[another slice from the Database From Hell - enjoy!]
This page: www.bacomatic.org/~dw/steam.htm
Main page: http://www.bacomatic.org/~dw/index.htm
Last Updated: 16 Jul 2003
--notes------------------------------------------------------------------
--personal observations--------------------------------------------------
--information from books-------------------------------------------------
--information from magazines---------------------------------------------
RT Jul 67
- world speed record for steamers 127.65mph, at Ormond Beach FL
MD Oct 24, 1996
- a steam car built by Charles S. Caffrey Company of Camden, NJ was in
operation in 1895. Used by Dr. F.L. Sweaney of Philadelphia, it had
four small steam motors, one driving each wheel, that could be driven
individually or in combination. One, two, three, or four wheel drive
could be selected by moving a lever.
- the car weighed 1350 pounds, had a foot brake that also cut off steam,
and steam power steering
PS May 72
- said a steam airplane flew in 1933
World Car Guide July 69
- STP and Planning Research Corp had got together to develop a steam car
- Andy Granatelli had announced he was going to develop a steam car. It
was to be developed by the Paxton Products Division of STP Corp.
--information from catalogs----------------------------------------------
--net lore---------------------------------------------------------------
[another slice from the Database From Hell - enjoy!
by [email protected]]
[email protected] (Dave Williams)
fsae 10 Nov 1994
- -> one small enough. If nobody minds, we'll be towing a stoker car
-> behind us for the competition this year. (Carcinogens galore).
- Given the short-range performance envelope of an FSAE car, ye olde steam
engine might be interesting to model. You could even do crazy things, like
putting an expander at each wheel and implementing traction control by
proportioning the torque to each.
- The last major developments of steam engines used Freon variants for the
working fluid. I could see the expression of some people when you told them
the car carried twenty pounds of Freon...
[email protected] (Richard Bell)
rec.autos.tech 9 May 1995
- >: After seeing an unlimited weight tractor pull event, where the winning
>: tractors had 5 to 7 supercharged, big block V-8's, producing around
>: 10,000 hp @3000(?)rpm; I daydreamed about fielding a modern, triple
>: expansion steam powered tractor. The other competitors would laugh at
>: my pitiful 500 hp, and then cry about my 20 000 ft-pds torque at 0.
- >: Reciprocating steam engines produce ridiculous amounts of torque at zero,
>: and have had variable valve timing for almost a century.
- >I'd be interested to know why someone hasn't tried this, or have they.
>Probably the organizers wouldn't let you enter because the thing doesn't
>shoot blue flames out the exhaust or make enough noise.
- I can think of a number of reasons. The first is that no one knows how to
design them (among people who enter tractor pulls). The second is that
while there are fewer moving parts, they are much bigger. The last is the
perceived low tech of steam engines. I have seen gas turbines used though.
j h manion 71121,1604
S1/General 05-Sep-95
- The big three are developing battery powered cars to answer pollution
reduction requirements of California. Beginning in 1998, 2 per cent of new
cars sold in that state must emit zero pollutants. The zero has been
redefined lately to 'not exceed the power-plant emissions associated with
charging an electric vehicle.'
- The clean car is here! I am puzzled by the complete lack of interest in
automotive steam power. If adopted on a large scale, our choked-up cities
could breathe again and many economic benefits could accrue. Note the 1945
dateline that follows.
- The following is taken from the San Diego Union newspaper of 01/07/45.
- WHO SAID "GET A HORSE?"
By W. J. Raridan
Fifty miles to the gallon--of hydrant water! That's what the age of
miracles brought about long ago, but few seemed to appreciate it 'way back
when the automobile was in its infancy and nobody knew whether it would live
on steam or gasoline when it grew up.
- It took rationing to give the steam automobile a chance to snort at its more
popular competitors. But it's too genteel to snort--though it does hiss at
rivals now and then. Usually it hums contentedly as if most of its family
hadn't been crowded into oblivion by legions of ubiquitous citizens.
- Although the original automobiles were all powered by steam, steam powered
automobiles were never numerous. Not many Stanleys or Whites are now to be
found. But there is a Doble here in San Diego, owned by C. T. Briar,
retired naval aviation pilot, of 1211 Maryland Place.
- Many an envious eye follows Briar as he speeds about town in his 20-year old
car using unrationed aqua pura, fuel oil and air. He is, in respect to
personal transportation, as much a potentate as one other Doble owner, an
Indian Rajah, who uses the car in hunting elephants.
- Most gas cars need overhauls after they've gone 20,000 miles. That distance
only means a rear end lube oil change to the Doble. A set of tires averages
65,000 miles. The car will travel about as far on a gallon of fuel oil as
other machines move on a gallon of gas and fuel oil is much less expensive.
- Briar gave other statistics: The Doble engine contains only 35 moving
parts, while gasoline motors have hundreds. It will do 60 at an RPM of 900.
At 1200 RPM it hits its top speed of 90. The San Diego car, E-19, has
covered 183,000 miles. A machine like it in New York has gone 360,000
miles. The steamers have 15-gallon tanks for water, allowing long non-stop
trips. They operate slightly more cheaply in hot weather than in cold.
Almost anything combustible will serve as fuel in a pinch.
- The motor resulted from pioneer experimentation on three now common
household conveniences--automatic hot water systems, refrigeration equipment
and automatic oil-burning furnaces.
- Because of many automatic release valves and special boiler construction
there is no possibility of blow-ups. The boiler is made up of seamless
steel tubing coils that expand and contract like the hair-spring of a watch
under steam pressure and temperature variance. They are welded in series.
- Briar declared that steam cars could be mass-produced more cheaply than
gasoline cars. Improvement of metals since the day when steam challenged
gas would make possible a steam car that would literally last a lifetime,
said Briar.
- One factor in which Briar showed pride was the silence of the motor and its
completely automatic electric control. When the machine is cold, he turns a
switch that lights a fire over the boiler and starts a fan to create draft.
Within two minutes he's ready to go. After that, all day long, the boiler
stays hot, fire coming on and off under thermostatic control as long as the
switch is left on, but the boiler will retain plenty of steam without fire
for hours, and a few seconds of fire will build up full 100 H. P.
- Some steamers in Europe use coal and others use solid fuels, Briar pointed
out. Seven members of the Russian general staff are now using refurbished
old Dobles. Japan might be able to send out powerful planes without
gasoline supplies, he said, and told how in 1931 he and Warren Doble, co-
inventor of the motor, now engineer with an aircraft company in California,
made preliminary arrangements with the Boeing aircraft school for the use of
a plane, and the successful flight of a steam-powered plane resulted later
at Oakland. It was flown by William Besler and financed by Besler Systems.
The plane power-unit weighed only 240 lbs., and would have been much lighter
if metals since brought into big production had then been available. When
no offer for the plane was received from any other direction, it was finally
sold to Japan.
- Briar predicted steam would "come back" in post-war trucks and busses.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -END- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
JHM thoughts:
- Other contemporary writers had the airplane steam engine going to Davenport,
Iowa for service in a locomotive. No mention of the airframe which was a
Travelair bi-plane. They reported horsepower as 90. The Doble was
manufactured by Doble-Detroit Steam Motors Company and marketed during the
1920s. It claimed a range of 250 miles non=stop.
- For detailed information, try your public library. I found FLOYD CLYMERS
MOTOR SCRAPBOOK, STEAM CAR EDITION 1945 published by Clymer Motors, Los
Angeles, California
- How can we stir some investigation in this area? It appears to me that the
steam alternative provides superior performance at a much reduced cost to
the consumer (as compared to electric). I would appreciate comments and
questions.
Ken Boak 100631,1446
S1/General 07-Sep-95
- I read with interest your message about trying to promote some interest in
steam car activities.
- I live in the UK, and we have regular steam fairs during the warmer months.
Recently I came across a 1913 White steam car, built on a Rolls Royce
chassis, weighing about 3 tons.
- The car runs on a 45% / 55% unleaded gasoline / diesel mix and would do 17
mpg, not bad mpg for a 80 yr old car. It was fitted with a condenser so
that water loss was minimal, (about 150 miles per gallon water lost). It
used a 2 cylinder (double expansion 5" LP/ 3"HP with 4" stroke ) double
acting engine that would run on up to 600 psi of steam pressure.
- I had never seen a steam car at close quarters, and to see nearly 3 tons of
machine move off from rest almost silently but with massive pulling power
was quite amazing. This car represented the pinnacle of steam car
technology, albeit from an age before the First World War. Ironically, it
was WW1 that saw rapid developments in Internal Combustion technology, by
necessity, and the steam car was never developed much further.
- Think what could be done with a modern lightweight body shell would do with
steam traction. You would only need about 20hp (steam horses are a
different beast to gasoline horses) and with modern design, control and
manufacturing techniques the steam engine could easilly be improved well
beyond its 1913 state of the art. The engines are very compact, need no
gearbox, although one would possible improve overall efficiency, and run
fairly quietly. A flash steam boiler, which only vaporises a small amount of
water at a time, could be made safe, for automotive use, and exhaust steam
could be re-used by means of an efficient condenser.
- At another local steam show I met a guy who had built from scratch a steam
car typical of the style of the early Stanley cars. He has one on the road
and another at chassis stage, showing all the works. There is a steam car
club in the UK, and one member has several times tried to get the (steam)
land speed record.
- Unfortunately steam is considered to be antiquated technology, and steam
enthusiasts, certainly here in the UK, are viewed as being somewhat cranky.
But at the end of the day if you could produce a car using some alternaive
to the IC engine as its prime mover, that is less polluting, equally safe,
low health risk and performs as well then who cares what's under the hood.
- Steam could be developed to the point where it was viable for some forms of
driving duties, but it is by no means zero emission, but it can use
alternative fuels. Because the fuel is burnt continuously at high
temperature, complete combustion is possible, the only emissions being CO2
and water vapour. Your suggestion of compressed natural gas is a good one,
I'm sure CNG technology is almost at the domestic stage of development.
- Most developments with steam, have been made with the steam turbine. Almost
all electricity generation, (except solar, hydro and wind) uses massive
multistage steam turbines to drive generators. Large scale machinery is more
efficient in mechanical terms, and the turbines are designed to run at close
to constant speed for months on end. Stop-start performance is not viable
with a steam turbine, some of the largest take 24 hours to run up to speed
from cold. Power companies have "hot starts at 6 hours", "warm starts at 12
hours" and cold starts 24 hours, and the latter they try to avoid if at all
possible.
- A high speed steam turbine driving an alternator would make a good prime
mover for an electric car. Power transmission would be by electric current
between the alternator, a small battery pack, a power controller and the
electric traction motor. All of these items exist now but has anyone put
them together in a vehicle?
Ken Boak, EV Engineer, Dorking, Surrey, England.
cis
- There is another form of heat engine called the Stirling engine, which was
invented in Scotland in 1816. Like the steam engine it can run on a variety
of fuels, but can be made much more efficient , even as efficient (40%) as
the best modern Diesel. Like the steam engine, development stopped in the
early 20 th century, as the petrol engine evolved in leaps and bounds. It
enjoyed a heyday from 1860 to 1920 as a pumping or light agricultural
engine for the vast ranches in the US and other countries. Widescale
electrification in the '30's meant that mechanical power came from electric
motors or tractor PTO units and the Stirling fell into decline.The Philips
Company picked in up in 1937 in order to try and make a small generator for
valve (tube) wireless sets, for rural communities where there was no mains
electricity , and did a lot of development on it.
- I have built model Stirling engines, that run on LPG, but could equally run
on any source of heat, even focussed solar radiation. Tests on Stirling
engines are going on all round the world at the moment but few have been
advanced to the point of commercialisation.
- I hope to use a Stirling one day in a hybrid electric car. Stirlings are
good at running at constant speed, there are no internal fuel/air explosions
so very little noise and vibration and they will run on solid, liquid and
gaseous fuels from cow-dung to corn-oil.
