[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. -----------END OF FILE-------------------------------------------------------- [another slice from the Database From Hell - enjoy! by dw42=angelfire=com] -----------END OF FILE--------------------------------------------------------