breaks land speed record by hitting 163mph on steam

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... hitting 163mph on steam-powered rocket bike built in his SHED ...

I could think of all kinds of criticism of this, until I realized that I am just plain jealous and I want one.

Would "they" let him ride at Bonneville?

I wish him the best of fortune.

Bill G.

Riding this at Bonneville might be problematic. They are concerned about water dripping onto the salt and ruining the track for other vehicles. I understand the Jim Crank car raised some hackles on that point.

I think the steam would instantly vaporize in the dry hot air. Another reason they may not allow it at Bonneville, is the no pressure vessel rule. As I understand, this is just a giant hi pressure boiler that is actually heated up on its mother ship. I wonder if this could complete a 2 way pass before fizzling out.
Have a great day
Steve

Thank you Scott for posting this thread. I was working with Billy Barnes on his valve timing and cut-off for his 20 HP motorcycle. This makes me want to follow up and see when he's running. I'll keep you posted.

The engine is one of my favorites...the one used on the Gentleman's Speedy Roadster. 3-5/8 X 5 bore and stroke (inches). It has a narrow frame like my 10 HP Stanley and dates back to ~1904-1908 time frame. Still using the 10 HP Stanley fire-tube boiler that he builds. Plenty of stored energy in this pressure vessel to make several passes without filling. He runs at 1,000 PSI.

Note that he is geared to go north of 100 mph. The article did mention Billy and breaking his 80+ mph record. The jet propulsion bike would be a hard one to beat with piston powered steam engine. We'll see...

Hello,

A question comes to mind. The rocket bike is, obviously, a rocket! That being the case, pressurized steam is exiting the rear of the thing through a convergent/divergent nozzle. At least I imagine that divergence is involved.

So; if an LSR engine is running at high enough exhaust pressure and an ample supply of steam with the exhaust pipes exiting through convergent/divergent nozzles couldn't we gain a lot more thrust. Since same thrust at higher speeds means higher horse power the extra oomph is going to start adding up around 150 mph.

Think of Mach Diamonds.

Best Regards,

Bill G.

Hi Bill,

You would never get the idea past the people at Bonneville since they prohibit the use of pressure vessels -- and the rocket is just a reservoir of water at high pressure and saturation temperature. You could get a bit more speed by angling piston engine exhaust backwards, they did this with WW2 fighter aircraft. It's not a huge amount of gain since the mass flow rate is so small through an engine versus a relatively non-restrictive rocket nozzle. Piston engines simply don't guzzle that much working fluid.

The rocket is going to be relatively inefficient at low speeds, unfortunately. In an ideal world, jet or rocket exhaust would be travelling at exactly the same speed as the vehicle, but in precisely the opposite direction. If the vehicle was going 200 mph, and the exhaust was departing the nozzle at 200 mph, then the exhaust would be motionless relative to the Earth as it left the nozzle, indicating that it had given all of its energy to the vehicle. On the other hand, if the exhaust is transonic, or faster, and the vehicle is at a standing start, we can assume that only a fraction of the energy is being transferred since the velocity differential is huge. Anyhow, the rocket won't do too bad at high speeds, but you are going to consume a lot of water to get up to those velocities. By contrast, at long cutoff, steam piston engines will really dig in and get you moving quickly -- the energy efficiency is far higher and much less mass is needed to get up to speed. I'm not sure at what velocity a rocket's efficiency would match a good semiuniflow piston engine, but I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't above the speed piston engines even operate at Bonneville.

Where the whole thing gets even worse is that we need to put more water into the rocket to achieve longer thrust to reach higher speeds -- but then we consume more water to accelerate the added mass. All of this is doable, but Bonneville won't let you do it. Worse yet, "Mad Mike" Hughes died proving that this isn't the sort of thing that you should do if you are going to cut corners. Like the Truax designs, he used a perforated diaphragm to allow steam flow into the nozzle but his perforating probe didn't punch a clean hole and asymmetric thrust got him...

