There WAS a step after Doble, and it was efficient. But WW2 prevented it.

Excuse my teacher-esque remark, but knowing more than one language brings its many advantages. One of them is more information being accessible without tedious translator programs.
Upon reading the german Wikipedia page about steam cars ("Dampfwagen":

[de.wikipedia.org]

I found, that someone has added some very interesting information about a few german attempts of a steam car after WW2, which I didn't even know about. Aside from some others, a certain Erwin Schwander, who built upon the work of the Doble brothers to create the next development step of steam car engines. Sadly, the person who edited the Wikipedia page did not include any source. But I "duckduckgo'ed" the name and found an obscure internet page, where I got more information from. Fortunately, this source also includes a zip file with all drawings, which is not what I expected from such an obscure steam engine development. You can clearly see the resemblance to the Doble engine. It looks like it's using a kind of Heusinger/Walschaerts valve gear. There is a mention of a comparative test run comparing the engine with a bugatti and interesting enough, it ended up having a comparable economy. Although the steam engine and IC engine put out well over 100 HP and my spider senses tell me the racing IC engine of the Bugatti wasn't exactly economic. A car nut will know better than I do. Here's the source for everybody's enjoyment:

[www.hanomag-henschel.net]

Interestingly, the german Wikipedia mentions a fuel consumption of 18l/100km (8.1gal/100miles) of "heating oil" for 150HP, which the Wikipedia pages states was comparible to the Bugatti's fuel consumption. (Wikipedia and the Henschel website differ over the Bugatti model used to compare the steam car with. Either a 46 or a 50T). Sadly, the person, who added the paragraph did not state the source and the fuel consumption is not mentioned in the Henschel website. So, someone out there has more information. If the information is true, it would be very interesting.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2023 06:09PM by Steam Captain.

I have to inform you, that, phrased differently, it has been posted in an older thread with the name "De Dietrich Bugatti steam conversion drawings", but he didn't link to the website with the history. His link only leads to the download of the technical drawings.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2023 06:10PM by Steam Captain.

Interesting evaluation. I definitely agree that Erwin Schwander created his drawing/design based on the Doble E and F compound engines. My opinion, this is where I would invest time in developing the next steam engine generation.

I'm currently re-reading my Doble Steam Car book by Jim Crank. I'm at the part where he talks about the Doble F and his adventures to Germany.

Steam Captain, you seam to be a knowledgeable fellow and in quest of valid steam information much like myself. I highly recommend purchasing this book Jim Crank from the SACA storeroom. The price is reduced when you include a SACA membership subscription. The fee is well worth the joining of the club. However, the bi-monthly bulletin is delivered in Deutschland via a electronic PDF file. It costs extra to send a hard copy overseas.

One remarkable idea with this design shown above. It has a hollow piston valve. However, it is just applied to one cylinder and not in compound. The Doble E has a hollow piston valve per compound pair. Doble incorporated the Wolf compound into his hollow piston valve design. Again, something I would invest time into developing further.

Cheers and best of luck to you,
Rick

Talking with Jim Crank, I would avoid the Woolf compound Doble used in the Series E cars. Jim told me that their scrap rate was astronomical because there were so many cores, and such thin walls -- it was almost inevitable that there would be some shifting in the casting process and the intricacies of that mechanism ate up all your allowance for error. Beyond that, there's reason to question the thermal efficiency of passing steam from both compound cylinders through the same valve. The traditional single slide or piston valve is already wasteful enough what with exhaust steam cooling the passage just before incoming steam has to flow through the pathway. Separate valves is definitely more efficient if you are careful to minimize clearance volume. Actually, it is amazing how many engine designers ignored clearance volume, although I have seen a reference to the benefit of small clearance dating back to the latter 1880s. Anyhow, you can see dual valves in higher efficiency engines like Corliss or that big Allis-Chalmers triple compound in the Henry Ford Museum. (I love the hydraulically controlled Joy valve gear on that engine).

I think highly of that engine also, the use of hydraulics with the Joy valve was a wonderful feat.

I just read about the Doble F that used a compound with different hollow piston valves, one per cylinder. They appear to be large in size also compared to the Doble E. Jim states in the book that they could run a higher steam temperature to the engine as a result of the cooling effect within the piston valve. I'm pretty sure the thought process was to keep the compound engine for it provides for maximum efficiency. The loss in thermal efficiency within the valve is minimal compared to the gain with compounding. I can show this clearly on a TS Diagram.

