Williams ws. Rankin
Posted by Howard Langdon
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Re: Williams ws. Rankin July 09, 2007 06:56PM |
This may give you some idea of how it works.
As a compressor it is very efficient. As an expander the steam pressure would start in the center and expand out to the outer diameter.
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Re: Williams ws. Rankin July 09, 2007 10:50PM |
Hi George & All,
Too many good comments here for me to reply on, so I will make some general comments. Some of the following is just restating what has already been said, by way of agreement.
Andy called my design a "modernized Stanley". That is what I started out trying for, but my steam car design has evolved into something quite different from a Stanley in most ways, except for a few basic features of the engine. My current boiler design is radically different from a Stanley. It is a lightweight/low-cost water tube boiler with rapid natural circulation. Small tubing, multiple short flowpaths, low flow restriction, maximized radiant heat transfer, kinetic phase separation, plus water level in an unfired section and decent stored energy. Cutting labor and tooling costs for everything in the car are priorities, along with maximizing reliability and minimizing maintenance/operating effort as Andy mentioned, not to mention aiming for maximum road miles (which is where the real learning happens).
My current (secret) design for the boiler generating section is vaguely similar to the Rider J-tube boiler, though with some radical differences & a tip of the hat to Bolsover, George Nutz, & others. The economizer section of the boiler is very similar to Andy's radial-counterflow tube stack design, as is Harry's heat exchanger. I keep an eye on what other people are doing or have done, a good way to get ideas -- which often evolve into something very different from the ideas which inspired them. The more road miles a design feature has logged, the more attention I give it.
Steam design is tough. The stuff I am designing now is much simpler than what many other members are designing and/or building, and even designing/building my increasingly simplified equipment takes a _huge_ amount of time and hard "thinkwork". I can only imagine the hours and hard labor that others are devoting to their steam quests. Money ain't the problem for me, my problem is getting a design which promises to be successful. That translates into lots of brain time and the hard-to-quantify but absolutely essential ingredient of creative problem solving, which doesn't show up on standard project schedules or spreadsheets. One simple inspiration (or one piece of simple common sense, research, or proven equipment) can get things running better than all the money in the world (2 words: Bill Lear).
There do seem to be some cooperative projects in SACA, including thinker/doer teams like Andy mentions, like the guys working on the new Williams engines. Personally I am remaking myself into both a thinker and a doer, not an easy thing to do, but I have built some components (each takes several tries so far) and shop equipment and skills are improving around here. Jim & Harry are right about "doing it yourself". That's how things get done.
A whole-Club project looks unlikely, as most of us have very different ideas of what is or would be a good steam car or other steam equipment. Not to mention very different world views & approaches to problem solving in general. The bright side is that lots of different people trying lots of different things is what makes progress. Look at any technology that goes anywhere (whether new light steam power will ever go anywhere is another issue); these never start with a consensus on one approach and then everybody gets together and builds that one design. The last project that everybody got together on was the Tower of Babel, and look how that turned out.
Anyway, with any successful new tech, lots of different people try lots of different things, and one or a handful of the different designs eventually make it to production. Ideally (not always) people learn from the successes and failures of others (and from their own), and modify their designs & modus operandi accordingly, even if the designs are radically different in many or most ways. Sort of remote-control synergetic cooperation.
Look at the Stanleys, Whites, Dobles, Serpollet, etc, those guys almost never agreed about anything, but they all built (very different) roadworthy steam cars, and they all kept an eye on what the others were doing. Sometimes they copied each other, as with Stanley's (White/Doble) condenser and Doble's (Stanley-like) throttle. But man, fire up the time machine, get those guys on a discussion panel, and put on your army helmet for the flying bricks. Of course they didn't debate each other, they were too busy building, driving, & selling steam automobiles. IE, testing their ideas on the road.
Also, note the computer/electronics business over the past few decades. In the late 1970s, all the very successful & genuinely knowledgeable corporate computer experts laughed at those garage-tinkering shoestring-budget nerds Jobs, Wozniak, and Bill Gates. Despite this, "J, W, & G" developed "a product nobody would ever want" (home computers & their software), made it cheap, useful, and fun, and the rest is history.
SACA, like any club, is for fun, fellowship, and sharing info. Some info is "secret" or proprietary, but most of the basics are public domain and usually freely shared. Feedback & info from other designers, builders, & developers can be very useful, certainly has been for me despite the traditional irreconcileable disagreements (note early developers mentioned above). When I have time to get away from the drawing board and shop, which isn't often lately, I find that the Club is a great way to meet or at least read of or correspond with people almost as "crazy" as me.