- Henry Ford II had talks with Philips in the Netherlands in 1948, with the
aim of putting a Stirling into a car. GM and Ford succeeded in doing this in
the early 1970's as a result of the oil crisis. The programmes were dropped
in 1976, the very yearthe US Govt. suggested that effort should be made
looking at alternative power systems for cars. It's a funny old world isn't
it?
- A better idea is to take the Stirling out of the car, and put it in your
garage, where it will generate power for your house, (and recharge your
electric car batteries at night), and the waste heat can easily be
incorporated into your central heating system and heat your home in winter.
A Stirling could be built into a stove or boiler unit, like an AGA or
Rayburn (if you know these cast iron traditional stoves) and it would make
no more noise than a refrigerator. In summer, if you need air conditioning,
a Stirling engine back-driven by an electric motor acts like a heat pump and
can be used to chill air just like an a/c unit. Stirlings are more efficient
at cooling, than a/c refrigeration units and are widely used to liquefy
gases such as nitrogen and CO2, for lab and industrial uses.
- The only thing we need now is for someone to put these various elements of
technology together and run with them.
Mike Halloran 71601,546
S1/General 08-Sep-95
- Stirlings are large and heavy relative to any IC engine. The most efficient
ones use hydrogen as the working fluid. Aside from any safety concerns,
hydrogen has the nasty habit of leaking through anything, including solid
steel, because the molecules are so small. Efficiency suffers when the
working fluid leaks even a little bit, so you need perfect dynamic seals,
which don't exist, so you need an onboard hydrogen supply.
- In all external combustion engines, large heat transfer surfaces are
necessary. Even if they are extremely convoluted, you have to put them
_somewhere_, and if you fold them so tight that they take up minimal space,
there's no room for the working fluids to flow between them. So when you
fold a large heat transfer surface enough to make the envelope compact, you
have to use strong pumps to offset the flow losses associated with getting
fluids to and from the actual surfaces.
- In all external combustion engines, the efficiency of the combustion itself
is not guaranteed by the nature of the expansion engine. The promise of
using any available flammable substance as a fuel is not practically
achievable with technology now extant. I.e., to get low emissions, you
still need fuel injection. Now how does the fuel injection system deal with
the differences in available energy per unit volume of the universe of
available fuels? It has to somehow measure or infer the specific heating
value of the fuel, so it can meter and pump the precise amount required to
meet the heat demand. Similarly, the air flow rate may need to be adjusted
for different fuels. And how does one pump precise amounts of cow dung?
- The problem of metering diverse fuel substances is pretty difficult, even
for a large electric power plant which may only have to deal with several
different grades of oil. Ensuring precise combustion using fuels like coal,
naptha, and bagasse in the same powerplant is a very challenging problem,
even if the powerplant is not small and mobile and affordable.
- I just love those toy Stirling engines that use air as the working fluid and
run on an alcohol flame. But when you start playing with one, you find that
it produces only enough power to move itself; there is no usable surplus
power produced. The same amount of alcohol can do useful work when fed to a
model airplane or chainsaw engine. Stirlings are neat, and fun, and
interesting, and pretty much a waste of time.
Mike Halloran 71601,546
S1/General 12-Sep-95
- I know how to automatically control a boiler. What I don't know how to do
is make it meet CARB air quality standards when run on the oft- cited 'any
available fuel'.
- In fact, the external combustion engine's insensitivity to fuel quality
could become a large handicap; if you design one to run best on CNG, and
certify its performance on that fuel, how do you prevent backyard mechanics
from running it on Diesel fuel, or Bunker C, or waste oil? Who bears the
liability when a steam engine fueled with old crankcase oil pollutes the
air?
- I don't see 1000 pilot lights in LA; I see 1000 engines idling to run the
air conditioners.
- As I understand it, CNG has a bulk density problem. If you convert a full-
size sedan to CNG, you have to fill the trunk with pressure bottles to get
any range. And any economic benefit will disappear as soon as the price of
CNG includes highway taxes.
- Someone from the private sector will develop any 'panacea' as soon as it
makes economic sense. Until then, panaceas burn only government money.
j h manion 71121,1604
S1/General 13-Sep-95
- I believe backyard mechanics converting the burners of steam cars to burn
dirty fuels is of no great concern. For one thing, the ranks of backyard
mechanics are seriously reduced these days. Those few that do exist would
probably be inhibited by peer pressure, conversion difficulties and burner
(performance) degradation. It is my understanding that nearly any available
fuel would burn fairly clean when adequate oxygen is present. Fairly clean
is taken as equivalent to a residential oil-fired furnace.
- You raise a good point with air conditioners at traffic jams. Some of the
old steamers had dual function generators which served as accessory drivers
during long periods of zero travel. I suspect that because of heavier
loads, as in air conditioning, an auxiliary steam engine would be required
today. That should still be less complex than the modulator is todays
transmission.
- CNG does, as you say, have a bulk density problem. The literature I hold
says the range of IC conversions is typically 150-200 miles with no mention
of fuel tank size. Not surprising. When you compare the steamer with the
electric I'm sure you will agree the CNG problem looks rather puny.
- I wish I had your faith in private sector development of panaceas. There are
a great many disincentives to volunteer effort not the least of which is
ignorance of history. Thats what I'm attempting to remedy. Other possible
hindrances could be the auto industry, repair industry and the oil industry.
Steam cars could seriously reduce their profit and few have the resources to
go against these powers. The steam cars of 1920-30 made good economic sense
during that time and I am comvinced they would do so today. And give us
clean air.
- All of which is not to say that I want government development of the
steamer. I am hoping that a T Boone Pickens, a Ross Perot, even a mere
millionaire will see the light and jump to our rescue (with some eventual
profit) . Remember, its better to light one steamer than to curse the
electric.
Mike Halloran 71601,546
S1/General 12-Sep-95
- I suggest you reconsider the use of pressurized air as a working fluid for a
Stirling engine. For one, its low specific heat makes it less suitable than
helium.
- But more important, it's dangerous. A single drop of lubricating oil in a
vessel pressurized to ten atmospheres and heated represents a significant
safety hazard. The conditions in such an air Stirling engine are hardly
different from those in a Diesel engine. In fact, the engine doesn't know
the difference, and can easily EXPLODE.
- This actually happened in hydraulic accumulators, which store energy and in
some manifestations comprise a cylinder divided by a sealed piston. One end
of the cylinder is filled with gas under high pressure. Hydraulic oil is
forced into the other end of the cylinder, further compressing the gas and
storing energy, which may be released by allowing the oil to flow out.
Consequent to some unfortunate incidents which were triggered by normal
fluid heating and mechanical shock, gas-charged accumulators are universally
pressurized with nitrogen, not air.
- At least resist the temptation to locate the engine in close proximity to
your residence.
Ken Boak 100631,1446
S1/General 13-Sep-95
- Thanks for the advice on oil air mixtures. I am well aware of the dangers
and am currently investigating a lube free engine with zero explosion risk.
- You sound as though you have had some Stirling experience. Is this the case?
Ken Boak 100631,1446
S1/General 11-Sep-95
- I guess we will not see too many steam turbine cars on the roads for a
while yet. You are correct in stating that there would be losses in overall
efficiency at each stage of energy conversion, but I would expect the
turbine to give about a 35% ( steam plant has been this efficient in both US
and UK since late '30s) efficiency converting fuel shaft power, and 85%
efficient from mechanical to electricity including line losses. In the car
the electric motor is 75% to 95% efficiency depending on the loading.
Worst case I make this22.3% overall.
- I am not an absolute proponent of the above system, but I do believe that
its overall efficiency (in stop start traffic) could well exceed the overall
efficiency of a conventional gasoline car in similar driving duties.
Remember when idling in stationary traffic your car has zero efficiency!
- The point I am making is that we should explore other alternatives for
vehicle propulsion now because one day there will no longer be the easy
option IC engine that we (almost) all enjoy today.
- The Stirling is not best suited to variable speed operation, and because of
its lower power to weight ratio it is not ideal for auto applications.
Successful automotive Stirlings were developed in the US, but these
programmes were dropped in the '80's as the auto manufacturers tightened
their research budgets.
- The Stirling is better used in places where the IC engine is inapproporiate,
the main reason being that you cannot source high grade gasoline or diesel
to run an IC engine. This includes most of the developing world.
j h manion 71121,1604
S1/General 09-Sep-95
- I agree with your comments on the Stirling engine and do not see a use for
one in a zero-emissions car. Which is not to say that makes it unlikely
some cagey engineer will devise a way around the difficulties.
- I believe your analysis of automotive steam boiler operation conflicts with
experience (not mine!) from 1900 to 1930. A variety of small boilers were
produced for the Stanley, White, Delling, Doble and 120 other steam car
manufacturers during that period. Most used keorosene or fuel oil. The
burners varied from Bunsen type, blowtorch like and fan driven atomizers.
My limited research shows nothing that could be described as fuel injection.
The problem of metering fuel and flame appears to have been met by
intermittently torching the burner from a constantly burning pilot light.
Start the fuel flow to burn, stop it when boiler operating pressure is
reached.
- One version of the flash boiler was constructed of 1/2 inch steel tubing
wound in a flat coil. Eight or so of these coils were stacked and connected
in series. The water was pumped into the top coil by the feed pump at
whatever pressure was required to overcome boiler pressure. As the water
traveled downward from coil to coil it flashed into steam and left the
bottom (hottest) coil as superheated steam.
- These components were controlled by regulators, thermostats and other
control devices to attain the 'self-tending boiler'. The technology
available today would allow improvements matching those seen in the internal
combustion engine over the past 70 years. With compressed natural gas as a
fuel, the emissions should be tolerable in Los Angeles, even. Consider the
differences between internal and external combustion in traffic jams.
Instead of 1000 or so idling engines, you have 1000 pilot lights.
- Aside from the environmental improvements, the steam car would cost less
(fewer parts), have a 44 cents per gallon fuel savings (CNG vs. gasoline)
and require much less repair. The CNG option could also reduce our need for
imported oil. Why isn't someone developing this panacea .
Ken Boak 100631,1446
S1/General 11-Sep-95
- Thankyou for your valued comments on the Stirling engine. I agree that it
does not make the best automotive engine, but as a low tech source of
mechanical power, that can be produced and maintained by developing Nations,
it is an ideal solution.
- Stirlings fell from favour in about 1920 when widespread electrification led
to most rural areas getting electric power to run their pumps, dairies,
machines etc, but 75 years later there are still isolated rural pockets of
population (in the US and the UK) where connection to the grid is not cost
effective and aluternative sources of power are sought.
- A well thought out modern Stirling, air pressurised to around 10 atmospheres
and reving at 1500 - 1800 rpm, producing say 1 to 3kW into a buffer
battery/inverter would be ideal. Any combustable material could be used,
and a benefit is that there would be enough waste heat to heat the home and
provide domestic hot water. In summer, photovoltaics and solar water
heating would be an alternative to running the Stirling.
- I am working on a pilot scheme for my residence, the Stirling charging the
batteries of the electric car.
[email protected] (Mr Charlie Robinson)
rec.crafts.metalworking 16 Apr 1993
Attention all Mechanical Engineers
Introducing the
The International Micro Steam Car Challenge
A simple and successful technical competition has
been formulated that is of special interest to
mechanical engineers. Its general appeal is
however much wider and it will be enjoyed by any
technician. It involves building an efficient
steam turbine micro car that maximizes the
distance traveled on 20 ml of ethyl alcohol fuel.
Using a simple boiler based on an aerosol or
beverage can, a small tin or aluminum plate
turbine is driven by a nozzle the size of a pin.
By keeping the mass down with a light chassis and
wheels, and by preventing heat losses with proper
insulation, participants are soon grappling with
the problems of finding the most efficient pulley
ratio and burner design to send their little
machines the maximum distance. They then begin to
search for innovative new designs and theories to
win and to improve existing records.
The Micro Steam Car formula places so little
demand upon resources in terms of materials,
facilities and know-how that school teams can also
take part. The competition originally disallowed
machine tools and this demonstrated that
successful cars can be made in a home workshop and
that there is no advantage or need for advanced
tools.
