Pelland Engineering Ltd.

Pelland Engineering Ltd. now offer new modern steam powered high performance cars made to order. The cars can be supplied in kit form for final assembly by purchasers.

The Pelland S.P. Coupe is a mid engined two seater of monocoque composite construction with independent unequal length wishbone suspension front and rear. (retyped from "The Steam Car" April 2021 No. 91, p5)

Interesting that a multi-fueled steam powered car is offered in a time where the IC engine is on it's way out.

Attached is the land speed attempt, car.

Rick-

Reading the magazine a bit closer, you will realize that the offer was extended in July, 1989. The 1989 newsletter was reprinted in the April version of "The Steam Car" by the editor Barry Herbert.

Tis a damn shame this vehicle or steam plant is not available today-I'd be first in line to acquire one of Peter Pellandine's engines!


Regards-

Chuk

Hmmmm....I'd certainly like to know more about the powerplant.

They say that it is an LSR machine, so that tells us a little bit about the design goals. The current LSR team is looking at a speed of about 200 mph from a 200 HP 353 Detroit diesel conversion ... this in a streamliner so as to absolutely minimize the necessary power.

A ZR-1, C7 Corvette could top out at about 205 mph -- its LS9 engine developing about 638 horsepower. This car looks a little smaller than the Vette, but the frontal area is a lot closer to a Chevy than a streamliner. Honestly, I would bet that it has a little higher drag coefficient simply because it's unlikely that they had a wind tunnel -- and because the scoops indicate that the car is running condensing. Sadly, condensers take proportionately more airflow than radiators, so a steamer takes a bigger penalty unless it goes open cycle and exhausts to atmosphere. Noncondensing, the drag should be less than an ICE.

Just for fun, let's figure that they needed about 500 HP, plus or minus, to reach 200. That would be far and away the most powerful automotive steam plant that I have heard of. Of course, maybe they were looking at just squeaking by the Stanley record, which was current at that time. It might have been possible to beat that on something less than 300 HP. (I'm guesstimating these numbers, if you couldn't guess, there's nothing in the photo that gives you a really good shot at estimating frontal area).

Now if we just had a full set of drawings, schematics, and specifications ... it would be fun to see exactly how they planned to get there.

Regards,

Ken

British steam car challenge vehicle had 386 hp turbine and water loss 8.8 gallons per minute. The condenser could decrease water tank size, but its size would be 5 times larger than for equivalent ICE engine.

[en.wikipedia.org])

Description of various USA 1970s steam passenger cars projects with piston and turbine expanders:

[books.google.com]

The SES steam sedan car had all aluminum 78 lbs , 6.46 sq. Ft steam condenser core with the heat rejection 1.27 mil. Btu/hr, 258F steam condensation, 2x3.5 hp air fans and 38,200 lbs/hr air flow for a constant 158hp (138hp net), 20% efficiency steam engine load at 80F ambient temperature. Prototype complete system was 903 lbs.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2021 11:46AM by novice.

Chuk -

Mea Culpa, the car was offered in 1989. Hence I change my statement from

Quote
Rick.H
Interesting that a multi-fueled steam powered car is offered in a time where the IC engine is on it's way out.

To:
His timing was poor and perhaps, he was before his time. If he made this a current offer, I would be a definite inquirer also.

The wind is out-of-my-sales now, for I have a secret desire for a steam automobile to emerge and compete with electric vehicles. And this seams to be the future with a high regard for clean engines and much talk about automakers giving up IC engines for electric, hydrogen, etc. I'll continue to keep my eyes open...wishing.

Noteworthy to you Chuk is the further description on the top of page 7. I re-type "The steam generator is a monotube of 400' of stainless steel tube, finned in the cooler section." Was yours and Art's discovery and use of finned tubing on LSR independent to this guy?

Also, hard to say what engine he used for the land speed record attempt. It's a toss up from a uniflow to a three cylinder, double acting compound. Probably the uniflow, my guess. Last is that there was some kind of rotary expansion available as an option. anybody, -What's that?-

Cheers,
Rick

Quote

The wind is out-of-my-sales now, for I have a secret desire for a steam automobile to emerge and compete with electric vehicles. And this seams to be the future with a high regard for clean engines and much talk about automakers giving up IC engines for electric, hydrogen, etc. I'll continue to keep my eyes open...wishing.

