Savings of up to 40 percent on jet fuel for the Rolls-Royce 250 turbine-engine family? That is the prospect offered by Frontline Aerospace, said company CEO Ryan Wood in describing an emerging aviation technology called gas turbine recuperation.
Frontline’s patent-pending product, MicroFire, extracts waste heat from turbine-engine exhaust gases and injects it into air passing from compressor to combustor. The result of hotter air entering the combustion process is greater energy release per unit of fuel burned. Wood explained that until now turbine recuperators, though proven in land-based applications like power generation plants, have been too heavy and bulky for aviation use. MicroFire, he said, solves those problems with new heat-exchanger technology, materials and design. Compact enough to reside within exhaust ducts of the larger R-R 250 engines, the MicroFire system weighs less than 50 pounds.