In 1992, the first national competition was won by
Paul Low, a freshman Mechanical Engineer. In the
space of two weeks, working from a home workshop
without a lathe, he improved distances from 1400m
to finally win at 2700m. He will only receive
formal instruction in thermodynamics and turbines
in senior years.
Micro steam car design is about efficiency. As in
automotive technology, light weight and low
friction are important. In any design discussion,
the turbine receives the most attention. The shape
of large gas and steam turbines do not provide
much guidance for this application with a single
microscopic nozzle. New blade shapes and small
wheel diameters to minimise windage loss must be
used. Actual floor tests are needed to determine
the best pulley ratio and burning rate. The boiler
requirements are also quite different from the big
brothers in power stations. Water inventory must
be as low as possible. Weight and the lack of a
circulation pump puts paid to many ideas.
Surprising results often emerge and the innovator
will find it difficult to improve on the roughly
40% effective simple tin can. It does not take
long for beginners to realize that the burner must
burn slowly. A high performance design will need
to be in motion for about 45 min. When this is
added to heat up time, the result is a total burn
in the region of one hour.
A simple and effective design has been developed
that is sold for a few dollars as a kit of
materials and instructions. It introduces the
beginner painlessly to the basic principles
involved so that within a few days a car can be
made to steam along the floor. It uses a beverage
can boiler with a nozzle formed by crimping copper
tube onto 0,2 mm piano wire. Held in by the lid,
the boiler is encased by a tin can that ducts the
flue gases. A segment of an oil tin forms the
the trough shaped chassis which is made rigid by
strapping it to the boiler duct can.
The 40 mm aluminum turbine has bucket shaped
"Pelton" blades that can be struck into the soft
metal with a round ended punch. The bearing system
is epoxy molded around the shaft for perfect
alignment. For minimum friction the turbine
rotates on the shaft and the shaft rotates in the
side bearings. The 3 wick burner and fuel tank is
made from the base of a small tin can. To restrict
heat conduction to the fuel, the wicks, made from
a floor mop, are drawn through hand made tin plate
tubes with soldered seams or through 4mm
laboratory glass tubing.
THE INTERNATIONAL MICRO STEAM CAR CHALLENGE RULES
1) the car must be steam (ie. pure H2O) turbine
driven.
2) a car will run on a smooth level indoor surface
between marked lines at least 2 m apart and 30 m
long and in a still atmosphere between 15 C and
30 C.
3) a car is allowed 20 ml of pure ethyl alcohol
fuel loaded into the vehicle at the start. Before
fueling, the burner must be empty, no other form
of energy may be on board and all systems must be
at atmospheric pressure and temperature. During a
(continued next message....)
run, no energy may be added apart from that needed
to perform adjustment, control and re-ignition. No
fluids apart from lubricants may be added during a
run.
4) a car shall be self propelled but minimal
assistance may be given to initiate motion, if a
vehicle stalls and to change direction. After a
direction change, a car my be pushed off at its
normal speed.
Safety
If a boiler should explode, even small amounts of
steam and water under pressure can present a
danger, mainly to the eyes and every precaution
should be taken by anyone building a steam car or
organizing a competition. Anyone firing up a
boiler should wear safety goggles.
Unless you fully understand the effects of welding
and brazing, soft soldering should be used on a
boiler.
You can participate in a number of ways
1) Make a car yourself and see just how easy it
is, what fun it is and what a challenge it is to
improve performance.
2) Arrange an inter university, inter laboratory
or inter school competition on a one off or annual
basis.
3) Arrange an event for a class of students as
part of their technical instruction.
4) Issue a specific challenge to a person or group
to better your achievement or to take part in a
measured run at an agreed venue and time. Respond
to a challenge by a rival group.
5) Participate in events organized by other
groups.
6) Appoint an official from the local professional
Mechanical Engineers institution or society to
oversee an attempt to establish a world record.
Report all events and results to :-
The Micro Steam Car Association
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Natal
Durban
4001
South Africa
In expressing interest or reporting any event or
result, you automatically become a member of the
association and will receive news of events,
records and achievements around the world.
Name_______________________________
Address/Affiliation/Company/School
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
tel______________fax_______________
New for 1993
Special Steam Car Drag Race
To the two essential elements of the Micro Steam
Car, motion using a turbine and efficiently
raising steam, the exciting aspects of speed and
direct car-to-car contest will be added as a new
competitiion to run alongside the 1993 main
distance event.
A row of cars line up behind the start line. Two
minutes before the start, the competitors fuel up
and stand ready, matches in hand. At the word GO,
burners are lighted and the the wait begins to see
which car is the first to cross the line and
continue to accelerate. Speeds may be such that
contestants will have to run to be able to steer
the car. The essential turn at the end of the
first lap may need some acrobatics or a stopping
mechanism. There will be heats and the best
performers go through to the exciting final at the
end of the day.
An experimental car has been designed, built and
tried out to prove the viability of the formula.
From light-up to the finish of two 40m laps, the
car took 55 sec. The turn around at the end of the
first lap proved possible.
The Micro Steam Car Drag Race Rules
1)the car must be steam (ie. pure H2O) turbine
driven.
2)only lead based soldering may be used on the
boiler.
3)a car will run on a smooth level indoor surface
between marked lines at least 2m apart and 30m
long.
4)a car is allowed 5ml of pure ethyl alcohol
fuel. Before fueling, the burner must be empty, no
other form of energy may be on board and all
systems must be at atmospheric pressure and
temperature.
5)before the start of a race, cars shall be
placed fully watered at any point on or behind the
start line and each competitor will be issued with
the prescribed fuel. A two minute period is then
allowed for each competitor to load the fuel using
their own instruments.
6)after the two minute period has elapsed, the
start shall be called and burners may be set
alight.
7)when behind the start line, a car may be given
minimal assistance to initiate motion but must be
withdrawn behind the line before more assistance
is given. Once accross the start line assistance
may only be given to change direction. After a
direction change, a car my be pushed off at its
normal speed.
8)from light-up, the time taken by each car to
complete 2 laps shall be recorded and the best
performers will proceed to the final where the
winning order will be decided regardless of
previous times.
end
--------------------------------------
[email protected] (Peter Adams)
rec.autos.antique 1 Mar 1995
- > I am looking for material or books on the history of the Doble cars or the
> Stanley Steamers. Does anyone know if there are books out there
> specifically on these subjects?
- 1. Doble Steam Cars by J.N. Walton. Published 1965 by Light Steam Power,
Kirk Michael, Isle of Man, UK.
- 2. Steam Cars 1770-1970 by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and Anthony Bird.
Published 1971 by Cassell and Company Ltd, London.
- 3. Steam on the Road by David Burgess Wise. Published 1973 by Hamlyn
Publishing Group Ltd, London.
[email protected] (DougH46501)
rec.autos.antique 12 Mar 1995
- Recently finished a very interesting book on Stanley Steamers: "The Story of
a Stanley Steamer" by George Woodbury W.W. Norton & Company, NY, 1950
- Story of author's rebuiding of a 1917 model, with reprint of original
manuals & tech details at back. Good reading if you can find it - Mine was
borrowed!
[email protected] (Bart Smaalders)
rec.crafts.metalworking 24 Mar 1995
- A 5->10 hp steam engine doesn't _have_ to weigh 1000 lbs; it's just that a
lot of the old machinery was designed to run for many years.
- Perhaps the easiest way of getting such an engine is to get a hold of an old
Wisconsin vertical twin industrial gas engine. They're about 3.25 x 3.25
bore and stroke, and if you remove the head & valves and make a simple slide
valve head, you can get a 5->8 hp steam engine (depending on rpm, etc) with
minimal machine work. Be sure and run a non-detergent oil and change it
frequently. If you use a poppet-valve head and high-pressure, superheated
steam you can get a lot more power, of course.
- My 19' steam launch has an engine converted from a refrigeration compressor;
it is only 2x2.5 (two single acting cylinders) and puts out 2 hp or so
(pushes the boat at 6 mph) when fed with 125 psi, 475 F steam.
[email protected] (Bart Smaalders)
rec.crafts.metalworking 24 Mar 1995
- >>>It may be the perspective, but 5-10 hp steam engines IMHO are not small.
- >>Yes indeed! They are not for the livingroom! I once owned a "small"
>>mill engine of about seven hp.The idea was to run a cutoff saw for
>>stove wood and have fun blowing a whistle. The engine was a full load
>>for a half ton, size wise, and an overload weightwise, so it must have
>>been about fifteen hundred pounds and about seven by four feet. The
>>boiler I had was about three by five verticle and I could only get
>>enough steam to run at about 20 rpm, as I recall, Nowhere near enough
>>to do any work. It_was_fun though.:-) I ultimately traded the whole
- >This is an exceptionally interesting discussion for those interested in
>the history of technology. So "small: steam engines are big, and they need
>a big, hot boiler to work. An earlier post and its replies about the
>dangers of home-made boilers were equally illuminating. No wonder the
>electric motor and internal combustion engine replaced steam for smaller
>applications so quickly. I suppose that we have to repeat the past in
>order to understand it.
- This is a bit of a sweeping generalization. Remember that if one produces a
steam engine and boiler _with_ _the_ _same_ _level_ _of_ _technical_
_sophistication_ as an internal combustion engine, you end up with a much
more comparable device. Remember, the early gas engines had similar power
to weight ratios to steam engines.
- By way of example, the steam engine in my boat uses technology & stress
levels from about 1880. This implies 125 psi steam, not too much superheat,
and a small water tube boiler. The entire power plant weighs over 400 lbs,
and produces 2 hp. Not much to compare with a Briggs and Stratton, although
a lot more pleasant to sit next to all day.
- A friend of mine has chosen to build something else - he has a steam
outboard. It uses a small flash boiler built from 1/8" pipe, burns solid
fuel and the entire things weighs just under 100 lbs. It uses poppet
valves, turns 3000 rpm rather than the 500 or so mine does, and pushes his
metal jon boat faster than a 7 hp gas outboard. The steam conditions at
full power are something like 800 psi and 800 F, so stainless valves, etc,
are the order of the day.
- Now, keeping this thing stoked (the boiler is about 6" by 12" by 12") with
pine cones, sticks, etc, is a busy task at full throttle, but it will troll
all day on a bag of wood scraps and smells a lot nicer than a gas outboard
while doing so....
- Gas engines probably replaced steam engines so quickly because it was
possible to build them cheaply in small sizes and make them portable for use
around the farm, and they could get enough power out to make planning boats
possible. The fact that you didn't need a licensed steam engineer to run
'em didn't hurt either, and in those days gasoline was a waste product from
the production of kerosene for cooking & lighting. The gas engines were
much more efficient than the steam plants of the day, and the efficiency was
"built-in"; in a steam plant the fuel efficiency depends a lot on insulation
and other installation details.
- As to the dangers of home-made boilers, in small sizes this is greatly over-
rated. Using reasonable engineering standards and water-tube construction,
a reasonably skilled welder can produce a fine boiler w/o undue risk to
himself or by-standers. The steamboaters and live steam loco folks are good
examples of this.
[email protected] (Barry Workman)
rec.crafts.metalworking 27 Mar 1995
- Stuart and Tiny Power both offer castings that will work well in a 16-25'
boat. Yeah, they are pricy. As I recll, the castings run about $2000 but
they are twin cyl. with reversing gears, etc.
- As far as conventional steam cylinders go, you can build your own out of
wood and have some local foundry cast it for you. when you turn the pattern,
be sure to leave a core print. I have one cyl. pattern I threw togeather
once, in aluminum the casting weighs 2.5 lbs. Did it to see if my little
foundry could handle it.
[email protected] (Dave Williams)
diy_efi 14 Sep 1996
- -> If steam engines are so great, why were they replaced with diesels?
- Because if the operator of a steam engine were stupid enough he could blow
it up, greatly annoying the owner and any bystanders. It's pretty hard to
do that with a Diesel.
- Steam prime movers are pretty much limited to stationary turbines now, but
they're still pretty important. There's a 99.99% chance the electricity
you're using to read this message was generated by a steam engine, whether
the heat source was burning coal or nuclear fission.
