Novel Microturbine Engine Test Stand for Rapid Assessment of New Materials and Manufacturing Procedures

New materials and advanced manufacturing techniques are essential for creating more effective, efficient, and innovative turbomachinery systems. The current process for developing these new components has many lengthy and costly steps, which slows the adoption of new designs and materials. This work outlines a new, easy to assemble and operate microturbine engine test stand that will allow for rapid testing of new turbomachinery component prototypes, materials, and manufacturing techniques. The goal for this test stand is to allow for quick proof of concept testing that can then be used to determine if full system demonstrations of the new technologies are desirable. The engine test stand will be implemented to demonstrate the performance of the newly designed, manufactured, and/or novel material hardware and their effects on engine performance at design speeds. In addition, the test stand will be supplemented by computational analysis tools that reduce the risk of catastrophic events. Moreover, these tools will be able to accurately predict failure to assure safe demonstrations while still gathering essential performance information. Analyses include, but are not limited to, understanding stage efficiency, total engine efficiency, structural dynamic responses, and rotordynamic assessments. This work discusses the key characteristics of the equipment and some initial results demonstrating the effectiveness of the new testing facility.