Also, I believe that separate Stephenson links, one per cylinder valve provides for better combinations of cut-off. Where the Wolf compound single valve was fixed between HP and LP respectively. Sounds like this is the engine that went to Germany for use in the trucks that lasted up into the 50's years. My guess is that the valve for the LP piston had a longer cut-off during start and initial acceleration. Then HP piston was used at speed with a longer cut-off up to around 50%.

Here is where I would apply time in developing the next generation steam engine. Keep the compound and add reheat to the steam before it passes to the LP piston. Keeping high pressures and temperatures is paramount to efficiency. Steam pressure and temperature like to rise and fall at the same value. If you want to run 1,000 PSI steam (1,000* F), the normalizer will need to cool the temperature down to 750*F. The hollow piston valve is an asset to this operation to increase efficiency.

The downside of this arrangement is the need for simpling valve, pressure line relief and pressure line charge along with other mechanical arrangements. Depending on how you look at it, it becomes more complicated or it becomes more fun to operate.

Interesting discussion and fun to think about future steam developments. I enjoyed reading about the later developments in Germany. Thank you Steam Captain.

One last thing about the Stephenson Linkage and it's brilliance in design. When you reduce the cut-off, in other words you pull in Hook-up, the valve opening position stays the same. For instance, the valve will open at TDC whether in normal or hook-up operation even though the travel is reduced. To me, this is a wonderful achievement. Pretty sure this is why Doble retained the Stephenson Linkage in his later engines.

After study of the website linked above, I believe the valve gear on the De Dietrich is a Walschaerts. This makes sense to put the valve cylinders parallel to the piston cylinders and below. This takes advantage of the lever action. BTW, I then studied the drawing along with going to Wikipedia (Walschaerts valve gear) to see this come to light.

Note that like the Stephenson Linkage, Walschaerts maintains the valve opening at top-dead-center in cut-off.

I like this...

Bugatti's fractory in Nancy France

Around 1961 I was in the Bugatti factory in Nancy France. At that time it was and old building and machine shop. Lots of early rear engine racecars. And large machine shop. They were also working on large train engines. We brought a large straight eight Bugatti engine there to be rebuilt. The car was shipped back to the US.
Interesting Day.

Rolly

Nice model of the working Walschaerts Locomotive Valve Gear Model

[www.youtube.com]

Yes, exactly, it‘s a Heusinger/Waelscherts valve gear. It makes sense, because Henschel was one of the few great steam locomotive builders in my country. And as you probably all know, Germany practically only used this gear. There were some very rare exceptions.

Thank you for the book recommendation and the veiled enticing to join the Saca membership. I will definitely join.

Anyways: I‘m also not a big fan of merging the intake and exhaust valves. Reading some literature over time did seem to suggest quite a significant efficiency loss.
In contrast, very well designed counter flow engines were so efficient that the gain to uniflow wasn‘t big enough to justify its use. Well, the doble engine already showed that I guess. It would be interesting to design an uniflow version of the doble engine to see how big the gab really is or how much one could tickle out of such an engine. Although I guess you‘d need quite a flywheel mass to overcome the compression stroke. But it‘s a well known thing in the IC design.

Very interesting subject.

My sincere apologies for being to the contrary. I actually think a hollow piston valve is an excellent concept with engines that plan to run at over 700 PSI (4.8 MPA). The cooling effect from the valve helps stabilize the temperature.

A thank you should be in order because your post trigger this thought process. Depends on your view point. I believe that running higher temperature and pressure leads to better efficiency. However, one needs to lower temperature to around 700 - 800 *F (~400 *C) to maintain engine life. The hollow piston valve works to this favor.

These pressures and temperatures would be suitable to compounding. Then the piston valve geometry is suitable for leading the steam to another expansion cylinder set if I may, like a 2nd stage compound (low pressure piston). Perhaps the addition of re-heating the steam will out weigh the loss from the hollow piston valve. Let the receiver compound volume be within the boiler fire for reheating much like the superheat coil.

I included a concept that reflects this very idea.

I have never found a steam cylinder oil good for over 562F

Rolly makes another excellent point...lubrication is a big issue at elevated temperatures.

Also, I thought I would interject that thermal efficiency of the engine should not be the major concern. The place to focus thermal efficiency is at the boiler or steam generator. This is where the battle should be.

One idea for a bike boiler arrangement is attached, feed the boiler from a hot well tank. Use the feed pump to circulate water through the economizer and return to the hot well when the bypass valve is open. When bypass is closed, continue flow through a flash coil and then into the boiler. My belief is that the thermal efficiency gained from this arrangement very much out weighs the loss in the engine's hollow piston valve. Just food for thought.