In steam and many other things, many try and few succeed. Build your dream, enjoy the challenge, enjoy the work, and learn learn learn, including the hard way, is my philosophy.
From a hard-nosed business angle, I think the main thing holding back widespread use of alternative powerplants & alternative energy is overall cost. Add up all the costs of buying and maintaining/operating a solar steam/electric system, and divide that by the total kwhrs it generates over its service life. If that is less than the overall cost/kwhr of a diesel generator, then it can succeed. If it is a -lot- less, then you may be the next Bill Gates. Whatever the thermodynamic efficiency.
So far, I have found that nothing in steam design is as cheap and easy -- or as expensive/difficult -- as it first appears. A never-ending series of surprises. Things I thought would be cheap & easy slap-togethers turned into design nightmares; other things I thought would cost a fortune or take huge amounts of work, turned out cheap and easy. Lots of the most-discussed "problems" and "solutions" really aren't. Nobody knows it all or gets the whole picture at first glance. Creative and flexible thinking are of the essence.
Peter
Too many good comments here for me to reply on, so I will make some general comments. Some of the following is just restating what has already been said, by way of agreement.
Andy called my design a "modernized Stanley". That is what I started out trying for, but my steam car design has evolved into something quite different from a Stanley in most ways, except for a few basic features of the engine. My current boiler design is radically different from a Stanley. It is a lightweight/low-cost water tube boiler with rapid natural circulation. Small tubing, multiple short flowpaths, low flow restriction, maximized radiant heat transfer, kinetic phase separation, plus water level in an unfired section and decent stored energy. Cutting labor and tooling costs for everything in the car are priorities, along with maximizing reliability and minimizing maintenance/operating effort as Andy mentioned, not to mention aiming for maximum road miles (which is where the real learning happens).
My current (secret) design for the boiler generating section is vaguely similar to the Rider J-tube boiler, though with some radical differences & a tip of the hat to Bolsover, George Nutz, & others. The economizer section of the boiler is very similar to Andy's radial-counterflow tube stack design, as is Harry's heat exchanger. I keep an eye on what other people are doing or have done, a good way to get ideas -- which often evolve into something very different from the ideas which inspired them. The more road miles a design feature has logged, the more attention I give it.
Steam design is tough. The stuff I am designing now is much simpler than what many other members are designing and/or building, and even designing/building my increasingly simplified equipment takes a _huge_ amount of time and hard "thinkwork". I can only imagine the hours and hard labor that others are devoting to their steam quests. Money ain't the problem for me, my problem is getting a design which promises to be successful. That translates into lots of brain time and the hard-to-quantify but absolutely essential ingredient of creative problem solving, which doesn't show up on standard project schedules or spreadsheets. One simple inspiration (or one piece of simple common sense, research, or proven equipment) can get things running better than all the money in the world (2 words: Bill Lear).
There do seem to be some cooperative projects in SACA, including thinker/doer teams like Andy mentions, like the guys working on the new Williams engines. Personally I am remaking myself into both a thinker and a doer, not an easy thing to do, but I have built some components (each takes several tries so far) and shop equipment and skills are improving around here. Jim & Harry are right about "doing it yourself". That's how things get done.
A whole-Club project looks unlikely, as most of us have very different ideas of what is or would be a good steam car or other steam equipment. Not to mention very different world views & approaches to problem solving in general. The bright side is that lots of different people trying lots of different things is what makes progress. Look at any technology that goes anywhere (whether new light steam power will ever go anywhere is another issue); these never start with a consensus on one approach and then everybody gets together and builds that one design. The last project that everybody got together on was the Tower of Babel, and look how that turned out.
Anyway, with any successful new tech, lots of different people try lots of different things, and one or a handful of the different designs eventually make it to production. Ideally (not always) people learn from the successes and failures of others (and from their own), and modify their designs & modus operandi accordingly, even if the designs are radically different in many or most ways. Sort of remote-control synergetic cooperation.
Look at the Stanleys, Whites, Dobles, Serpollet, etc, those guys almost never agreed about anything, but they all built (very different) roadworthy steam cars, and they all kept an eye on what the others were doing. Sometimes they copied each other, as with Stanley's (White/Doble) condenser and Doble's (Stanley-like) throttle. But man, fire up the time machine, get those guys on a discussion panel, and put on your army helmet for the flying bricks. Of course they didn't debate each other, they were too busy building, driving, & selling steam automobiles. IE, testing their ideas on the road.
