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Gas turbine advancement |
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The gas turbine used in kiha 391 was a so
called first generation of mass produced gas turbines based on the
technology in 1950s. The efficiency was not enough to compete against
diesels due to the poor design technology and the poor heat resistant
material technology. In the air applications, a compact and light weight
power source was most important and gas turbines were most fitted to
this application and overwhelmed their rivals. This success encouraged
many engineers to apply gas turbines to the marine and land use. The
environmental pollution induced by the industrialization in those days
had become the serious problem especially in car societies. Thus, high
power weight ratio and clean exhaust of gas turbines attracted many car
industries and many researches and developments started. But perished by
the oil crisis 1973. After the oil crisis, the high efficiency became
the most important and the clean exhaust was secondary importance.
Especially in rail applications, if only a high cost for electrification
was allowed, an environmentally friendly high speed rail could realize
and turbine powered high speed plans were all aborted. TGV
lines were electrified, APT plan was aborted and the high speed plan was
switched to the middle speed plan by diesels. In North America, turbo
trains continued the commercial service but there was no forward motion
to high speed rail and aborted lately. Small to middle class gas
turbines only survived in applications like an emergency use or military
use. |