Some of you may recognise this engine if you have visited my friend Adrian Bennett’s website (www.jetpower.co.uk). We did a three way swap with Jon Starr and I ended up with the Tiernay after parting company with the Nimbus.

 

The Tiernay TT10 is a small gas turbine engine from a US Airforce ground power unit. It was originally designed to supply 24v at 10kw of power in order to power aircraft on the ground. The max horsepower is somewhere in the region of 150 HP. The little engine is quite neat and has come with everything to start it except the fuel pump and engine control unit (ECU). It’s in really good condition and as I have the  generator I hope to restore it back to it’s original function as a DC generator. You never know when you may need a 24v, 300 Amp supply!

Here’s a few more pic’s:

 

Another view from the side:

 

Here’s the turbine with the thermocouple probe:

 

The first job is to add some more metal work to Adrian’s frame so that we can mount a fuel pump and the other ancillaries including a control panel. I plan to build up a small control box as a temporary unit while I figure out the best system for the fuel delivery and control. I would like to build up an electronic engine control unit although this may be quite a complicated and tall order. Here’s the frame all painted up.

 

 

November 2013

Its been somewhat slow with the Tiernay recently, but the last few weeks has seen some real progress. My aim with this engine was to build up an automated control unit and an engine governor from scratch. There are a number of ways of doing this either digitally or using analogue devices and each has its pro’s and con’s.

I have decided to go with an analogue system using a PID control system that uses a number of op amps that control two fuel pumps. The pumps are standard  automotive EFI types and just about provide the required pressure. It has taken a lot of messing around and testing to get the thing to work and at present is still not perfect, not sure what will happen when we connect up the generator!! here’s a picture of the governor, a bit of a rat’s nest as usual.

The control panel is complete apart from a few labels. next step is to fit the generator, oil cooler and the generator control unit.