or less. If the maximum speed at the collision time is lowered, moreover, the effectiveness of a passive collision safety device such as an airbag can be enhanced. For the low sinking rate, on the other hand, the safety of not only the robot itself but also the obstacle is retained in combination with the passive collision safety device such as the air bag, if the dynamic falling speed is equivalent to that of parachute although all the power sources or electric powers cannot be used. The use of the jet engine is taught by the spread of marine jets in recent years, because it is essential for spreading into the human society that the flying vehicle has no exposed object rotating at a high speed, such as a propeller. The advantages of the jet engine of the small size and light weight but the high output, the air-cooled, the low-inflammability fuel and the low NOx emission are suited for the robotization. The invention contemplates to provide such jet engine. The space moving robot has a unique structure, in which a wing and a body are connected through one robot articulation, as shown in
The results of investigations on the fuel cost of the jet engine are described in the following. The specifications of the piston engine and the jet engine, as used for the investigations and having similar outputs, are tabulated in Table 1. The relations between the sum of the fuel weight and the engine weight and the flight time at the time of using those engines are presented in
The space moving robot, as intended to have the jet engine of the invention mounted thereon, has a final object as the final object, and is imagined to have a flight range of 1,000 Km or less and the maximum speed of 150 Km/hour or less but not to operate 8 hours or longer. From this, as seen from
The results of the noise measurements with only the jet power are described in the following. The solutions for the measures against the hardest problem or the noise with the jet engine have been verified by experiments. At first, the noise is measured on the jet engine in the state having no countermeasure against the noise. FIGS. 6, 7 and 8 present the measurement results at the front, the side and the back of the engine, respectively. Only the side measurement results of
Next, the volume distribution of the twin type jet engine is presented in
As a result of the propagation characteristics of
The results of investigations on the sound-proofing structural design are described. The causes for making it difficult to design the sound-proofing structure of the engine are restrictions on the hot backward jet and the center of gravity of the engine. In order to solve the problem of the hot backward jet, the method of combining materials having the characteristics of two kinds is adopted for the sound-absorbing material to form the sound-proofing structure.
This double structure is shown in
In order to minimize the sound-proofing space on the intake side thereby to attain the maximum sound-proofing effect, on the other hand, the sound-proofing cone 7 having a triangular cone structure, as shown in
This problem is caused by the relation, in which the sound-proofing effect and the engine intake efficiency are offsetting each other in the design of the triangular cone structure and the intake portion, as shown in
The jet engine intake section area of the structure of
The measurement results of the jet engine according to the invention are described in the following. The jet engine having the sound-proofing structure of the invention and the old engine not using the technique of the invention are run in the twin-engine operation and in the idling operation at 36,000 rpm. The results of these running operations are presented in
Like the measurements of the old engine:
The invention has been conceived by solving the problem belonging to the space moving robot mounting jet engine, which is required to work extremely near a man. The most severe problem or the noise is measured and verified by designing and manufacturing the structure for achieving the prominent sound attenuation. This new engine structure is manufactured by combining the sound absorber members of different frequency characteristics and by designing the optimum shape. The excellent characteristics are confirmed by the bypass air structure in the minimum loss of the jet engine output and in the high cooling effect.
The space moving robot to be used for personal uses is expected for various industrial applications, but requires the engine of the small size, the light weight and the high output, which can work safely extremely near the man. According to the invention, however, the jet engine to work near the man can be safely used. The space moving robot, which can be the most promising for use in the nearest years, is a leisure product such as a hang glider powered by the jet engine of the low noise and the low temperature. The next products are the unmanned aircraft products such as a rescue robot for moving in the air and transporting relief items or a cyclic monitoring flying robot, and are extended to develop to the use of a physical distribution moving machine. Other expectable applications are the transportation of goods between solitary islands, or the quick transportation of catches from the fishing area by large fisherboats.
If the pressure of a high-pressure gas tank using a composite material of carbon fibers is improved from the present pressure of 350 atms. to 700 atms., the space moving robot can be powered in the future by the jet engine using the high-pressure hydrogen gas as its fuel, from the viewpoint of reserving the global environment. This fuel change can contribute to the solution of such a problem of the air pollution with the exhaust gas accompanying the increase in the aircraft as is raised in the small aircraft transportation system (SATS) being investigated at present.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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P.2006-017011 | Jan 2006 | JP | national |