Also, note the computer/electronics business over the past few decades. In the late 1970s, all the very successful & genuinely knowledgeable corporate computer experts laughed at those garage-tinkering shoestring-budget nerds Jobs, Wozniak, and Bill Gates. Despite this, "J, W, & G" developed "a product nobody would ever want" (home computers & their software), made it cheap, useful, and fun, and the rest is history.
SACA, like any club, is for fun, fellowship, and sharing info. Some info is "secret" or proprietary, but most of the basics are public domain and usually freely shared. Feedback & info from other designers, builders, & developers can be very useful, certainly has been for me despite the traditional irreconcileable disagreements (note early developers mentioned above). When I have time to get away from the drawing board and shop, which isn't often lately, I find that the Club is a great way to meet or at least read of or correspond with people almost as "crazy" as me.
In steam and many other things, many try and few succeed. Build your dream, enjoy the challenge, enjoy the work, and learn learn learn, including the hard way, is my philosophy.
From a hard-nosed business angle, I think the main thing holding back widespread use of alternative powerplants & alternative energy is overall cost. Add up all the costs of buying and maintaining/operating a solar steam/electric system, and divide that by the total kwhrs it generates over its service life. If that is less than the overall cost/kwhr of a diesel generator, then it can succeed. If it is a -lot- less, then you may be the next Bill Gates. Whatever the thermodynamic efficiency.
So far, I have found that nothing in steam design is as cheap and easy -- or as expensive/difficult -- as it first appears. A never-ending series of surprises. Things I thought would be cheap & easy slap-togethers turned into design nightmares; other things I thought would cost a fortune or take huge amounts of work, turned out cheap and easy. Lots of the most-discussed "problems" and "solutions" really aren't. Nobody knows it all or gets the whole picture at first glance. Creative and flexible thinking are of the essence.
Peter
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Re: Williams ws. Rankin July 10, 2007 11:36AM |
Actually it was the Apple ][, but here we go again with our favorites 
ALTAIR was the first "affordable" computer. Altair was bought by Pertec, a company mainly in the floppy disk industry The owners tried to show them a new design for a portable computer. They rejected it. They then went to Tandy and it became the "Trash 80".
[fficial&client=firefox-a" rel="nofollow">www.google.com]
Apple was the first truly portable PC with expansion slots. Apples downfall to IBM PC was when they tried to make the Apple III then the Lisa and Mac. They forgot it was electronic Nerds who helped define the early computers and wanted expansion. They took out the slots and made the software proprietary. The IBM PC was not a good choice in processor, but it had slots and you could write your own applications. So, everyone dumped Apple for IBM.
The same reasons again came up when IBM tried to make the PS2 with proprietary Micro-channel ports and required third-party licensing. Compaq was making AT Motherboards with 32 bit support and none of the IBM requirements, so everyone abandoned the IBM for the Compaq design.
Anytime you take away the option to modify and alter the PC you are asking for trouble.
ALTAIR was the first "affordable" computer. Altair was bought by Pertec, a company mainly in the floppy disk industry The owners tried to show them a new design for a portable computer. They rejected it. They then went to Tandy and it became the "Trash 80".
[fficial&client=firefox-a" rel="nofollow">www.google.com]
Apple was the first truly portable PC with expansion slots. Apples downfall to IBM PC was when they tried to make the Apple III then the Lisa and Mac. They forgot it was electronic Nerds who helped define the early computers and wanted expansion. They took out the slots and made the software proprietary. The IBM PC was not a good choice in processor, but it had slots and you could write your own applications. So, everyone dumped Apple for IBM.
The same reasons again came up when IBM tried to make the PS2 with proprietary Micro-channel ports and required third-party licensing. Compaq was making AT Motherboards with 32 bit support and none of the IBM requirements, so everyone abandoned the IBM for the Compaq design.
Anytime you take away the option to modify and alter the PC you are asking for trouble.
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Re: Williams ws. Rankin July 10, 2007 09:36PM |
Hi George,
Form follows function. A 20KW high-pressure steam engine can be put in a box say, 2 feet long by under a foot square. If buyers/investors want "hi tech looks", slap on a neat streamlined carbon fiber engine cover with the weave visible thru the glass-finish polymer. Maybe add some banks of blinking lights like those computers in Star Trek. LOL.
