Gas turbine Land Rover and leading electrical machine company SR Drives, is to produce the world’s first commercially viable - and environmentally friendly - gas turbine generator designed specifically for automotive applications. The common turbocharger for gasoline or diesel engines is also a turbine derivative. The first serious investigation of using a gas turbine in cars was in 1946 when two engineers, Robert Kafka and Robert Engerstein of Carney Associates, a New York engineering firm, came up with the concept where a unique compact turbine engine design would provide power for a rear wheel drive car. After an article appeared in "Popular
Closed-cycle gas turbine Closed-cycle gas turbine A closed-cycle gas turbine is a turbine that uses a gas (e.g. air, nitrogen, helium, argon, etc.) for the working fluid as part of a closed thermodynamic system. Heat is supplied from an external source. Such recirculating turbines follow the Brayton cycle. The initial patent for a closed-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) was issued in 1935 and they were first used commercially in 1939. Seven CCGT units were built in Switzerland and Germany by 1978. Historically, CCGTs found most use as external combustion engines "with fuels such as bituminous coal, brown coal and blast furnace gas" but were