Regards,

Ken

So use a piston engne to get up to 100mph then divert the steam flow to the rocket nozzle and use a freewheel to disconnect the piston engine!
Mike

Bill,
A good idea to utilize the steam engine exhaust. Better to use the exhaust to draw the burner flame quickly through the steam generator system along with directing it towards the rear for jet propulsion assist. Some concepts from one of my presentations attached.

Hope this sparks some ideas.

Kind regards,
Rick

steveinky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
Another reason they may not allow it
> at Bonneville, is the no pressure vessel rule.

So does that mean Bonneville does not care about, does not want, and won't promote steam powered vehicles?

I had every intention of making a fast steam car.... 163 will be hard to beat but if Bonneville isn't interested, who is?

The Technical Committee has decided that banning pressure vessels is in the interests of everybody's safety. They have any number of rules which cars must meet in order to run. You can find people that find those rules to be arbitrary as well, but they have to conform if they want to compete.

Looked at from another perspective, why should steam cars be different than internal combustion machines? They generate power as they burn fuel. and achieve extremely high speeds. Low mass boilers can do the same thing, the once-through boiler has been around a long time. Basically, that just puts a steamer on the same footing as everyone else -- they need to burn fuel and convert it into mechanical horsepower throughout the run and not simply store up energy beforehand.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2023 11:07PM by frustrated.

So, something like a monotube but with recirculation
to make it more compact and light. And a method for separating the wet steam from the water?
That would make it faster to get to full pressure and lower the weight. Controlling the water so neither too much or too little would be the main problem. I think I see ways to do this
If I'm understanding this correctly.
SteveW

You are pretty much on the beam. You don't actually need the recirculation -- Chuk would have easily taken the speed record with a simple, once-through monotube. I will grant that there are some advantages to forced recirculation, but perhaps the added complexity might be a hassle if trying to run at Bonneville -- that's a judgement call and I can't say that I have a firm opinion one way or the other. There's other technologies including finned tube in the economizer section and a pressurized boiler housing to boost heat transfer (maybe a turbocharger driven by engine exhaust steam could provide significant boost to the boiler shell). The fact that Chuk almost set the record with a car that was fairly economical compared to the British effort, while conforming to the Technical Committee rules, should be quite encouraging. Fortunately, the current steam land speed record is quite a bit slower than any number of cars that you can buy from a local dealer, so we're not dealing with excessively advanced technology.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2023 05:36AM by frustrated.

The big problem with monotubes has always been controls, although there are any number of solutions. Tom Kimmel built a monotube that seems to hold pressure brilliantly, but it's never been tried in a car. Every once-through boiler has an evaporation zone where you would like the water to flash into steam. Tom placed a vertical standpipe alongside the steam generator near the end of the evaporation zone. Then he added a spark plug level control in the standpipe to regulate the feedwater pump. Basically, he converted the rig to a water level boiler. The standpipe was wide enough to dampen swings in water level but still not anywhere near large enough to be considered a drum. I don't know if you would want to add baffles, or something similar, to prevent sloshing in a vehicle. (Of course, you can get more volume in the standpipe by angling it ... or you could go all out and bend it into a coil making multiple circles around the boiler...)

Anyhow, this wouldn't be quite as high performance as something like a forced recirculation unit, but if it can be made to work in a car it might add enough reliability to make a speed run more practical. The British machine that finally took the record sat out in the desert for the longest time while the crew kept tearing into the system to get it operational ... and I understand that it was kind of jerry rigged when it did finally run. Unfortunately, steam cars aren't likely to score the same sponsorship money other folks get and there's a lot to be said for cheap and simple.

All files from this thread

File Name	File Size		Posted by	Date
20230114_111221 reduced.jpg	934.4 KB	open | download	Rick.H	08/17/2023	Read message
20230114_114905 reduced.jpg	828.7 KB	open | download	Rick.H	08/17/2023	Read message
58-Feedwater Heater Concept.png	585.7 KB	open | download	Rick.H	08/23/2023	Read message
50-Burner Boiler Flow Options.png	426.3 KB	open | download	Rick.H	08/23/2023	Read message
27-Flash vs Mono Tube Design.png	223 KB	open | download	Rick.H	08/23/2023	Read message