"George M. Dailey"
diy_efi 15 Sep 1996
- > Allright! Anybody got any good ideas about how to reclaim the water when
> it's been thru the engine?....
- > I heard of a guy locally that put a outboard motor in a ups like truck
> with a homemade rotary valve and "modern" boiler(this was in the mid 70's)
> There were several little problems, but one of them was to much power. He
> hooked the crank direct to the driveline, no tranny. You had to be careful
> with the throttle because it had a tendency to fry the 4 rear tires...
> Superheated steam(1200psi) in the case of a ruptured pipe can be
> invisible, and if you happen to walk by can cut your leg off without
> warning so they tell me at the local steam generating plant. Anyhow
> suffice it to say that 1200psi anything in a vehicle is going to have a
> real rough time with the market, and govt.'s.
- I'm a super critical power plant worker (761 mega watt of net generation
using 3,600psi steam at 1,005 F). I have thought about this same concept. A
simple surface condenser (air cooled radiator) would be able to condense the
vapor back to water (plant folks call it condensate). You would need a big
one in my opinion, because of the other hot gases in the exhaust stream. If
you could seperate the water vapor from the uncondensable exhaust gases,
before going to the surface condenser, you could use a smaller unit.
- Now, let's say you reclaim each and every drop of water. You've got another
technical tid bit to overcome. You will have to purify the condensate before
you put it back into your piston turbine or engine. Welcome to the un-
glamorous world of water purififation! In any steam plant, water
purification is the single most inportant item. Bad water/steam quality has
caused more high dollar damage to steam and water equipment than any thing
else, period! Yea, yea... I now some real smart person is saying "We'll just
put one of them there real fine filters in line and call it fixed." It's not
just the undissolved solids that will have to be removed. MOST of the
dissolved solids will have to go also. "Filters" that remove dissolved
solids are called Reverse Osmossis units and they cost much more than
regular filter systems. And of course, there are de-ionization systems that
will do the same. As one DIYer said, early attempts of this have lead to
chemically fouled engines.
- Cleaning the water isn't impossible. It just adds to the technical
complexity (cost) of the steam engine. Our water treatment plant is our
largest cost in our operation and mainteance budget. Keep in mind that we
reuse most of our water.
- I've been within a 20 feet of leaking super critical steam, you would
recieve severe heat burns long before you got near enough to be cut by the
steam. Also, steam leaking under high pressure and temperature gives off
it's own audible warning, like a 100' cobra. This still might not be fool
proof.
- I'm fairly certain that supercritical steam has no place in the automotive
market, a 100-300psi system might be feasable.
- Think about this, a turbine connected between the rear axle and tranny (to
assist the engine). Hot water from the engine is routed to water jacketed
exhaust manifolds for 'super heating'. This steam is then routed to the
drive shaft turbine. Low pressure steam leaves the turbine and enters the
radiator or back to the engine to be condensed or heated again. And, don't
forget the water purification unit right before the turbine.
- I'm sure there is a simple reason why this will not work, besides cost. I
don't know it. Let's see what the thermodynamic experts say.
talltom
diy_efi Sep 14, 1996
- > Allright! Anybody got any good ideas about how to reclaim the water when
> it's been thru the engine?(Water isn't as plentyful as it used to be)
- If you are truly interested in steam engines, the late 40's Americans seem
to represent the height of the technology. The south Africans used
condensers and recycled the water on some of their steam engines. On many
tender mounted booster engines the low pressure exhaust steam was vented
directly back into the water supply.
- With a steam piston engine, transmissions are totally useless. Cut of steam
parked, stopped - no need to idle. Move valve to "forward", go forward.
Move valve to reverse, go backwards. Change direction by changing how steam
admitted. RPM limit is the destruction limit of engine. Torque limit is by
PSI and size of piston. Think of how small loco pistons were in comparison
to the 10,000 plus ton loads they sometimes carried. Also, road
locomotives were almost universally limited to 300 PSI or less.
- What you will have is the problems of external combustion and water
recycling to have sufficient range. Railroads had water towers at frequent
intervals to avoid carrying more than a couple of hundred tons of water and
coal at a time.
- If they told you about 1200 PSI steam and the power from it, remember that
it is made at half the temperature reached in an IC engine. For the
skeptics, remember - 1cc of liquid water state changed to vapor (boiled)
makes about 1800 cc of vapor. Not a bad little expansion ration.
- What I am tying to do is first build a self tuning controllable EFI for
petrol fuels and then, inject a precisely metered amount of additional H2O
to get the power of steam from the excess heat and avoid all the external
combustion hassles.
- No it would not be as efficient as an external combustion engine, but it
would be far simpler and I believe could develope a lot more power than the
same amount of fuel in a straight IC engine.
[email protected] (Jerry Aguirre)
rec.autos.tech 23 Jan 1996
- >As another alternative technology, I also read in 1995 about steam
>powered cars [Backwoods Home Magaize (I forget the month, but they have
>an index on the Web) - albeit an unconventional reference, it can be an
>interesting read]. I'm not aware of anyone that's ever taken a stab at
>this, but the article made it sound quite promising - open-cycle
>combustion at or near atmospheric pressure with cheaper fuel and more
>efficient combustion. I also recall something about the transmission
>being simplified or maybe even eliminated due to better torque/speed
>capabilities. Is anyone aware of any real work going on in this area?
- I recall reading about several projects involving steam cars. The idea is
attractive because of the advantages you list. But a steam engine has one
great disadvantage compared to an internal combustion engine. An IC pumps
out about 70% of its waste heat via the exhaust pipe. A comparable sized
steam engine would have to have a much larger radiator to get rid of its
waste heat. Venting steam is no longer considered acceptable. This is made
even worse by the fact that steam is a relatively good insulator. It takes
a much larger radiator to cool it than is necessary for cooling a liquid
such as a common IC engine uses.
- There is also the issue of warm up time. This can probably be reduced to a
few minutes but IC powered cars no longer recomend any warm up before
driving. Steam engines are also slow to respond to changes taking time to
heat up when you "floor it" and leaving you with excess steam when you
screech to a halt at a red light.
Rod Adams
rec.autos.tech 24 Jan 1996
- >>As another alternative technology, I also read in 1995 about steam
>>powered cars [Backwoods Home Magaize (I forget the month, but they have
- >I recall reading about several projects involving steam cars. The idea
>is attractive because of the advantages you list.
- I suppose that it would be unkind of me to point out that the first steam
powered automobiles were built about 100 years ago. There were several
manufacturers, the most famous of whom was a fellow named Stanley.
- Here is a quoted article from about 1901
"An enterprising member of the Harvard Automobile Club sends us the
accompanying illustration descriptive of an automobile which he had
constructed recently after his own designs. The machine is a touring steam
carriage, similar in some ways to the "Locomobile" touring wagon, only of
heavier build. It is equipped with a Mason engine, specially constructed
for heavy work, and having a 3/4" feed pump. All the feed water piping is
1/4 inch and that, as well as all the piping of the carriage is securely
fastened to the body by small iron braces thus rendering it very stable and
durable.
- "The boiler is 16 inches by 15 1/2 inches with 360 tubes, and supplies ample
steam for the engine. In addition to the usual equipment this wagon carries
a steam air-pump, feed-water pump, injector and a complete tool outfit, with
extra parts, etc. under the floor. The gasoline tank is situated forward and
holds 11 gallons while water capacity is 35 gallons. This carriage has been
run over 800 miles without mishap, and has proved itself a true "touring
wagon."
- Note that the designer chose to use gasoline as the heat source for his
steam engine. That might possibly be due to the fact that gasoline contains
about 3 times as much energy per unit weight as wood and about 1.8 times as
much energy per unit weight as coal. The use of gasoline improves the range
and or carrying capacity of the vehicle over these alternative fuels even if
the engine is a steam engine.
- Of course, these days there is a fuel with about 2 million times as much
energy per unit weight as gasoline available, but that is another story.
[email protected] (John D. Robinson)
rec.autos.tech 24 Jan 1996
- Howdy, Peter Barrett out of CA. has been working on modern steam cars for
12-15 years now. he has a two cylinder VW engine with poppet valves and a
flash boiler. runs about 25-30 MPG fuel,100 mpg h2o as I recall. However, he
had had to increase the engine RPM up to 2000 or so. this did a major number
on the torque band (narrowing it up ) in order to make the vehicle perform
similar to "normal" cars. more info would be available from the Steam Car
Club Of America. email me and I'll dig up SACA and Peter Barretts' address'
[email protected] (Andy Dingley)
rec.autos.tech 30 Jan 1996
- >The main reson that steam engines are not used and will not be used is
>the safety factor. When a steam engine "overheats" it explodes,
>basically killing or seriously injuring ocuupants and bystanders.
- That's only true for a "locomotive" style boiler, with a large volume of
superheated water. This water is at over 100oC, but doesn't boil because of
the high pressure. When the pressure is reduced following a small leak or
crack the rest of the water boils violently and bursts the boiler casing.
- Every "modern" (and I mean post Great War) road steam vehicle has used
either a watertube or flash steam boiler. This is mainly for performance
reasons; they're lighter and faster to reach working temperature, but it
also has safety implications. As a watertube boiler contains a much smaller
volume of water a catastrophic failure of such a boiler need be no more of a
hazard than a radiator failure on an existing petrol-engined car.
David Cleaves
rec.autos.antique 6 Dec 1995
- I currently have for sale a first edition copy of "The Story of a Stanley
Steamer" by George Woodbury, published in 1950 by W.W. Norton and Co. The
story is about the learning process the author went through to "reactivate"
an old 1917 Stanley Steamer, and what he learned about the technology and
about the brothers who built them in the process. Includes 32 pages of
photos/illustrations, including a reproduction of some 1916 Stanley Steamer
literature. The book is in very good condition with a very good dust
jacket, but is damaged on one page where a 2 inch long chunk has been torn
off of the side margin. If interested, the book is available for $8 plus $2
postage. Please email to "[email protected]" if you would like any
additional info. Thanks, and best regards.
Joe Woods 74213,724
S8/Motor Mouth 23-Jul-96
- Steam locomotives HAD to use variable valve timing because they had no
transmission and only one gear. The fundamental reason for variable valve
timing (which is, as you know, much simpler if you have slide valves instead
of poppets) was so locomotives could back up. No variation = no reverse.
- And with only one forward gear, they had to change the timing to keep torque
anywhere within the envelope. Otherwise they would have had only one
optimal speed, which would have to be whatever they could make with full
load on their steepest slope. They'd have crawled on the straightaway.
- 35% efficient is not shabby, but most large trucks (with purportedly antique
pushrod valves) do much better than that, even with the economies of scale
in favor of the train by several orders of magnitude.
Rob McGavin 100245,155
S8/Motor Mouth 24-Jul-96
- I'm pleased to hear abount interstate truck efficiencies, because the gulf
between rail and road is thwart with entrenced ideas.
- >> Otherwise they would have had only one optimal speed, which would have to
be whatever they could make with full load on their steepest slope.
They'd have crawled on the straightaway ideas.<<
- Most steam locomotives had an 'envelope' of valve timing which was matched
to their bore/stroke. The best of them arguably the 'Challenger' 4-6-6-4 UP
of 1946, were not replaced because they were bad at the job of dragging the
freight at up to 70mph (level, straight, repeatable) and at 40 mph over the
passes. They were cut up into useless steel, (like the German WW1 fleet at
Scapa Flow, or many other wars), not because they were 'bad' machines, but
because the 'ideas' were agin them.
[email protected] (Rob Reilly)
rec.autos.antique 7 Apr 1994
- > Let's go back in time .......
> I need to put a price on a 1900 Locomobile .......
> It is original except for gauges ......
> It is a 3 owner steam powered automobile .... was in a Chicago museum at
> one time! I also need to know how to get manuals showing how this steam
> powered puppy really runs! Right now it doesn't because we don't know
> how!
- The other night I was looking through a history book of the American west
and came across a photo of a very elderly chief Geronimo in a black top hat
driving a 1905 Locomobile.