But seriously folks, proven steam tech principles and parameters don't have to lead to large or exposed moving parts, nor do they have to look (or be) old fashioned, inside or out. Smart investors should be concerned with return on their money anyway, not with the looks or how "old" or "new" it is. Get some extended running under load, with costs, post-run wear measurements, and documented service life estimates. If they get more money out than they put in (by a large enough percentage), smart investors wouldn't care even if it did look like an 1880 oil derrick -- which it doesn't have to.
However, if you're going for a grant or "green PR" project, then some different rules apply.
Personally, I'm not into the "old vs new" debate. If a machine does what I want it to do at the right price, I don't care how similar/different it is compared to the latest or oldest steam powerplants. Good ideas, like good people, come in all ages. I don't design antique replicas. My current designs are simply "not different enough" from some older designs for some people's tastes. Fine with me, everyone is entitled to their own opinions & designs. Somebody said something to the effect of "ask 100 steam people what's the best steam engine, and you'll get 200 different answers".
Maintenance can be cut to modern industrial standards, including recycling oil out of the steam and/or condensate. For stationary units, there are skimmers, centrifuges, coalescence filters, and all sorts of other oil/water separator devices, fully modern and workhorse industrial stuff that is running 24/7/365 for years in factories right now. McMaster sells some great electric oil skimmers you could bolt right in for about $200. These pull all the oil right out of there, ready to re-use.
There are all sorts of very successful ways to completely separate oil from water or exhaust steam. Peter Barrett ran his modern uniflow poppet valve steam engine (1990s) with 30W synthetic nondetergent oil, it went straight thru the condenser without clogging or coating it, and separated from the water tank in a small simple centrifuge. He got good condensing (full water recovery on many runs) and clear fresh oil out one pipe and drinkable clear water out the other. He used a high-temp/pressure modern monotube steam generator and had no carbon trouble in the tubes.
Many well-designed steam engines run for years with little or no maintenance. I remember reading about one late-19th century pumping engine which was torn down for scrapping after something like 60 years of continuous service. The engineers miked the parts out of curiosity, and found _negligible_ wear. Use capacious modern bearings, good materials, proper design, keep the loads on bearing surfaces low, etc, and there is no reason why a practical realistic modern steam engine design could not run for decades without adjusting, hand-oiling, etc..
With the right design a steam system could have less maintenance cost/labor than any diesel or gas engine.
A great basic reference on how to calculate all the weights, BTU contents (enthalpies), volumes, temperatures, pressures, etc for steam systems, is the 3-part article "Good Old Basic Steam" by CA Cummings, in _The Steam Automobile_ magazine, Vol 20, #4, Vol 21 #1, & Vol 21 #2. Three short and right to the point articles. These articles are what got me started on steam calculations. You can order these back issues of the magazine from the SACA Storeroom (there's a link to there from the SACA main page, steamautomobile.com).
Get a little more advanced, and it's time for the old standby _Steam Tables_ by Keenan & Keyes (try the used book search engine at amazon.com). The charts & tables in this book list all the characteristics of steam at every temperature and pressure which can be used in a steam power system. Then you can figure out where all the little Maxwell Demons are going, and what they are doing at every point in the system. Eventually this leads to drawing Carnot, Rankine, and other heat engine cycle charts, so you can calculate your component and system efficiencies and debate them on the internet. LOL, sorry couldn't resist that last wisecrack. I, of course, never debate on the Internet [Benny Hill "naughty boy" eye-roll/grin].
I think it would be a great idea for SACA to cut & paste the "Good Old Basic Steam" articles into a booklet and provide a copy to each new member along with their membership cards, and/or offer the booklet for sale thru the Storeroom.
Oh man, not the TRS ("trash"
80. The Altair didn't even have a CRT display, strictly a toy for us computer nerds. My old fave was the Commodore 64; I learned how to do everything on that machine, including hacking the copy-protect features, recover "erased" files by track/sector from (5.25" floppies, write BASIC programs, etc.. All I was getting at was, Jobs, Woz, & Uncle Bill started from nuffin when all the bona-fide industry experts said they were kooks, & they made a mint anyway. As Andy notes, they didn't even develop the basic tech (integrated circuit chips). They just developed and incorporated it into very successful consumer-level products. Way off topic, sorry, should have known what would happen.
Peter
Form follows function. A 20KW high-pressure steam engine can be put in a box say, 2 feet long by under a foot square. If buyers/investors want "hi tech looks", slap on a neat streamlined carbon fiber engine cover with the weave visible thru the glass-finish polymer. Maybe add some banks of blinking lights like those computers in Star Trek. LOL.
