Volgograd engineer Vladimir Kostyukov has developed and patented an unusual design for a gas turbine engine. In it, the processes of air compression and intermittent combustion are organized using a rotating rotor with special channels.
The proposed scheme is based on a cascade gas generator using a cascade pressure exchanger.
Inside the casing, there is a rotating rotor with channels located around its circumference parallel to the shaft. As it rotates, the channels are sequentially connected to various ports of the casing: air is supplied through some, fuel through others, and then the mixture is ignited.
The resulting high-temperature working fluid then enters the pressure cavity and, through the next section of the rotor, is directed to the high-pressure outlet, connected to an expansion device — for example, a high-pressure turbine. Simultaneously, part of the combustion products can be discharged through a low-pressure channel. Additional bypass channels ensure a stepwise increase and decrease in pressure in individual rotor channels as it rotates.
The patent provides for various layout options. The rotor can have several rows of channels and function as a cascade motor-compressor, and the scheme itself can be used in gas turbine engines, turbofan engines, motor-compressors, and power plants.
The author also describes intermediate air cooling, water injection, heat recovery, turbine cooling, and a variant with a steam-gas cascade pressure exchanger.
The main technical idea is to use intermittent combustion with pressure increase instead of simple fuel combustion at relatively constant pressure. The patent description states that the proposed scheme should increase the power and efficiency of the gas turbine engine, reduce its mass and dimensions, and improve environmental parameters.