- Books on the theory of steam powered vehicles should be available in your
local library. You need to identify all the valves, gauges and pipelines in
your system, especially the safety pressure relief valves, and make sure
they are all in good working order. High pressure steam boilers are
dangerous, especially old ones that haven't had a recent inspection and
pressure test. The pressure test is called a hydrostatic test. It should be
done by filling the boiler with water to the very top, and then pressurizing
the remaining tiny air volume with an air hose from a good safe distance.
This way if it explodes you won't get pieces flying hundreds of feet, just
water spray. Never having seen a steamer up close, I have no idea what
pressure to test to, or if this is an easy test for you to do, but that's
basically what they do to ASME U stamped air compressor tanks.
Chris Ruemke 76220,3532
S9/Performance/Muscle 30-Mar-97
- > built an Avanti Refrigerator the same year as the cars. It too was way to
futuristic to sell. It was solid walnut with thermal glass doors and the
condensing unit was mounted in the basement so there was no noise.
Beautiful fridge-they sold 3.<
- Interesting....reminds me of the first guy to invent the steamboat in NYC.
Everyone thought he was a nut, he got no financial backing and killed
himself because he was broke and despondent. Several years later, Fulton,
who had friends in the right places, got the credit for inventing the
Steamboat!
Mike Rehmus
rec.crafts.metalworking 8 Sep 1995
- You need to contact the Steam Car Club of America. They would be most happy
to fill you in, I think.
- Contact them at:
S. S. Miner
President
P.O. Box 285
Niles, MI 49120
616 683-4269
- There are a number of conversions going on in the club at all times. Some
are practical, some seem to be more for fun rather than utility. They all
can teach you how to accomplish what you need to do.
- I would point out that the doing is much harder, apparently, than the
planning.
[email protected] (Allen Majorovic)
rec.crafts.metalworking 12 Oct 1995
- : How about a simple explanation of how the thing works?
- A stack of disks, open at the center and slightly spaced apart. The working
fluid is aimed at the edge of the disks so that it blasts down into the
space between them. The viscosity of the fluid and the drag of the disks
causes the disks to spin. The working fluid is exhausted out the center of
the disks. From the Tesla Engine Builders Newsletter, Tesla was reported to
have built a number of these motors which were very powerful for their size.
He built steam turbines as well as gas turbines.
- There was one article about a tiny (2" diameter disks?) Tesla turbine spun
by a small solid rocket motor to run a generator to power a transmitter for
reasons which now escape me. Possibly some sort of emergency radio beacon
for military aircraft. This was, I think, a production item. If there is any
interest, I will endeavor to dig up a back issue or two and see if there are
any other interesting articles.
- From the pictures, the gadgets are painfully simple. This probably means
that there is a good deal of subtle engineering to make them run with any
efficiency. There is probably an international conspiracy to suppress the
Tesla turb......ack!
[email protected] (Michael Edelman)
rec.crafts.metalworking 16 Oct 1995
- : I think the story goes that a 24" by 24" Tesla Turbine produced 200 HP.
- A sort of popular science book I have, published by the Boy Scouts around
1915, features a visit with Tesla. His turbine is described as "an engine
that can fit in a man's hat that develops over 200HP"- so we're talking a
*lot* smaller than 24"x24". More like something that would fit in a 6x6x6
box.
[email protected] (Mick Collins)
rec.crafts.metalworking 16 Jan 1996
- > Can anybody out there explain how a balanced slide valve works? In the
> course of reading about locomotive development I've run into dozens of
> references to the thing ("this or that class was equipped with balanced
> slide values", etc.)
- You are correct in that an area almost equal to that of the exhaust cavity
is sealed against the chest cover.
- The Richardson system was one method used on your side of the pond.
- I quote from "The Locomotive of Today" c 1900 :-
"This had four strips let into four planed grooves on the back of the valve
and projecting upwards to bear on a planed metal plate held so as to be
parallel to the valve face, the strips being pressed up by means of springs.
The area enclosed by the four strips is under exhaust pressure only as a
hole through the crown of the valve connects it with the exhaust cavity".
- There were several other methods and some used a cylindrical body driven by
a buckle and having the normal slide valve shaped rectangle at the lower
end. A flat topped 'piston' inside the body sealed up against the chest
cover. Making this 'piston' hollow and communicating with a port in the
cover gave a 'straight-thru' exhaust.
- Low superheat model slide valves may be very easily balanced by soldering a
disc on top of the valve to carry an 'O'ring, which, held up by steam
pressure, seals against the cover. A small hole through the disc
communicates with the ex' cavity. If you have access to the archives, I
described this in some detail in the Model Engineer 140/3495.
[email protected] (Edward Haas)
rec.crafts.metalworking 9 Feb 1996
- You should maybe get in touch with Ken Kowal, current president of the band
of steam auto builders/fans in Southern California. Ken's phone number is:
805-584-1984. One of their members, Pete Barrett has converted a VW engine
and knows just about everything there is to know about this type of
conversion. I've ridden in his car and it's a rocket! It'll do 70mph on the
freeway and it only needs about 5 seconds to get up steam...
[email protected] (Douglas S. Gonder)
rec.crafts.metalworking 13 Feb 1996
- Ah, these are the two big problems. Not only is steam rather horribly
corrosive, but you can't tolerate it diluting the regular crankcase lube,
else your bearings will be history. As you know, the old saying is that oil
and water don't mix, but what they will do is *foam*, and that'll put a real
crimp in the lubrication system. The solution is to use a water soluable
lubricant, and change it frequently as it becomes too dilute. Real steam
engines typically used leather rings and bronze bearings, which weren't as
picky about lubricants as are the hard faced rings and bearings used in IC
engines. A motorcycle engine may even use needle or ball bearings, and they
get unhappy real fast in a water bath.
- >Your valve timing needs to be radically different as well.
>In an IC engine, the intake valve opens too soon, and closes
>too late for use with steam power. And of course in a 4-stroke
>you have the "power" stroke where both valves are closed. That
>can be left, as an "idler" stroke, but you'll get more power
>out of the engine if you make every down stroke a power stroke.
- The default poppet valves should have enough area to provide sufficient
steam, at least for moderate RPMs. You don't really want to spin the engine
as fast as you would as an IC engine anyway. First you have doubled the
number of power strokes, and second you've got lots more torque with
external combustion. A steam engine produces maximum torque at stall. Plus
you have to think about the poor bearings and rings. They're going to be
washed by condensed steam, so you don't want to load them too heavily by
high RPM operation.
- Yes I understand the foam problem, one person who coverted a VW engine to
steam had a centrifical spinning seperator. One person from Cal Poly told of
a student who made a 60mpg (kerosine) steam car from a converted Johnson
outboard motor and stainless steel condenser. 900PSI and high temp. This
student's car was published in the LA Times back in the 70's.
- No idle stroke planned. Change timing to 1:1 and cam to allow for steam
hysterisis. If Slick 50 is so wonderful why can't the metal be coated
(silicone?) and lubrication left at that.
- I should qualify my original inquiry by a stating that this conversion is
only for demo purpose of brief time intervals and would be driven by 120-
600PSI at 300-500F out of our 8'x20' solar trough collectors that we are
building at $4.63 sq. ft.(3hpt, 14watts sq.ft, ~ $0.037kw/hr) and we need
only demonstrate power production to investors or Grant parties.
- We can not afford turbines and such. A 4 cycle Briggs and Stratton may be
more condusive to steam conversion, and I intend to look into the Johnson
outboard motor conversion.
- Oh.. what is this water soluble lubricant you speak of?
[email protected] (Edward Haas)
rec.crafts.metalworking 16 Feb 1996
- --Here are some org.s that may be of help:
National Appropriate Technology Institute
(800)428-2525
National Renewable Energy Lab
(303)231-1000
The Rocky Mountain Institute
(303)927-3128
Solar Technology Institute
(303)963S0715
- NOTE: this information is from the Alternative Energy Sourcebook, printed in
'92 and with all of the trouble the government is having, it's a good bet
some of these org.s have mutated or gone belly-up.
- There's also a very active group in the UK, whose name escapes me. There's
also a guy up in Washington state (I think) who's really in to stirling
engines and who sells kits of castings to build a variety of different sized
engines (name escapes me, but he advertizes in HSM).
[email protected] (john d. robinson)
rec.crafts.metalworking 19 Mar 1996
- >>Anybody have some info on water consumption of the Stanley Steamer
>>and why it required so much less water than conventional locomotive
>>designs..
- >>Anybody have sources of detailed plans of the Stanley Steamer.
- >The Stanley Steamer used a uniflow engine design and a condenser
>for the steam. Locomotive design used the expended steam to
>draft the boilers. The steam was sent up the smokestack causing
>the draft necessary to bring the heat from the firebox through
>the firetubes to the smokebox. That's why steam locomotives puffed
>their smoke.
- >The Stanley Steamer patents are available from the US Patent Office
>and Model Engineer ran an extensive series of articles about 2 years
>back on the Uniflow engine design.
- Howdy, I've got a set of engine plans for the Stanley Steamer that went
127.666 MPH. Its' a D slide valve engine that ran without a condenser. In
the book, Development of Automobile Steam Engines published by the Steam Car
Club of America, no pub. date, says the Stanley had no condenser.
- John Robinson, Mechanician
Mechanical Engineering University of Wisconsin
1513 University Ave.
Madison, Wi. 53706
608-262-3606
FAX 608-265-2316
Current Land Speed Record Holder Bonneville Salt Flats
H/GCC 92 cu.in. 1980 Dodge Colt 131.333 MPH
[email protected] (Barry Workman)
rec.crafts.metalworking 18 Mar 1996
- >Anybody have some info on water consumption of the Stanley Steamer
>and why it required so much less water than conventional locomotive
>designs..
- >Anybody have sources of detailed plans of the Stanley Steamer.
- The Stanley Steamer used a uniflow engine design and a condenser for the
steam. Locomotive design used the expended steam to draft the boilers. The
steam was sent up the smokestack causing the draft necessary to bring the
heat from the firebox through the firetubes to the smokebox. That's why
steam locomotives puffed their smoke.
- The Stanley Steamer patents are available from the US Patent Office and
Model Engineer ran an extensive series of articles about 2 years back on the
Uniflow engine design.
[email protected] (john d. robinson)
rec.crafts.metalworking 27 Mar 1996
- >I'd like a modern version of the Stanley Steamer too.
>Solve a lot of problems, it would.
- The Steam Car Club of America has a member (Peter Barrett) that has been
building a steam car for 10 years or more. It's a 1/2 VW engine that has
gone thru several iterations. He has a monotube boiler that runs at 750/1000
PSI and is able to start from cold in about 45 seconds. He gets about 25
MPG. The down side is that the car engine is not a slow turning high torque
engine similar to the "old " steam engines, he has had to revert to gasoline
auto engine type torque curves to maintain a "car like" performance.
- As I have been reading his tech reports, I see a vehicle that requires much
maintenance. On the other hand, it is a TEST vehicle, and as such will
require repair and rebuilding until he gets it to the stage where he can
"just get in it and drive". The last report shows the major protions of the
engine are running well, with 5000 miles on the vehicle running gear with
little wear.
- Control problems continue though, with breakdowns in electronics and fuel
and water pump problems. This has a direct relation to the attempt to equal
the performance of the current crop of automobiles. Most steam engines run
best when run in a steady state mode, as in steam turbines for use in
electrical supply, turbines for ships, etc.
[email protected] (john d. robinson)
rec.crafts.metalworking 29 Mar 1996
- >>The Steam Car Club of America has a member (Peter Barrett) that has
>>been building a steam car for 10 years or more. It's a 1/2 VW engine
- >Hmm. Could you elaborate a little on this? My understanding is that a steam
>engine (piston) produces maximum torque at 0 rpm, which means you should
>get a superior torque curve.
- >Likewise I would have thought the engine would need less maintenance than
>an IC engine.