But seriously folks, proven steam tech principles and parameters don't have to lead to large or exposed moving parts, nor do they have to look (or be) old fashioned, inside or out. Smart investors should be concerned with return on their money anyway, not with the looks or how "old" or "new" it is. Get some extended running under load, with costs, post-run wear measurements, and documented service life estimates. If they get more money out than they put in (by a large enough percentage), smart investors wouldn't care even if it did look like an 1880 oil derrick -- which it doesn't have to.
However, if you're going for a grant or "green PR" project, then some different rules apply.
Personally, I'm not into the "old vs new" debate. If a machine does what I want it to do at the right price, I don't care how similar/different it is compared to the latest or oldest steam powerplants. Good ideas, like good people, come in all ages. I don't design antique replicas. My current designs are simply "not different enough" from some older designs for some people's tastes. Fine with me, everyone is entitled to their own opinions & designs. Somebody said something to the effect of "ask 100 steam people what's the best steam engine, and you'll get 200 different answers".
Maintenance can be cut to modern industrial standards, including recycling oil out of the steam and/or condensate. For stationary units, there are skimmers, centrifuges, coalescence filters, and all sorts of other oil/water separator devices, fully modern and workhorse industrial stuff that is running 24/7/365 for years in factories right now. McMaster sells some great electric oil skimmers you could bolt right in for about $200. These pull all the oil right out of there, ready to re-use.
There are all sorts of very successful ways to completely separate oil from water or exhaust steam. Peter Barrett ran his modern uniflow poppet valve steam engine (1990s) with 30W synthetic nondetergent oil, it went straight thru the condenser without clogging or coating it, and separated from the water tank in a small simple centrifuge. He got good condensing (full water recovery on many runs) and clear fresh oil out one pipe and drinkable clear water out the other. He used a high-temp/pressure modern monotube steam generator and had no carbon trouble in the tubes.
Many well-designed steam engines run for years with little or no maintenance. I remember reading about one late-19th century pumping engine which was torn down for scrapping after something like 60 years of continuous service. The engineers miked the parts out of curiosity, and found _negligible_ wear. Use capacious modern bearings, good materials, proper design, keep the loads on bearing surfaces low, etc, and there is no reason why a practical realistic modern steam engine design could not run for decades without adjusting, hand-oiling, etc..
With the right design a steam system could have less maintenance cost/labor than any diesel or gas engine.
A great basic reference on how to calculate all the weights, BTU contents (enthalpies), volumes, temperatures, pressures, etc for steam systems, is the 3-part article "Good Old Basic Steam" by CA Cummings, in _The Steam Automobile_ magazine, Vol 20, #4, Vol 21 #1, & Vol 21 #2. Three short and right to the point articles. These articles are what got me started on steam calculations. You can order these back issues of the magazine from the SACA Storeroom (there's a link to there from the SACA main page, steamautomobile.com).
Get a little more advanced, and it's time for the old standby _Steam Tables_ by Keenan & Keyes (try the used book search engine at amazon.com). The charts & tables in this book list all the characteristics of steam at every temperature and pressure which can be used in a steam power system. Then you can figure out where all the little Maxwell Demons are going, and what they are doing at every point in the system. Eventually this leads to drawing Carnot, Rankine, and other heat engine cycle charts, so you can calculate your component and system efficiencies and debate them on the internet. LOL, sorry couldn't resist that last wisecrack. I, of course, never debate on the Internet [Benny Hill "naughty boy" eye-roll/grin].
I think it would be a great idea for SACA to cut & paste the "Good Old Basic Steam" articles into a booklet and provide a copy to each new member along with their membership cards, and/or offer the booklet for sale thru the Storeroom.
Oh man, not the TRS ("trash"
80. The Altair didn't even have a CRT display, strictly a toy for us computer nerds. My old fave was the Commodore 64; I learned how to do everything on that machine, including hacking the copy-protect features, recover "erased" files by track/sector from (5.25" floppies, write BASIC programs, etc.. All I was getting at was, Jobs, Woz, & Uncle Bill started from nuffin when all the bona-fide industry experts said they were kooks, & they made a mint anyway. As Andy notes, they didn't even develop the basic tech (integrated circuit chips). They just developed and incorporated it into very successful consumer-level products. Way off topic, sorry, should have known what would happen.
Peter
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