Figure 1. Free Piston Pump (FPP) for Navy Microturbines
We designed, built, and tested a breadboard Free Piston Pump (FPP) in Phase I of a project for the Navy to develop a fuel pump for microturbines that meets long-life and low-cost needs of the Navy. Our FPP has hydrostatic bearings (which use diesel fuel as the working fluid) that support a reciprocating piston against radial loads. Figure 1 above shows the test set-up for our Phase I breadboard fuel pump. Our Phase I breadboard fuel pump produced over 10 lph (21 lbm/hr) of diesel-fuel flow at a delivery pressure of 225 psig.
We designed, built, and tested a breadboard Free Piston Pump (FPP) in Phase I of a project for the Navy to develop a fuel pump for microturbines that meets long-life and low-cost needs of the Navy. Our FPP has hydrostatic bearings (which use diesel fuel as the working fluid) that support a reciprocating piston against radial loads. Figure 1 above shows the test set-up for our Phase I breadboard fuel pump. Our Phase I breadboard fuel pump produced over 10 lph (21 lbm/hr) of diesel-fuel flow at a delivery pressure of 225 psig.