- Howdy, a locomotive that is running 200 PSIG or so with a long stroke
variable cutoff valve timed engine would develop max torque at zero RPM,
however Peter's engine is a very high pressure, no variable timed engine
with very short steam admission valve timing.The engine has to maintain a
fairly high RPM to maintain the electrical current/ fuel delivery/ water
pump needs of the vehicle. This requires that the engine run with an idle
speed similar to a IC engine. To maintain reasonable energy conservation,
the steam cutoff / steam usage must be very closely contained, and by using
a fixed cutoff, with a high RPM, this can be utilized.
- The various systems required for a viable steam powered automobile will
require more maintenance. Water/oil separator for the condensor , high
pressure water pump, (this must pump water at a greater pressure than exists
in the boiler, IE 900-1100 PSI), large generator and regulating system,
temperature sensors and switches, steam pressure sensors and switches, fuel
pressure sensors and switches, water pressure sensors and switches, water
tanks, condensor and related plumbing, makeup water tank, oil pump for
lubricating the steam before it enters the engine. All these units will
require maintenance.
[email protected] (Bart Smaalders)
rec.crafts.metalworking 18 Apr 1996
- > I think you are either considering one heck of a big boat, or you are
> making the totally erroneous assumption that you need steam engine
> power equivalent to gasoline engine power. You don't. Even a 2hp
> steam engine would be very large, and a 10hp engine would be enormous.
- Well.... not quite. It isn't the engine that's enormous (my 2 hp engine in
my 19' steam launch is smaller than a lawnmower engine), it is the boiler
that takes up the space and weight.
- Once one realizes that there's no way even the serious (as opposed to the
maniacal :-)) builder can get enough horsepower to plane (40lbs/hp max), one
accepts the 100 year old rule of thumb - 1.5 -> 3 hp / ton of boat is an
appropriate and comfortable powering level. And yes, my 2 hp power plant
pushes my 19' boat at 6 knots or so (flat out with only me aboard). Given
that it's a displacement hull, 10 hp might get me to 8 knots.
- There are exceptions to the above ( usually involving monotube boilers, high
pressure super-heated steam and titanium valves, stainless steel tubing and
high-tech controls), but I'll take the cast iron and bronze technology any
day for comfort and ease of operation. My power plant is virtually
noiseless aside from a slight whoosh from the kerosene burner (and a slight
knock in the feed pump that I'm really going to fix one of these days :-)).
Slipping along at 3 knots with the engine just ticking over through a
wildlife preserve, watching the herons and turtles and eagles ... - boating
really doesn't get any better.
[email protected] (Errol Groff )
rec.crafts.metalworking 21 Oct 1996
- The scheduled Main Speaker for the night was Dick Wells. Dick had always
wanted a steam car, so in 1988 when he retired he took the plunge. He has
both a Stanley and a White and puts on about 1400 to 1500 miles a year. In
principle a steam car is quite simple. In practice it's not. His advice
is that if you want to get a steam car, don't do it till you retire. Of his
vehicles the Stanley is the simpler of the two. It's controls consist
mainly of 16 valves.
- The Stanley brothers started making cars in 1899 when they got an order for
200 cars. They were successful with the 200 and were bought out. The
resulting car was the Locomobile. A year after they were bought out they
were back in business with and improved machine, and they continued to
produce steam cars right up into the middle of the 1920's. They made a
total of about ten to twelve thousand cars over the twenty plus years they
were in business. White made steam cars from 1900 to 1910, when they stopped
producing steam pow-ered vehicles. During this ten year period they made
about nine thousand. So, in the steamcar heyday the White was produced in
bigger numbers than the Stanley. A White is a more sophisticated machine
than a Stanley, and sold for twice as much as a Stanley when new. The
Stanley Dick has sold for about $1000 when it was new, his White for about
$2000. Today in the United States there are about 200 run-ning Stanleys
and only about 20 running Whites. A lot of Whites were scrapped in WWI for
their Aluminum.
- Dick's Stanley is a 20 HP model. What does the 20 HP mean? It's a 4 inch
by 5 inch double acting steam engine with 2 cylinders, running on 400 to 500
psi steam. At 800 RPM the engine is putting out 80 HP and 650 ft lbs of
torque. The layout of the vehicle puts the engine in the rear, with a spur
gear on the crank directly driving the differential. It turns 36 inch rear
wheels with a 1.2 to 1 ratio of engine speed to wheel speed. The front of
the engine is attached similarly to a leaf spring so it stays still with
respect to the body of the car while the rear of the engine goes up and down
with the rear axle, so there is a lot of unsprung weight. This makes going
downhill on a bumpy road quite an experience for the driver.
- The boiler is in front. It's 14 inches high and has 650 vertical fire
tubes. The tube sheet and the shell are one piece. Today when people make
replacement boilers the tube sheet is welded in because of the greatly
improved welding technolo-gies in the last 70+ years. There are three
layers of 60 mil piano wire wound around the shell to add strength. With
cop-per tubes, a steel shell, and all the wire around the outside to hold it
together you'd expect the boilers to not last long at all, but they hold up
surprisingly well. Dick has a replacement boiler in his car but says there
are still some running with the originals. The condensing Stanleys have
steel tubes in the boilers, welded in place.
- Oil goes into the main steam line, one quart per 100 miles. It's special
steam oil and is equivalent to about a 600 ASA weight oil. Dick says never
drive close behind a non-con-densing Stanley in the rain, a couple of swipes
by your wind-shiled wipers and you won't be able to see a thing through the
oil film on the window.
- The suspension is by full elliptic springs and perch poles, strictly horse
and buggy style, right down to the wooden frame. Most of the Stanley is
wood, although the hood over the boiler is metal. It weighs in at about
3000 lbs.
- Fuel is carried in an unpressurized tank in the back. It gets 8 miles per
gallon of kerosene and 1 mile per gallon of water. Dick says that you meet
all sorts of interesting folk while you're looking for water to keep your
Stanley going for another 20 or 25 miles. The main burner pressure is con-
trolled by a diaphram and ball valve. It burns 8 gallons per hour of
kerosene in the tiny space under the hood in front of the car, while the
typical oil burner heating a house may be rated for something in the range
of 3 to 4 gallons per hour.
- The White is very different car, and despite the fact that it is mostly
metal is actually somewhat lighter than the Stanley at about 2600 lbs. The
White engine is a two cylinder compound engine with a three inch stroke and
2 1/2 and 4 inch cylin-ders. It runs 600 psi steam superheated to 750
degrees F. Dick runs his superheat between 750 and 850 degrees. The engine
is under the hood, connected to the rear wheels through a two speed
transmission with a nuetral. The trans-mission is needed because of the
control system for the steam generating system.
- Steam is generated in a 300 foot long monotube boiler coiled up under the
drivers seat. The total capacity of the monotube is about 1 gallon, compared
to the 10 gallons normally in the Stanley boiler (15 full to the top.) It
has the same 8 gallon per hour fire under the 1 gallon boiler that the
Stanley has under the 10 gallons normally in it's boiler. So, it needs a
sophisti-cated control system to keep things under controll. The con-troll
system is a closed loop feed back system, all mechanical. No data is
available today on how any of it is supposed to work, what spring tensions
should be, etc. The result is that it's pretty tough to get the system set
up to work reliably, if at all. Dick is convinced that the difficulty in
setting up the sophisticated control system with absolutely none of the
original data on exactly how it's supposed to work is the big reason that
there are about 10 Stanleys running today for every White. When the White is
running it gets 10 miles per gallon of gasoline burned and is much easier to
drive than the Stanley because it doesn't have nearly as much unsprung
weight.
- How do you get a Stanley going in the morning? There is a pilot light, and a
vaporizing burner. Think of a BIG Coleman Stove. On the Stanley, heat the
vaporizer with a propane torch till the pilot is hot enough to go, then
leave things to warm up while you check things out. Run pilot fuel to the
main burner for a couple of minutes to get things hot, then turn on the
Kerosene. (the pilot runs on gasolene. Dick uses Coleman fuel to keep all
the little holes in things from getting plugged up.) He wondered how hot the
burner nozzles got, so he put a thermocouple on one and measured 750-800
degrees at the nozzle. After 15 minutes on the burner open the throttle to
let steam go through the superheater. You'll have 200 PSI on the gauge,
which is enough to get going.
- When you first start a Stanley the cylinders are cold and you get condensate
in them. It's a slide valve engine so the con-densate lifts the slide as the
piston comes down the bore and nothing breaks. Open the drip valves and get
going. You start going fully linked up, once you are going you push a pedal
with your left foot to hook up the valves. Unhook when you stop or you may
start up backwards. Push the pedal all the way down and hold it there to
back up. The engine has Stephenson Valve Gear.
- Running down the road you need to keep the water level even in the boiler.
There are two pumps to feed the boiler. If you uncover the tube sheet
because you let the water level get too low the tubes will leak. At a
Stanley rally you can tell who let the water get too low, they're the ones
under the car at 2 AM with the expanding tool doing all 650 tubes so that
they'll be able to get under way the next day. Every 25 miles you need
water. The Stanley is equipped with a hose and a steam injector so that you
can suck water out of any handy source.
- When you blow the boiler down you are opening a valve and letting 550 degree
water at 600 PSI out of a small hole at the bottom of the boiler. It is
LOUD, but 18 inches out from the valve it is cool. After a long day
operating the Stanley the blowdown is the perfect way to wash your hands
- Operating the White is very different.
- To get the vaporizer on the white hot there is a cup for gas-olene, just
like on a blowtorch. Put gas in the cup, throw in a match, and wait for it
to get hot enough to light off the burner. Dick has done it this way once.
As things heat up the gas in the cup starts to boil, then it boils over so
there's burning gas on the ground under the car. Dick says this is
altogether way too exciting, so after that first time he's used the propane
torch to get things heated up to start.
- Run the pilot for 5 minutes, then start the main burner. You'll have 400 psi
almost right away. Jump in and push down the simpling lever so that the
steam will be going to both cylin-ders right from the generator. Rock the
engine carefully to get it dried out. The White has piston valves, so if the
piston comes down on a bunch of water in the cylinder it's got a good chance
to break something, unlike the Stanley that will lift the slide valve off
it's seat and push the water into the exhaust. The white had four drip
valves to take care of this when getting going from a cold start, but they
are conical bronze stop cocks and Dick hasn't been able to figure out how to
get them to seal effectively against 600 psi steam if he uses them. Once the
engine is running you have to jump out and set the famous white burner
controls. Then let it heat up and drive off.
- The White has Joy valve gear.
- The White driving experience is completely different than the Stanley one.
Watch the steam temperature gauge. The burner controls are a closed loop
system and run real well. But they don't like transients. So as you cruise
down the road at 35 mph all is fine. When you suddenly stop for a stop light
or to ask directions, the pressure gauge heads towards the 1000 psi setting
of the safety valve, which is under the front right side of the car. Right
where the person telling you how to get to point B is standing. When it goes
off, the person giving you directions noties.
- The White has a condensor on it, so the water goes around and around and you
don't need to stop nearly as often for water as you do with a non-condensing
Stanley. It only uses 1/2 the oil that the Stanley does, but that's still a
quart every 200 miles, and it all ends up in the water tank. He uses a thing
like a diaper that soaks up oil but not water in the water tank. It works
real well, but it's no fun sticking your arm into the tank to pull it out.
- Both cars have only 2 wheel brakes, and they are mechani-cal. The White has
the better brakes of the two. You can't really do engine breaking either.
With the Stanley you can throw it into reverse if you have too.
- Someone asked about getting them inspected. As far as Dick knows, the law
exempting automotive boilers from inspection is still on the books. The
Stanley boiler usually fails with a tube collapse, and the White steam
generator isn't really a pressure vessel anyway. So, boilers don't present
any special problems from a regulatory point of view.
[email protected] (Bart Smaalders)
rec.crafts.metalworking 14 Nov 1996
- > Is it true that these lower RPM engines have greater steam efficiencies,
>than engines that turn at say 1000RPM?
