This is my first post here.
I had an idea the other day and after some research found that it already exists (always does), anyways the idea was to create a parabolic trough with some sort of heat transfer fluid (synthetic oil or something along those lines) that would collect sunlight, the oil gets hot, hot makes water get much much bigger, and suddenly the compressor end of a jet engine is taken care of.
In other words, using sunlight to boil water to run a steam turbine.
Ie This: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_trough
The excess steam after being run through the turbine could either go through more stages to help extract just a little bit more of the energy stored in it, or it could pass through a condenser of sorts.
Originally the idea was to shove a bunch of troughs on the roof of a house and use this to provide some of the electricity for the home. Further more, a condenser could allow the excess heat left in the steam to heat hot water for the home, as well as the home itself.
After that massive brain storm... I started thinking about building this thing (or atleast a model of it just to prove to myself it was feasible). The parabolic trough isn't terribly hard to build, the boiler isn't either -- Water Tube boiler, replacing flames with hot oil from the trough.
But the turbine, that's a whole other story....
Impulse turbines such as a Pelton turbine (while designed for water) are relatively simple, bunch of buckets strapped to a wheel.
Reaction turbines are much less so. But the same problems remains. How on earth with manual tools (such as a sieg x1, and a taig lathe) does one go about building a turbine, impulse or no? Obviously we're talking small here, say wheel diameters with blades not exceeding 3".
I had thought about turning a blank cylinder down and then using a slitting saw and an indexer to cut out slots in the blank. Then blades could be formed using a press/die setup (arbor press, or even bench top vise). But how to keep them attached to the wheel? Or even in the case of a Pelton turbine, keep the buckets on the wheel?
Furthermore, reaction turbines are built in two parts, the outer half, the Cask, houses stationary blades which curve the incoming fluid stream in to the next set of blades. I'm not even sure where to begin here. Complementary turbine wheels with one somehow held stationary could work, such as a collar that attaches to the housing. However again, how are the blades attached to the wheel? And how are they attached so that their centrifugal force doesn't have them flying off in to the casing?
With all these base machining questions, there are still questions as far as material requirements. Steam isn't going to be ungodly hot as opposed to the innards of a jet engine, but, is it too hot for aluminum? Most likely creep and the high rotational energy will be enough to fling aluminum apart, so steel then becomes required - perhaps.
Steel is pretty much outside my patience as far as milling goes, the poor x1's rigidity is dreadfully apparent trying to mill steel, it can do it, but the feeds are tiny as to minimize stress on the machine and thus any serious milling work is going to take hours - days - weeks to finish in steel. (Hence the forming idea further up)
Anyways after reading that wall of text, I'd like to ask for help to try and invent feasible ways of producing turbine blades and wheels at home. Preferably without access to a CNC machine - The Turbinia didn't need one... And hopefuly without casting anything, steel is outside most home foundries anyways, but even aluminum investment casting would require some finishing...
The blades don't need to be absolutely perfect nor 3d airfoils of exact optimal shape, to be honest just curved chunks of metal that are all curved the same way to the same length
Certainly more issues will pile up and in regards to my original idea above, the system itself has more issues. However, lets try to come up with some ways someone at home could build a steam turbine.
For those who made it through the massive wall above, don't worry I'm never this long winded, just been thinking about this for awhile....