Attached is a generator I never built but was playing with design concepts. It could be made smaller in diameter and longer in length.

Also the Doble valve cooked with over heating of oil.
I think I have posted both of theses sometime in the past.

Rolly

In the Doble Steam Car book by Jim Crank, he shows this boiler concept where he is including a type of forced circulation within the coils around the steam generator. The separator drum is just large tubing/pipe coiled around the outside of the chamber. This is sometimes referred to as a water wall.

The issue with a mono-tube boiler in producing steam at the ranges we are considering here, well, it takes so much energy to pump the water into the tube that it exceeds the pressure that you get out in steam, i.e. Chuk Williams LSR car took 1000 - 1200 PSI water to get 800 PSI steam.

My question is and in relationship to this thread is what were the steps after Doble regarding boiler or steam generator design? Perhaps the design was built in Germany or modified into another version.

I attached a version I modified to fill in the blanks of what Doble has going on in his design sketch.

Rick
It’s all in the math. There are a lot of formulas for finding backpressure and flow pressure through a coil of pipe. Not my expertise.
Pressure Flow Through a Coiled Tube
Rolly

Rolly, I'm looking into this new term, the Dean Number and as it relates to Reynolds No...thanks Rick

It really doesn't take all that much power to operate a forced recirculation boiler. The recirculation loop is filled with saturated water, so it needs less surface area because you aren't raising the feed from ambient temperature. Next, you go with a larger tube diameter, which causes the pressure drop across the tube to drop dramatically. Finally, expansion of fluid inside the tube causes the water/steam mix to accelerate -- this is produced by the burner and not the circulation pump. A properly designed system will extract the steam and reintroduce the water in such a way that it isn't drastically slowed down as it passes through the water/steam separator. Finally, you can do what Doble did and go to progressively larger tubing as the volume expands, reducing the pressure drop at each segment. And, if that still isn't sufficient, you can run parallel paths of shorter tubes.

After all, the pressure drop doesn't inhibit natural circulation boilers -- they just don't choose tube configurations that severely restrict flow.

After a little research, I found this boiler for a Sentinel truck or large steam vehicle. For a solid fuel boiler, I have high regard for this design. My interpretation is that it is the opposite to a Fire-Tube boiler in that it is a Water-Tube boiler. The tubes carry water between tube sheets. Alone, this will be a good performing boiler in the 200 - 300 range and even including up to 400 PSI. This is my opinion. Also note that it provides super heat.

One feature that I totally agree with is the use of steam exhaust to draw the flame and hot gas through the boiler. The fuel resources at that time (after WWII) had a lot to do with the use of coal and other solid fuel. Mr. Stephenson is who I credit with this steam-exhaust-draw concept as he implemented it on the Rocket Locomotive and won the Rain-hill Trials.

I'm guessing that this type of boiler would be augmented with some type of feed water heater.

Here is my wonder...how did Doble receive this boiler design? Did he try to influence the design toward a mono-tube or even the injector forced circulation concept as shown above. Or is his concepts not suitable to solid fuel?

Rick
I was looking for some photos
Must be on an old CD some where, we had a steam car tour in Vermont years ago, over 100 cars, and there was a Sentinel Truck there with just that type of boiler in it.
Some where I have photos with my Friend Rod Teel in the truck, we lost Rod this past year.
The Truck ran very well and had no problem climbing the hills in Vermont.
They were burning soft coal, lots of smoke. The town had a few fire trucks following the cars around. ????

Rolly

My recollection is that Doble designed a monotube but, instead of his usual pancakes, the tubes were arranged in tightly wound nested helical coils with spaces between the helices. The unit was fed from the top via a door (making for easily fueling if you kept coal in buckets or had an overhead bin filled with a trap door. It employed induced draft, meaning the fan was at the exhaust stack. This keeps the boiler at negative air pressure and allows you to refuel without having flames leap at you.The gas flow was serpentine going up and down between the helices. If I could lay my hands on the Walton book, I could scan a copy.

OK, couldn't lay the book out flat to get a better quality image, but this gets the point across easily enough... Certainly a simple design and economical of construction.

An interesting design with an external boiler drum was that used on the Toledo steamer and designed by Ralph L. Morgan -- who later on went to manufacture first the Morgan steam and then gasoline heavy trucks ... later developed an ID grinder business that was purchased by Greenfield Tap and Die.