- The most efficient steam engines (in BTU/hp-hr) are either poppet valve
uniflow engines using superheated steam, or very large Corlis engines
running _fixed_ loads. Efficiency is directly a function of cylinder size
since volume to surface area ratios affect heat loss to cylinder walls(same
thing is true for gas engines; 500 cc twin cylinder motorcyle engines are
more efficient than the 500 cc 4 cylinder engines; the difference is
noticable in gas milage).
- Piston speed is also important; generally mean piston speeds should be well
above 500 fpm for good efficiency (from Kent's Engineering handbook).
- If you're trying for good efficiency in a small power plant, keep speeds
high, use a uniflow w/ superheat, poppet valves, short cut-off (<10%) and a
condensor. Due to low bmep (brake mean effective pressure), you'll need a
large cylinder size unless you can really crank the pressure (say well above
200 psi). If you are using a monotube boiler and can get up to several
hundred psi, then sizes become more in line w/ gas engine practice (since
bmep becomes similar). However, materials and safety issues are much more
difficult at high temp/pressures; a lower-tech solution can be more
effective overall.
- At 200 psi input, figure a 57 psi bmep. If your engine is a 6" bore x 6"
stroke, 500 rpm is a nice operating speed, and should produce about 12 hp at
8% cutoff. This type of engine typically has a 100% overload capacity,
meaning you can get 24 hp w/o dropping efficiency too much in emergency
situations by increasing the cut-off (and probably 2.3 times as much steam
input).
- Get ahold of some engineering handbooks published in the 1930s; they covered
this sort of thing in great detail, and the thermodynamics were well
understood by that point.
[email protected] (Bart Smaalders)
rec.crafts.metalworking 15 Nov 1996
- > I want to built a heat/power cogeneration system for a cabin / vacation-
> permanent-someday-home.
- I've looked at this, but the efficiencies are typically so poor (esp. after
factoring in battery lossses) that one generates a lot of waste heat. I'd
use the following quick numbers to get an idea of efficiencies:
- 1) typical real "steam launch" powerplants burn 1 gal/hr of diesel to
produce 2 to 2.5 hp. A small diesel would produce 10 hp at that fuel
rate. This is a power plant in good working order. With high pressures
and unusual (uniflow) design, you may be able to get to 4 or 5 hp on 1
gal/hr.
2) small alternators are not very efficient; you'll want to do something
special here. I'd strive to hit 85%.
3) I don't have any battery charge-discharge numbers handy, but they're a
function of charge rate and amount of top-off that you do. I'd be
suprised if the overal eff. exceeded 70% here.
- So for a diesel fueled machine, we find that if we're lucky we can get 2 KW-
hr/gallon of fuel... that makes for expensive juice (locally 5x PG & E
rates). For a straight diesel generator, you can do better (no batteries
assumed) - perhaps 6 KW-hr/gallon.
- > Can I do it? I don't expect 67% like a few utilities, but how close can a
> cheap homebuilt job come?
- If you hit 6% overall, you've done really well. Don't count on it.
Janos ERO
rec.crafts.metalworking 15 Nov 1996
- > There even was at least one steam turbine engine,
> with horrendous gearing.
- Even more. Many countries made experiments with steam turbibe locomotives,
most without success. AFAIK the only ones doing revenue job were the Swedish
ones. One of them is preserved in working condition and hauls turist trains.
The only operating steam turbine loco of the world.
- Biggest problem was that they usually needed another turbine to go
backwards.
- > All the steam engines were OPEN cycle and so ran out of water
> before they ran out of fuel.
> The open cycle is horrendously in-efficient as well. Tcold > 100C
- Yes, I share this opinion. Even then it is not possible to over 20-25%
thermal efficiency. The Chapelon Pacifics could have max. 16.5%.
- > If you want to increase the range and efficiency you must CLOSE
> the steam cycle, but you end up with HUGE condensors that are
> essentially gas to gas fluid heat exchangers. That must be MOBILE.
- Many countries experimented with condensation locomotives, but I know only
about two types built in numbers:
- The Germans built a version of their BR52 war locomotive (Decapod) with
condenser tender to use them in the Russian desert. The goal was not to
increase the efficiency but to save water in the desert. Some of them
survived after the WW2, but were changed for normal tenders after a while.
- In South Africa there were condenser steamers built in the '50s to serve in
the deserts. AFAIK they were the only succesful condenser steam locomotives.
[email protected] (Jonathan M. Elson)
rec.crafts.metalworking 12 Dec 1996
- : : Some time ago I started on a Tiny Power 5HP steam engine. At
: : the same time I started on a 5 HP boiler. Of late I have
: : shifted my efforts to the boiler as I reconsider the engine. A
: : friend of mine suggested I build a five HP steam turbine
: : instead of the piston drived engine. I have seen the 5 HP
: : steam turbines offered by an outfit in Florida I believe. It
: : had four vanes in the turbine set at right angles to the
: : shaft. I wondered if there was a better arrangement for the
: : blades and if there was an advantage to having more blades? I
- : What you want is to look up the Scientific American article on the
: breakthrough steam turbine built by (and now my memory is blocked with
: Whittle, but that's gas turbines, not steam). It had a few very good
: photos and analysis of how the turbine was built (with simple machine
: tools). I've seen the original unit in the Smithsonian. I'll try to get
: the correct name and the date of the article. This unit was apparently
: the first high speed (18000 RPM) turbine ever built. This thing looks
: eminently buildable in the home shop, but not in one weekend :) !
- The article is in the April 1985 issue of Scientific American, PP. 132 to
139. It was for the 100th anniversary of the development by Charles Parsons
of the axial flow steam turbine. He had to invent the whole science of high
speed rotating machinery, critical speed, vibration, lubrication, seals,
regulation, etc. He completed his first practical turbine in 1884! One of
the features of this turbine is that the 15 stages are all the same
diameter. This certainly made it easier to construct the blade rings, which
were made of BRASS! All the blades are at 45 degrees, with just a filed (or
milled) chamfer at the leading edge! You could make these easily with a
dividing head in a mill.
[email protected] (Edward Haas)
rec.crafts.metalworking 12 Dec 1996
- Steam turbines *are* lotsa fun: they make nice noises and they aren't all
that hard to build once you get the hang of it, BUT. The "but" is that they
aren't as efficient as steam reciprocating engines, until they get upwards
of (I think) 25 HP or thereabouts. Below that value they are extreme steam
hogs. For experimenting purposes, make sure that you have a steam feed pump
hooked up to put water back in your boiler. My friends Roger McGuire and
Todd Guldenbrein have a rotary-vane vacuum pump hooked up to a 6HP Scotch
boiler, up in Vallejo, CA and when they turn on the steam, the pump makes a
dandy noise and rotates at a fair clip (but nothing to write home about).
You can see the water level declining, tho, and it makes you wonder...
- I run little experimental 3/8" thick, 2" diameter modified deLaval turbines
using the Coles Power Models 5" dia. VFT boiler, altho any large "model"
boiler would probably do, again so long as there is a steam feed pump in
the system...
- More info. on my experiments with steam turbines will appear on my "cob-web"
page sometime early next year (no, really!)
[email protected]
rec.crafts.metalworking 16 Dec 1996
- I understand that TEBA (Tesla Engine Builders Association) recommends
peripheral disc rivets on the runners of Tesla turbines and pumps. Is this
innovation a contribution by later students of this technology or does it
come from Tesla himself? It was never clear from the scant literature I can
scour on the turbine. To what extent is fluid flow between discs affected
by the presence of the rivets?
- On the inner wall of the housing facing the discs are what's been described
as grooves. Can someone explain what these are for? Are these grooves
concentric circles? Or do they trace a continuous spiral? Would an end disc
and a grooved housing wall resemble a spiral-groove bearing. The rotation
of the discs or runners would keep the narrow region between end disc and
wall pressurized. This perhaps steadies the runners, keep the discs from
warping, keep them parallel?
[email protected] (Tesla Engine)
rec.crafts.metalworking 17 Dec 1996
- >I understand that TEBA (Tesla Engine Builders Association) recommends
>peripheral disc rivets on the runners of Tesla turbines and pumps. Is
>this innovation a contribution by later students of this
>technology or does it come from Tesla himself?
- Yes, this was Tesla's design. It has been one of the most neglected aspects
of turbine construction. Not only do the peripheral rivets provide
stiffening and support they are essential for starting torque.
- >It was never clear from the scant literature I can scour on the turbine. To
>what extent is fluid flow between discs affected by the presence of the
>rivets?
- The rivets have minimum effect on fluid flow at speed but they do prevent
the disks from oscillating and flexing, actions which will break the
characteristic adhesion between the working fluid (typically steam) and the
disks. Adhesion is which the turbine depends on for torque.
- A good text devoted to the turbine is "Tesla's Engine - A New Dimension For
Power" published by us. It contains most of the source documents regarding
the turbine. More information is at our website:
www.execpc.com/~teba
- >On the inner wall of the housing facing the discs are what's been
>described as grooves. Can someone explain what these are for?
- Sounds like you have been reading our Autumn newsletter. These grooves
break the adhesion between the end disk and case. Without these grooves a
breaking effect will occur between the end disk and case wall. A parasitic
drag.
- >Are these grooves concentric circles?
- Yes
- >Or do they trace a continuous spiral?
- No
- >Would an end disc and a grooved housing wall resemble a spiral-groove
>bearing.
- No
- >The rotation of the discs or runners would keep the narrow region
>between end disc and wall pressurized.
- No
- >This perhaps steadies the runners, keep the discs from warping, keep them
>parallel?
- No
- >Input on these issues would be appreciated.
- The Tesla turbine can not compete with cheap small horsepower bladed
turbines. Where it shines is at the higher horsepowers: 10hp and above.
Tesla's small 9 3/4 diameter 2 inch wide turbine developed 110 hp with Tesla
stating that it could easily deliver 1,000 if the shaft could tolerate the
torque. This has been confirmed in units constructed by our members.
- The biggest problem Tesla had with his turbines was twisting the output
shaft and worries about his units, those with cast housings, ability to
tolerate higher pressures (above 200 lbs). Typical operating nozzle
pressure was 125 lbs in his single stage units.
- If you need POWER, this is without question the cheapest and most easily
constructed turbine available. It MUST, however, be done correctly. Those
that have constructed this unit using information provided by Live Steam and
Popular Mechanics have been disappointed. For example: Plans for a piston
engine might look great but if the detail of piston rings is missed get
ready for a let down. This is similar to what has happened with the Tesla
turbine. Toys are one thing, raw power another.
- [email protected]
www.execpc.com/~teba
[email protected](Roger Loving)
rec.crafts.metalworking 17 Dec 1996
- >I understand that TEBA (Tesla Engine Builders Association) recommends
>peripheral disc rivets on the runners of Tesla turbines and pumps.
- I have looked at Tesla's rotating multi-disk pumps and engines and can't see
any advantage to them over any of the multitude of curved vane centrifugal
pumps available commercially. I don't really understand what you are asking,
but if I did, I could possibly answer your question. I have written several
hundred pages of patent work on similar pumps. From an engineering
standpoint, all of these cent. pumps are loosely classified as "angular
momentum" devices and are pretty much defined by the way that they work on
the fluid....i.e. high flow rate, low head pressure, fluid shear strength
limited...etc. Log spirals and other logarithmic relationships appear
throughout the math in any angular momentum device, so I imagine that one of
your answers is that you need a spiral rather than concentric circles.
[email protected] (Tesla Engine)
rec.crafts.metalworking 18 Dec 1996
- > Real interesting stuff here. I would like to learn more about this subject
> so please flood me with info! I admit to being somewhat skeptical about a
> machine that is better at high horsepower than at low. How 'cum?
- It works just fine at low hp. What we meant is that there are many small
and cheap bladed turbines available off the shelf but the only way to get a
Tesla spec. disc turbine is to build it or have it built.
