Inside-out rotary ramjet turbogenerator

A method for implementing the Brayton cycle to provide a practical rotary ramjet engine/generator based on a fundamentally "inside-out" approach is presented. Such a rotary ramjet turbogenerator eliminates the need for the conventional bladed compressor and turbine used In traditional gas turbine engines. It replaces these with a single inside-out supersonic circumferential rotor having integrated varying-area shaped ceramic ramjet channels in its radially inward surface, in which compression, combustion and expansion occur. The inside-out design places all rotating parts under compressive centrifugal loading, allowing ceramic fabrication of the high-temperature ramjet channel sections to enable operation at increased combustor exit temperatures with substantially reduced cooling requirements. The increased combustor temperature leads to increased maximum power and Increased thermal efficiency when operating at maximum power. Furthermore, in this inside-out approach the centripetal acceleration acting on the flow in the ramjet channels causes high-density reactants to be forced into the radially inward-facing combustor, and low-density combustion products to be forced out of the combustor. This greatly assists in mixing and flameliolding without the need for vortex generators or similar devices. The advantages of the Inside-out approach over previous rotary ramjet systems become Increasingly Important as the rotor radius Is decreased, since the centripetal acceleration then becomes increasingly large.