The Gluhareff Pressure Jet (or tip jet) is a type of

jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term ...

that, like a

valveless pulse jet A valveless pulsejet (or pulse jet) is the simplest known jet propulsion device. Valveless pulsejets are low in cost, light weight, powerful and easy to operate. They have all the advantages (and most of the disadvantages) of conventional valve ...

, has no

moving parts Machines include both fixed and moving parts. The moving parts have controlled and constrained motions. Moving parts are machine components excluding any moving fluids, such as fuel, coolant or hydraulic fluid. Moving parts also do not include ...

. It was invented by

Eugene Michael Gluhareff Eugene Michael Gluhareff (April 5, 1916 – July 15, 1994) was born in Petrograd (now known as St. Petersburg), Russia and moved to the United States in 1924. Gluhareff was an engineer, the son of Michael Gluhareff of Sikorsky Aircraft. He is ...

, a Russian-American engineer who envisioned it as a power plant for personal

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

s and compact aircraft such as

Microlights Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with aile ...

Mechanism

Having no moving parts, the

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

works by having a coiled pipe in the combustion chamber that superheats the fuel (

propane Propane () is a three-carbon alkane with the molecular formula . It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure, but compressible to a transportable liquid. A by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining, it is commonly used a ...

) before being injected into the air-fuel inlet. In the combustion chamber, the fuel/air mixture ignites and burns, creating thrust as it leaves through the exhaust pipe. Induction and compression of the fuel/air mixture is done both by the pressure of propane as it's injected, along with the sound waves created by

combustion Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combusti ...

acting on the intake stacks. The engine has three intake stages, which are sized according to the sound created by the combustion process when running. This has exactly the same effect as the

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating e ...

and

compressor A compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. An air compressor is a specific type of gas compressor. Compressors are similar to pumps: both increase the pressure on a fluid and both can transp ...

in a

turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and ...

, creating a vacuum that sucks in air. The intakes, along with the exhaust, are sonically tuned so that the locations of the pressure antinodes of the Mach disks in the propane stream match the locations of the intake apertures. Thus atmospheric pressure augments air intake as much as possible. Early prototypes produced very small amounts of thrust, before Gluharev developed it from early experiments on producing thrust from using the pressurized fuel's

kinetic energy In physics, the kinetic energy of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its accele ...

to suck in the air and compress it prior to combustion. A 1949 reference to a very similar concept exists. Although described as a ram jet, this version heats the fuel within a closed space to create the pressure for injection and compression of the entrained air in a similar manner to the Gluhareff design and is in all fundamental respects a pressure jet of the same type.

Advantages

*No moving parts, meaning very little wear. *Simple throttling, via a valve in the fuel line. *Clean burning and very low emissions, especially as it's designed to use propane which burns very cleanly. *It's possible that the engine can be built at home from plans or a kit. These are already commercially available kits. *Simple design means that engines can be incorporated into either a

's rotor blades, or a fixed wing aircraft's wings or tailfins.

Disadvantages

*Engines need to be sonically tuned for maximum efficiency. *Noise is very similar to a

pulse jet engine 300px, Diagram of a pulsejet A pulsejet engine (or pulse jet) is a type of jet engine in which combustion occurs in pulses. A pulsejet engine can be made with few or no moving parts, and is capable of running statically (i.e. it does not need t ...

, which could cause discomfort for passengers and people on the ground. *Very high engine temperatures are a problem (the engine can glow bright orange which creates an obvious material problem). *Difficult to mount due to

operating temperature An operating temperature is the allowable temperature range of the local ambient environment at which an electrical or mechanical device operates. The device will operate effectively within a specified temperature range which varies based on the de ...

s, intake valve assembly and fuel supply.

References

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External links

A company selling plans for this engine, which can be built at home.Gluhareff Helicopter company website.
Jet engines Engines

Mechanism

Advantages

Disadvantages

See also

References

External links