- Our most recent newsletter features technical details and images, published
for the first time, of Tesla's small hp turbo-generator. Tesla had the
following to say about this small hp unit which he described as "A Lighting
Machine On Novel Principles":
- "That an apparatus of such simplicity and presenting so many salient
advantages should find an extensive use in electric lighting might be
naturally expected, but its overwhelming superiority will be better
appreciated when it is stated that it occupies hardly more than one-tenth of
the space of apparatus of the usual forms and weighs less in proportion. A
machine capable of developing 1-kilowatt, for instance, goes into a space of
8x8x10" and weighs but 40 pounds. It takes not more than one-third of the
steam consumed in other turbo-generators of that size. The Machine consists
of but a stationary solid frame and two smooth cylindrical steel bodies
mounted on a strong shaft arranged to rotate in bearings virtually
fricitonless...The outfit can be constructed in various sizes up to 100-
kilowatt or more..."
- The image of this turbo-generator appears on the cover of our Autumn
newsletter. This issue contains this and other rare and previously
unrecognized and unpublished images from the Boyle & Anderson Tesla Photo
Archive, which was recently sold for $17,000.
- The significance of these bladeless turbine images has only now been
recognized and acknowleged, as a direct result of our observations and
correlations to the original writings of Tesla.
[email protected]
rec.crafts.metalworking 18 Dec 1996
- > >I understand that TEBA (Tesla Engine Builders Association) recommends
> >peripheral disc rivets on the runners of Tesla turbines and pumps. Is
> >this innovation a contribution by later students of this
> >technology or does it come from Tesla himself?
- > Yes, this was Tesla's design. It has been one of the most neglected
> aspects of turbine construction. Not only do the peripheral rivets
> provide stiffening and support they are essential for starting torque.
- What other aspects of turbine and pump construction need to be looked after
aside from runner rivets and casing wall grooves? What areas would be easy
to overlook?
- > The rivets have minimum effect on fluid flow at speed but they do
> prevent the disks from oscillating and flexing, actions which will break
> the characteristic adhesion between the working fluid (typically steam)
> and the disks. Adhesion is which the turbine depends on for torque.
- Hmm. This is important news indeed. I had this notion that perhaps the
rivets might deflect the fluid or might hamper the desired logarithmic
spiral transit of the working fluid through the runners. You're saying then
this is true only to a negligible extent and that meeting the crucial goal
of disk stability ourweighs whatever deficits there may be?
- > A good text devoted to the turbine is "Tesla's Engine - A New Dimension
> For Power" published by us. It contains most of the source documents
> regarding the turbine. More information is at our website:
> www.execpc.com/~teba
- Yes, I've visited your thought-provoking website and the companion site too
by Boswell. (http://phyhepsun1.ucr.edu:80/~boswell/testurb.html). Aside
from Tesla's original patent diagrams, there's a dimensioned graphic of a
turbine runner with peripheral rivets BUT also with three rivets
strategically placed along the runner body apparently to brace it further.
Is this a fair representation of what TEBA champions?
- The book is by Jeffery A. Hayes, right? Must make a mental note of that.
- > >On the inner wall of the housing facing the discs are what's been
> >described as grooves. Can someone explain what these are for?
- > These grooves break the adhesion between the end disk and case.
> Without these grooves a breaking effect will occur between the
> end disk and case wall. A parasitic drag.
- I'd like a clearer picture of this. Can you supply some more detail on the
action between the grooved wall and the end discs?
- I thought it resembled another configuration. A smooth plate rotor is spun
above a stator disc that's grooved from edge to center with spiral channels.
This action pumps fluid from the edge to the center where it eventually
leaks out. But not before the fluid forms a film that separates rotor and
stator, allowing the rotor to spin at very low friction on a cushion of
fluid.
- > The Tesla turbine can not compete with cheap small horsepower bladed
> turbines. Where it shines is at the higher horsepowers: 10hp and above.
> Tesla's small 9 3/4 diameter 2 inch wide turbine developed 110 hp
> with Tesla stating that it could easily deliver 1,000 if the shaft
> could tolerate the torque. This has been confirmed in units constructed
> by our members.
- Well, if incomplete plans are floating about and being mispresented as
complete plans, then that is even more dangerous to your campaign to promote
the Tesla turbine than having no plans floating at all. Since it poisons
opinion against the turbine whenever attempts to reproduce its legendary
performance end in failure. But I think you already know how to counter
this. TEBA should take the bold step of making available their own
authoritative construction plans for small demonstration models of both the
bladeless boundary-layer turbine and pump. It should incorporate every
little-known feature that explodes the myths popularised over the years by
the Live Steam and Popular Mechanics articles. I believe that is the best
advertisement you can make for your organization: Get folks to build the
thing first. In much the same way that the various Tesla coil associations
promote their endeavor by maintaining an accessible repository of coil-
building articles on the Net.
[email protected] (Tesla Engine)
rec.crafts.metalworking 19 Dec 1996
- >What other aspects of turbine and pump construction need to be looked
>after aside from runner rivets and casing wall grooves? What areas
>would be easy to overlook?
- Another important detail is to isolate the runner ends from the working
fluid's direct pressure. This is accomplished by making the nozzle width
smaller than the width of the runner. The object is to minimize working
fluid between the runner and case walls. Fluid in this region does not
produce a lubrication as you indicate but produces adhesion resulting in
parasitic drag.
- The nozzle also should be variable allowing it to be tuned to the working
fluid volume and fluid. Turbines that are not tuned will be inefficient at
best and may not turn at all.
- ALL the classic errors were made in the turbine constructed for geothermal
tests conducted for Conoco in 1977. We have video of this turbine being fed
by a high pressure well, drilled specially for the test, the turbine doesn't
budge an inch. UHHH.....
- >> The rivets have minimum effect on fluid flow at speed but they do
>> prevent the disks from oscillating and flexing, actions which will break
>> the characteristic adhesion between the working fluid (typically steam)
>> and the disks. Adhesion is which the turbine depends on for torque.
- >Hmm. This is important news indeed. I had this notion that perhaps
>the rivets might deflect the fluid or might hamper the desired logarithmic
>spiral transit of the working fluid through the runners. You're saying
>then this is true only to a negligible extent and that meeting the crucial
>goal of disk stability ourweighs whatever deficits there may be?
- Exactly, the peripheral rivets also provide additional torque. There have
been those that have serrated the disk edges in an attempt to "improve" the
device, actually patented in 1913. This does have the detrimental effects
you were thinking about.
- Others not knowing about the 1913 patent recently tried serrations, like a
saw blade, hoping for a patent. They soon discovered that a high back
pressure and destructive turbulence is created. All this BEFORE trying
Tesla's design. Classic.
- Just about every conceivable variation can be found in patents issued soon
after the Tesla patents were issued. We have not found any that actually
improve on Tesla's design, however.
- Quoting Tesla:
"You see, that is one great trouble. The human mind thinks but to
complicate...But here you see what I have done. Do you see how very simple
it is?"
- Most don't.
- >> regarding the turbine. More information is at our website:
- >The book is by Jeffery A. Hayes, right?
- Correct
- >Can you supply some more detail on the action between the grooved wall
>and the end discs?
- Action is detrimental and not desired. The word is "isolation."
- >I thought it resembled another configuration. A smooth plate rotor is
>spun above a stator disc that's grooved from edge to center with spiral
>channels. This action pumps fluid from the edge to the center where it
>eventually leaks out. But not before the fluid forms a film that
>separates rotor and stator, allowing the rotor to spin at very low
>friction on a cushion of fluid.
- Not in Tesla's design. Films mean parasitic adhesion.
- >...three rivets strategically placed along the runner body apparently
>to brace it further. Is this a fair representation of what TEBA champions?
- Yes! The number of rivets varies, however, depending on runner diameter.
- >Well, if incomplete plans are floating about and being mispresented as
>complete plans, then that is even more dangerous to your campaign to
>promote the Tesla turbine than having no plans floating at all.
>Since it poisons opinion against the turbine whenever attempts to
>reproduce its legendary performance end in failure.
- So true.
- >But I think you already know how to counter this. TEBA should take the
>bold step of making available their own authoritative construction plans
>for small demonstration models of both the bladeless boundary-layer
>turbine and pump. It should incorporate every little-known feature that
>explodes the myths popularised over the years by the Live Steam and
>Popular Mechanics articles. I believe that is the best advertisement
>you can make for your organization: Get folks to build the thing first.
- We have made the accurate information available to those that are
truly interested.
- However, being provided with correct information is not enough to
build a properly working turbine. You must submit to it and build it
the way Tesla intended. Most, unfortunately, can not or will not.
- "THE MIND THINKS BUT TO COMPLICATE."
Tesla Sept. 1911 during the public announcement of his turbine:
"That was one of my great troubles when I was younger, I invented
many things that were very fine, but always I was getting into
compications. I have had to work very hard to overcome that."
[email protected]
rec.crafts.metalworking 21 Dec 1996
- > Another important detail is to isolate the runner ends from the
> working fluid's direct pressure. This is accomplished by making
> the nozzle width smaller than the width of the runner. The
> object is to minimize working fluid between the runner and case
> walls. Fluid in this region does not produce a lubrication as
> you indicate but produces adhesion resulting in parasitic drag.
- Cutting grooves on a surface basically produces the same effect as pitting,
pockmarking or dimpling it or introducing roughage or any unevenness to a
surface. This creates a turbulent boundary layer which unlike laminar
boundary layer does not stick to the surface. Come to think of it, a
vibrating and flexing disk would qualify as such a rough, uneven surface to
traveling fluid. Both grooved casing wall and a warping disk would result
in the same thing: lost adhesion with the working fluid.
- > ALL the classic errors were made in the turbine constructed
> for geothermal tests conducted for Conoco in 1977. We have
> video of this turbine being fed by a high pressure well, drilled
> specially for the test, the turbine doesn't budge an inch. UHHH.....
- Tell us about Conoco. This could be good story on what not to do when
building a Tesla turbine. Did this involve Clarence R. Possell who took out
a patent on a bladeless geothermal turbine, and who seemed to have cornered
the most patents derived from Tesla's original device in recent years?
There was an explosion of patenting activity in the 70s and 80s on "disk
turbines", "bladelss impellers", and even "substantially noiseless fans",
wasn't there?
- > Exactly, the peripheral rivets also provide additional torque. There
> have been those that have serrated the disk edges in an attempt to
> "improve" the device, actually patented in 1913. This does have
> the detrimental effects you were thinking about.
- > Others not knowing about the 1913 patent recently tried serrations,
> like a saw blade, hoping for a patent. They soon discovered that a high
> back pressure and destructive turbulence is created. All this BEFORE
> trying Tesla's design. Classic.
- They were trying to improve torque with the serrations? What was the
reasoning behind that?
- > Just about every conceivable variation can be found in patents issued
> soon after the Tesla patents were issued. We have not found any that
> actually improve on Tesla's design, however.
- While on the subject of design subtleties, how about the "labyrinth seals
next to the exhaust ports?" What's their place in the swing of things? Are
these exclusive to the turbine or do pumps have them too?
- Does the shape and size of the exhaust holes through the runner center lmake
any difference at all on how well a turbine or pump performs?
- Tell us something about disk spacing values. The rules of thumb involved.
- In the early days, a serious issue against the disk turbine was stretching
of the metal due to the high centrifugal force when the disks are spun.
Tesla conceived larger diameter runners largely to cut down rotational speed
but even the bigger units seemed to have been plagued with the problem. Has
there been progress in this area?
Shannen Durphey
diy_efi 03 Oct 1998
- > Back in 75, I saw a Pontiac, that was a gm mule, that was feedback Carb
> Prototype. Had about 3 gazillion relays, and 2 bazillion feet of wiring
> under the hood.. Told the guy I needed to yank some of them wirz out, he
> didn't see any humor in anything I said. He'd brought it in for an oil
> change and was real antsy about me driving it into the lube bay.
- Buddy in College had Pontiac book showing 74 ish Bonneville with factory
steam engine. Good picture, looked like it had cruise, A/C, all the bells &
whistles you could want on your Big Chief Steamer.
- If anybody has a copy of that book, I would REALLY like a copy of that
picture.
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[another slice from the Database From Hell - enjoy!
by dw42=angelfire=com]
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