I've read of turbine powered series electric cars (or at least, ideas for them).
I've read of diesel powered series hydraulic cars.
I haven't found on google any kind of turbine powered series hydraulic vehicle.
Why not?
Naturally, it would go like this:
Use a gas turbine engine to move hydraulic fluid from a low pressure reservior to a high pressure reservoir.
Use a variable displacement hydraulic motor to drive the wheels. Naturally, this motor could double as a pump, so that it may also provide dynamic braking.
If the system can be made small enough, we can use the heat of the gas turbine's exhaust to drive a steam turbine, which would also pump hydraulic fluid from the low pressure reservoir to the high pressure reservoir.-- goldbb, Apr 13 2009 Because hydraulics don't work at high speeds.-- MisterQED, Apr 13 2009 You would need ludicrously large radiators to keep the hydraulic fluid cooled, and run the turbine power through a reduction gearbox to allow a lower speed pump.
Put it this way... a friend of my Dad's tried to run a skid steer fun buggy using a single 400cc Honda genset engine and had an oversized tank to allow the fluid to settle and cool, but they just couldn't run it for any length of time because it overheated the fluid. If that's with 13HP max, I'd like to see what happens with 113!-- Skrewloose, Apr 14 2009 Hydraulic fluid only heats up due to ineffeciency of the hydraulic system, so if your 13HP buggy overheated the fluid, it's because you were using the wrong kind of pumps & motors or the pipes were too small. I've worked on a digital displacement pump/motor system which produces very little waste heat and that was in a 5 series BMW! Hydraulics can be made to work well at road car wheel speeds. The problem comes with reducing the very high RPM of the turbine to produce hydraulic pressure. If you can come up with an effecint way to do that, then you have the advantage of high effeciency turbine while the high pressure hydraulic reservoir takes care of the turbine's slow response.-- Twizz, Apr 14 2009 You don't necessarily need to reduce the RPM of the turbine to produce hydraulic pressure; you just need to connect the turbine to a type of pump which can operate at a compatible RPM range.
Some obvious choices of pump would be centrifigal pumps, turbopumps, or tesla pumps.-- goldbb, Apr 14 2009 random, halfbakery