The Saturn/Lyulka AL-34 was an unbuilt
turboshaft
A turboshaft engine is a form of gas turbine that is optimized to produce shaftpower rather than jet thrust. In concept, turboshaft engines are very similar to turbojets, with additional turbine expansion to extract heat energy from the exhaust ...
/
turboprop
A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller.
A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction gearbox, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propelling nozzle. Air enters the intake and is compressed by the compressor. ...
engine for rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, proposed by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
in the early 1990s. In turboprop form, the engine was offered for light aircraft such as the
Sukhoi
The JSC Sukhoi Company (russian: ПАО «Компания „Сухой“», ) is a Russian aircraft manufacturer (formerly Soviet Union, Soviet), headquartered in Begovoy District, Northern Administrative Okrug, Moscow, that designs both civil ...
Su-86 eight-passenger business airplane,
the
Myasishchev M-101T Gzhel
The Myasishchev M-101T is a Russian business class aircraft, designed by Myasishchev and built by Sokol design bureau, Sokol. The aircraft was first flown on 31 March 1995.
Operators
;
* Dexter Air Taxi (3 aircraft).
* 3 more aircraft oper ...
business jet,
the
ROS-Aeroprogress T-101 Grach nine-passenger aircraft,
its derivative T-108 Zolotoy Orel nineteen-passenger aircraft,
and the Krunichev T-511 "AIST-M".
As a turboshaft, the AL-34 was proposed to power the
Mil Mi-54 and the
Kazan Ansat
The Kazan Ansat is a Russian light, multipurpose helicopter manufactured by Kazan Helicopters.
History
Kazan Helicopters in Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia has been one of the main Russian manufacturers of helicopters of the Mikhail Mil bureau design. ...
helicopters. The engine was also considered for unconventional aircraft such as the
Mil Mi-30
__NOTOC__
The Mil Mi-30 (also known as the Vintoplan) was a Russian tiltrotor STOL/VTOL concept that originated in 1972. The Mil Mi-30 Vintoplan would have been a transport aircraft for up to 19 passengers or two tons of cargo. Its purpose was to ...
L Vintoplan
tiltrotor
A tiltrotor is an aircraft which generates lift and propulsion by way of one or more powered rotors (sometimes called ''proprotors'') mounted on rotating shafts or nacelles usually at the ends of a fixed wing. Almost all tiltrotors use a t ...
aircraft,
and it was to be an auxiliary engine for powering the
boundary layer control
Boundary layer control refers to methods of controlling the behaviour of fluid flow boundary layers.
It may be desirable to reduce flow separation on fast vehicles to reduce the size of the wake (streamlining), which may reduce drag. Boundary l ...
system and air cushion on the
EKIP
EKIP (translated from , the Russian acronym for "", which means "Ecology and Progress") is the Soviet and Russian project of a multifunctional aerodrome-free aircraft, built according to the " flying wing" scheme, with an elliptically shaped f ...
flying saucer
A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...
(a
flying wing
A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blis ...
aircraft).
The AL-34 was one of the few engines to use a
recuperator
A recuperator is a special purpose counter-flow energy recovery heat exchanger positioned within the supply and exhaust air streams of an air handling system, or in the exhaust gases of an industrial process, in order to recover the waste heat. ...
to recover and reuse
waste heat
Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utilit ...
from combustion.
The engine came in two versions. The AL-34-1 was an engine that produced in cruise conditions.
It weighed , which included a compact, recuperator. The AL-34-2 was a twin-configuration engine producing , weighing about , and using a common
gearbox
Propulsion transmission is the mode of transmitting and controlling propulsion power of a machine. The term ''transmission'' properly refers to the whole drivetrain, including clutch, gearbox, prop shaft (for rear-wheel drive vehicles), diffe ...
in a single module.
In October 2000, Saturn/Lyulka confirmed that it was still developing the AL-34 engine in the power range, and it was working with
Kawasaki
Kawasaki ( ja, 川崎, Kawasaki, river peninsula, links=no) may refer to:
Places
*Kawasaki, Kanagawa, a Japanese city
**Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki, a ward in Kawasaki, Kanagawa
**Kawasaki City Todoroki Arena
**Kawasaki Stadium, a multi-sport stadium
*K ...
on stationary powerplant applications.
The AL-34 would cost 200-240 thousand dollars, and it would require about 22 million dollars to complete development.
As late as January 2004, the engine was still being proposed for the T-511 "AIST-M" derivative of the
Krunichev T-411 Aist
The Krunichev T-411 Aist ( en: ''Stork'') is a Russian light utility monoplane designed by the Russian company Aeroprogress and placed into production by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.Jackson 2003, p. 381. A version is ...
light utility aircraft.
However, the AL-34 never entered production.
Specifications
References
Citations
Bibliography
Plot of takeoff SFC vs. takeoff shp for shaft engines, Vick, 2013*
{{Lyulka aeroengines
Saturn aircraft engines