Saturated water ejected out of the conical generating coils departs through the angled nozzles labelled i. This water will have fairly high velocity since part of it has been vaporized and the volume is now much higher departing than entering. By angling the nozzles, the water in the drum is given a spin which aids in separating the steam from the water.

Water entering the coils comes in through the connections labeled f '. These are positioned tangentially to the drum wall so that they function as ram scoops so that the water entering the coils retains the kinetic energy imparted by nozzles i. So, velocity imparted by heating the coils is retained by the water entering the coils.

In the second drawing, we see an eductor, which is parts m, n, o, g. This jet pump uses the velocity of feedwater entering the boiler to draw water already in the boiler into that one generating tube. Decent jet pumps, in my practical experience, move about one gallon of water for every gallon of pumping water added. So, this eductor should roughly double the amount of water entering the innermost coil and therefore amplify the circular flow in the boiler drum accordingly. This is all described in Morgan's patent and in a Horseless Age from November 6, 1901



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2023 02:41PM by frustrated.

Ken
I remember that generator. Can’t find my Doble book. Wasn’t that one when he worked for Herschel in Germany.
Must have towed a trailer around with coal.

Rolly

Hi Rolly,

Nope, the German machines were fueled with coal oil, which was a cheapish liquid fuel. Part of the reason that fizzled out was that German started gearing up for WW2 and the demand for liquid fuels made even coal oil more expensive.

This boiler was used in the Doble-powered Sentinel truck. He also installed a reheated, compound engine. Supposedly, the economy was far superior to the regular Sentinel -- but that company really didn't have the money to retool their factories given the relatively small number of vehicles that they manufactured. The 1930s were not an easy time to finance corporate overhauls.

Regards,

Ken

In previous remarks about the E engine and the very thin cylinder wall between the HP and LP cylinders and some of them failing with the 2-5/8 HP and 4-1/2 LP bores that this 3/1 cylinder ratio was chosen after a huge arguement in the engineering office as Abner wanted a 2-1/4 and 4-1/2 cylinder ratio or a 4/1 compound ratio described all of this to Crank by Marc Lothrop[(mechanical engineer and patent attorney) told Crank all about this debate and infurieated Abner. Possibly if they had settled for 2-1/2"HP bore that would have eliminated that problem. Lothrop had the original blueprint with all these red markings and was given to Crank. If you look at page 87 in the Walton book you will see the engine tested twice had a 2-1/4 inch HP cylinder that Abner wanted for his car and engine 27 was his car engine. Also note that in a little over a year the car had an additional 26,000 miles put on it! Both tests had 9+ pounds steam rate. That engine had an additional wall thickness of plus 3/16" and was not fragile as Abner got his way on his engine! Both tests had a horsepower of 120+ at 900+ RPM or about 60-65 MPH on the road with a burn rate(according to Jim) of 15GPH!! When the exhaust turbine booster was added to the improved F boiler the engine was possible of over 190HP @ 60-65 MPH in 60% cut off with a burn rate of 26GPH according to Crank. As Lothrop said after getting his car it became a veritable mountain goat. Keep in mind that the 3/1 engine had a displacement of 424CID. I am so thankful for the hundred plus phone calls and mailings from Crank over many years, he was such a great story teller and friend. c I believe the work done in Germany as by Warren Doble who was a mechanical engineer of highest order and larger Doble type two cylinder compounds were developed there in the 1930's. One can use the Bancroft engine and boiler information to crosscheck the dates when Abners car was back in the factory. Crank was nice enough to send me copies of both each of several hundred pages of information. All be well.

Hi Guys,

Honestly, given my drathers, I would take the Scott-Newcomb engine over the Doble. It was single expansion, poppet valve, semi-uniflow. The poppet valves should allow high superheat without lubrication issues. The uniflow prevents cooling of the head, The aux exhaust valve vents off the small amount of compression steam, permitting tight clearance volume for improved efficiency. When all is said and done, it is a relatively simple and advanced engine, although I would prefer a single acting V-4 with overhead valves to reduce that clearance volume even more and to minimize turbulent flow.

The file is about 11 times too big to stick on the Forum, so I've provided a link:

Scott-Newcomb engine

Regards,

Ken

Interesting engine, I’ve seen Roy Anderson work before. At the moment I can’t remember where. Most likely in the marine area.

The pattern work would be a challenge for the beginner.

