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Episode Idea: DIY Jet Engine

jnissen

My son is big into Science fair and this year he is building a jet engine. he intends to test different combustor designs and measure various performance parameters. While this is not an easy project for a episode it has a very high degree of cool factor. How many other pojects can possibly burn your house down, potentialy kill you with shrapnel, and involve lots of cutting, welding, hacking, and electronics for controlling the whole mess? The jet is based around a turbocharger but it goes way beyond a simple plumbing experiment. To control this thing there are pressure sensors, oil pumps, temperature sensors, and many gauges.

 

How far along his he? He assembled all of the parts for his build and is now starting to weld up assemblies to form the various pieces like the lubrication system, electircal igntion system, and frame support. He still has a lot of BUILD to finish so nothing is a sure thing. Anyway from my persepctive as a Dad trying to keep my kid from burning the house down or killing himself I think this is a cool project to take on.

  • Well my son finished up his jet engine. Take a look here:

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIHQ-HNGgq0

     

    He spent most of the summer doing research and then I purchased most of the stuff for the build in late August. He built the combustor first and that really took a few weekends. Had to build between band practice and all after all! Anyway I tried to steer him down a path where it would not be to expensive but be successful. Still he had a couple of setbacks. Burned up two cheap EBAY turbo's. Those $100 turbs are not worth even looking at for something like this. Anyway found a good turbo for try number three and this is the result. Oh, the science fair part of this project... He built three differernt flame tube designs for the combustor. A full bypass version, partial bypass and a no bypass version. I got to be the official starter (ran the leaf blower!) while my son ran the fuel and ignition system. He also built an Arduino based tachometer to read the RPM of this beast. You can see that in the video as well. He had a great time. I was glad to see his welding skills improve throughout the project but I bet he used up a big spool of mig wire! Thank god for flap disk grinding wheels as it makes anyone look good with a welder!  Actually his welds at the end were very clean and his technique was good.