For what it's worth, I am but one member of a group of 20 (various disciplines) who are talking to a very large investor about bringing (various things) to market. One of those things is a steam car to compete with electric etc.
Although COVID is a problem these days, the bigger problem, I believe, is that the investor has delusions of grandeur and doesn't really have any money. But we'll see.

Rick-

That newsletter reprint caught my eye too, but I knew Pellandine had died a few years ago....and then I noticed the date on it. Using finned tubing for the economizer section of a monotube has been around for awhile-notably Jay Carter used it in all the generators I saw when I visited his shop. Pete Barrett also used finned tubing in his steam work.

It would be hard to say what Mr. Pellandine meant when he said "rotary expansion", but the first thing that comes to my mind would be a turbocharger. Art and I had planned to outfit an engine with a turbo and see what kind of results we could get...but life got in the way.

Regards-

Chuk

To the best of my knowledge, finned tube in steam cars goes back to De Moe engineering back in the 20s or 30s, though the fins were cast and certainly not as effective. Abner Doble mentions Wolverine Finned Tube in regards to the Ultimax powerplant built for McCullouch back in the 50s. Peter Barrett was using finned tube back in the 70s, his series on building the Project 77 car shows just how to build the boiler. And, around the same time, SES had an extensively finned tube boiler. If anyone were to try to manufacture a truly advanced modern steamer, I think extensive use of finned tube in the boiler would be de riguer.

Regards,

Ken

Ken,
Fun experiment...

To reach 200 mph, a good estimate would be 500 Hp. However, Stanley reached 126 mph at maybe 40 - 50 Hp. Is it possible to reach 200 with say 200 Hp?

Thanks,
Rick

Novice -

If you're interested, the British LSR had 12 boilers and generated an enormous amount of BTU. What would that BTU convert to in Hp. My guess is that it would exceed 500 Hp.

I see the SES car had a rotary expanding device...interesting.

Note Doble added this type of device to the latest car version.

Perhaps there is something to this device. We'll have to explore it further.

Thanks,
Rick

LSR steam car boilers thermal power was 3000 kW. Net turbine power 286 kW. So maximum efficiency was just 9.5%. Best steam car designs of the 1970s had net efficiency up to 20% due to use of steam condensers. But their maximum speed was less than 100 mph.

Hi Rick,

Interesting that you ask that question. The 353 Detroit Diesel slated for the Canadian LSR machine will put out about 200 HP with the configurations that both Tim Nye and I calculated....well, the design goal was 200 but the addition of an aux exhaust valve raised that to about 225 and reduced steam consumption in the process. The streamliner Tim is looking at should be good for 200 mph at 200 hp -- which is exactly what you were asking. That design has a pretty modest frontal area and a very low drag coefficient. So, it should be possible to go 200 on 200 at Bonneville, but the car will never be able to manage a trip to the grocery store --- always gotta be a tradeoff somewheres!

Regards,

Ken

Hi Kyle,

Quote
Kyleborg
For what it's worth, I am but one member of a group of 20 (various disciplines) who are talking to a very large investor about bringing (various things) to market. One of those things is a steam car to compete with electric etc.
Although COVID is a problem these days, the bigger problem, I believe, is that the investor has delusions of grandeur and doesn't really have any money. But we'll see.

For what it's worth, I'm available to moonlight and consult with Steam Engine/Boundary Layer design, verification and validation. Willing to do prototype work, within reason considering my new shop is 24 X 32.

Compensation can come later if something becomes of it, I'm in a romance with steam...

Kind regards,
Rick

Rick.H Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Kyle,
>
>

Quote
Kyleborg
> For what it's worth, I am but one member of a
> group of 20 (various disciplines) who are talking
> to a very large investor about bringing (various
> things) to market. One of those things is a steam
> car to compete with electric etc.
> Although COVID is a problem these days, the bigger
> problem, I believe, is that the investor has
> delusions of grandeur and doesn't really have any
> money. But we'll see.
>

>
> For what it's worth, I'm available to moonlight
> and consult with Steam Engine/Boundary Layer
> design, verification and validation. Willing to
> do prototype work, within reason considering my
> new shop is 24 X 32.
>
> Compensation can come later if something becomes
> of it, I'm in a romance with steam...
>
> Kind regards,
> Rick


Hi Rick,

Thanks for the offer. If anything does come out of the "investor talks" I'll hire everybody in this forum to provide their know-how, since I myself have very little.

All files from this thread

File Name	File Size		Posted by	Date
Pelland land speed record car.jpg	46.6 KB	open | download	Rick.H	04/20/2021	Read message