Abstract
The European EUREKA project EU 209 or AGATA - Advanced Gas Turbine for Automobiles is a program dedicated to the development of three critical ceramic components; i. catalytic combustor, ii. radial turbine wheel, iii. static heat exchanger, designed for a 60 kW turbogenerator hybrid electric vehicle. The objective is to develop and test the three components as a full scale feasibility study with an industrial perspective. The AGATA partners represent car manufacturers as well as companies and research institutes in the turbine, catalyst and ceramic material fields in France and Sweden. The program has been running since early 1993 with good progress in all three sub-projects. The turbine wheel design is now completed. FEM calculations indicate that the maximum stress occur during cold start and is below 300 MPa. Extensive mechanical testing of the Si3N4 materials from AC Cerama and C&C has been performed. The catalytic combustor operates uncooled at 1350°C. This means a severe environment for both the active catalyst and the ceramic honeycomb substrates. Catalysts with high activity even after aging at 1350°C have been developed. Ceramic honeycomb substrates that survive this temperature have also been defined. The catalytic combustor final design is ready and the configurations which will be full scale tested have been selected. The heat exchanger will be a ceramic recuperator with 90 % efficiency. Both a tube concept and a plate concept have been studied. The plate concept has been chosen for further work. Sub-scale plate recuperators made of either cordierite or SiC have been manufactured by C&C and tested.
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call