Devlog #1
I’m expecting this to be quite a long project. I am aiming to design and build an electric propulsion device based off a jet engine. Modern jet engines rely on heavy, polluting fuels, so i want to be able to test my model engine in different ways to make it more effective, such as adapting the shape and the blades.
The first section of time i have spent on this has been on research, as there are quite a lot of things that i don’t know about.
The first thing to look at it the current design of the jet engine… Did you know that over 80% of the thrust just comes from the turbine fan on the front! It makes you wonder why they bother with the ‘combustion’ section of the engine. So, my design is going to focus on that front part, the ‘fan’, and the working idea for this is to used a motor.
Now, i can’t just use one of the small motors that comes with arduino kits, they’re just too small. So i’m going to have to make my own motor, specifically an inrunner brushless DC motor. But why this?
Favourable features of a inrunner brushless DC motor:
- No brushes means higher maximum speed(this is important as jet engines need to rotate extremely fast - like 2000rpm+ fast)
- It is more energy efficient
- Inrunner means higher rpm
See the attached photo for an example of this type of motor.
Once built, there is some control software that can be found online, such as by renesas, but i don’t need to worry about that quite yet.
I will use a hall effect sensor to monitor the rotations, this will be very important when it comes to making the propulsion device as effective as possible.
Next Steps:
- Research exactly how the motor will work
- Begin the CAD of the components to build it
It’s quite hot, so I’m going to leave it at that for today.