Rolly

Hi Rolly,

Challenging is relative -- I think that getting good Doble E castings would be trickier. But, I've done enough pattern work that neither one seems all that bad. My big pet peeve is that designers often leave too little draft angle on the print ... it's like they figure that the way to get a good casting is to make things more challenging for the molders. When I was working on injection molding tooling, it was amazing how many times I had to go back in and open the die up just a bit before they could repeatably mold good parts.

Regards,

Ken

Ken
I found that the cost of castings at the Foundry is in putting the molds in the sand, not how many pieces are on the board.
I tend to put as many on the board as I can, cost wise it’s cheaper per piece.

Rolly

Hi Rolly,

I hear you. I have been sleazy enough to make a pattern and then cast a mold off of that in order to cast resin patterns to stick on the board.

Another trick is to design elements with uniform cross-sections and cast them in long bars, which can then be cut off to the desired lengths. Admittedly, I could make the pattern that way and then cut it into the correct lengths, but I have found that sometimes you get better flow and venting from the longer section.

The best foundry I knew was run by a guy with decades of experience, who liked to keep his hand in the work rather than just sit in the office. He encouraged us to give him loose patterns, because he could use them to train new molders in the art of cutting gates and sprues. Most of his customers ordered much larger part runs, and that wasn't practical -- but our numbers were small. It worked out nice, we saved fabrication time and he had some training aids. Anyhow, I guess he wanted to ensure that his outfit could accept runs of any size and wanted to keep the average skill level up.

Regards

I’ve done some single castings one off.
Attached is an casting I designed for Brent Campbell to drive an alternator on a 30 HP Stanley rear end and machined it.

Jay Leno has it now.

Rolly

All files from this thread

File Name	File Size		Posted by	Date
TS Diagram-Steam Re-heat Sys.gif	57.5 KB	open | download	Rick.H	01/30/2023	Read message
Formula S Racecar Desc reduced.jpg	692.6 KB	open | download	Rick.H	01/30/2023	Read message
Steam Bike hot tank detail.jpg	347.2 KB	open | download	Rick.H	01/31/2023	Read message
Steam Bike boiler detail.jpg	800.2 KB	open | download	Rick.H	01/31/2023	Read message
combustion chamber.jpg	344.6 KB	open | download	Rolly	01/31/2023	Read message
Doble Valve-croped.jpg	340 KB	open | download	Rolly	01/31/2023	Read message
ADforcedRecirc Increased.jpg	207.6 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/01/2023	Read message
be310s04m5 (1).doc	120.5 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/01/2023	Read message
170px-Sentinel_boiler,_sections_(Rankin_Kennedy,_Modern_Engines,_Vol_V).jpg	133.9 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/04/2023	Read message
DOBLE COAL FIRE.jpg	760.6 KB	open | download	frustrated	02/04/2023	Read message
690981.png	592.7 KB	open | download	frustrated	02/04/2023	Read message
boiler detail.png	55.5 KB	open | download	frustrated	02/04/2023	Read message
20HP cylinder heads-s.jpg	249.4 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/07/2023	Read message
New casting.JPG	229.7 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/07/2023	Read message
finished set. .JPG	179 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/07/2023	Read message
body small print.jpg	106.1 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/07/2023	Read message
20211030_173710 reduced.jpg	813.4 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/11/2023	Read message
Burner concept.png	21.8 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/11/2023	Read message
Image (40).jpg	325.6 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/11/2023	Read message
Image (41).jpg	287.3 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/11/2023	Read message
Besler Systems.pdf	320.5 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/11/2023	Read message
Besler.jpg	488.3 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/11/2023	Read message
Derr economizer.jpg	97.1 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/13/2023	Read message
Marine economizer.jpg	51.2 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/13/2023	Read message
Stanley economizer.jpg	113.5 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/13/2023	Read message
Tryall economizer.jpg	30.5 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/13/2023	Read message
another great burn.JPG	131.4 KB	open | download	Rolly	02/13/2023	Read message
CIRC SYSTEM.png	514.1 KB	open | download	frustrated	02/17/2023	Read message
Monotube Design Concept.jpg	696.2 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/21/2023	Read message
Ts Diagram w Super Heat.jpg	126.2 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/28/2023	Read message
TS Diagram.gif	53.1 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/28/2023	Read message
Tube Stages.jpg	252.4 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/28/2023	Read message
Water%20thermal%20conductivity%20F.jpg	126 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/28/2023	Read message
water_density_F.jpg	116.8 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/28/2023	Read message
43-New Boiler Generating Calc.png	191.9 KB	open | download	Rick.H	02/28/2023	Read message