LSR Steam Car

Ken,

I couldn't agree more, considering that three 30" Stanley boilers driving two Bryan engines, one on each axle, would out run their setup. . .

Caleb Ramsby

Hi,,,For a 1 mile run,, the extra boilers would be extra baggage,,,plenty of torque for a short runup,,i think,,,The Dewer cup run was froma rolling start,,not a long runup and they did 118 as I recall only 9mph more/long runup,,The Worcester hill gives a good idea of a resistance,,,,1m, 1s ,,,for the mile,,climbing 320',,open throttle [over tab on quadrent],,using cuttoff only ,,Maybee I should think about a different body?? Ok i've not been up that high,,,just top speed on the "old" Vincent 1000,,,, On a boiler test,,I found the throttle will open against 975,,stiff ,,but it does work,,Cheers Ben

Well Ken my design might take that LSR. Where do I get the red head? LOL

Best, --Bill G.

Ben there is a fellow out in Washington state by the name of Erioc Harmon that still makes and teaches how to make canvas skin canoes, he may be willing to make a down side up one. . . click link below.

[www.harmancanoe.com]

Did you have much pressure drop during your intense hill climb? pumps on or off, burner full blast I would assume. . .

That throttle over peg trick is also usefull if you want to do a wheel stand in one of the small Ford tractors, throttle over peg, drop clutch in 2nd or 3rd. . . I have said to much!

Caleb Ramsby

Caleb.

Believe it or not. My Grandpa Durwood's father, Ed Holmes was a test driver for the fordson 8N tractors. It was back in the day, Ed Holmes was one of the last surving Marines from WW1 when he died. His job after the war was to take 'a' tractor out into a field, with plow equptment hooked up, and break the thing. Thats how Ford made improvements.

He got the job by locality[i was born in grand rapids Mich./reside in Mi Fl.] I don't remember who's wife it was, maybe Ed's, not sure. The story go's she attended the same one-room school-house as Henry Ford. Then after the war, she called in a favor. That's how my greatgrandfather got the job. This was after Henry split-up with Ferguson.

My dad has Great Granpa Ed's tractor, it is not an 8N. Go figure. I knew my Great Grandpa for many years while growing up.


Best



Jeremy

-edit- grammer correction, why do you see the mistakes after you post, grrrr-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2009 08:35PM by Jeremy Holmes.

Hi Caleb,,I came to the start line with a not so hot engine,,haddn't run for an hour?,,pressure at 400#or there abouts Open burner and get good pressure,,,AFTER we gave a thumbs up to the starter,,the starter would choose the instant the flag would be given,,,by the time we had good pressure I am certain the 21' of 3/4" [sc40] waterpipe was totally red,,the steam pipe is not too obstructed about a ,900dia through the throttle,,I had fitted a norml,,,oforgettit,,haha,,diddnt need it,,The boiler was at usual leavel,,there was NO sign of caryover,[If there was it 'normalized" the superheater][haha],launched well,,David lodged a complaint that car did not have seatbelts ,,I commented that to my knowledge I was ONLY required to START with a passenger [This was a echo of the 1929 TT where, was it Lautenslauger, lost a fender,,and retrieved it,,said the rule was that the car needed to be complete,,[not assembled]],,chuckle,scowl,,Throttle on peg,,7notches on cutoff each way,used cutoof for control,,the hill is not attol a steady climb,,All the guages went LEFT,,,which I didn't notice til after the top,,I was havin a real great day,,,Dave shut my throttle,,It was a nice road,,I knew I prefferd rt drive for a reason,haha,,The feedwater was on auto,,no valve to override it,,There was a gas co trench in the road, wheels off the ground,,,I thought the steering had broke,,Threw the water in the tank so water pump lost its prime,,I had most of a tank of water both[2] runs,,only a couple of seconds different,,Fred did same hill in 1908 I think,,54 seconds flat,,Where's my missing 7 seconds,,George says take off the fenders and runningboards,,,maybee,,,but it was an honest run,,AND noone there will ever forgettit,,When we DROVE home,,I could not believe the number of young people around city hall,,,Main St,,Worcester,,all giving me a thumbs up,,,WOW,,,they had BEEN there,,,How else would they know the signal,,,A day to remember,,I led the way,,Dave did not know the old back road home,He drove modern,1922 Stanley 735,,And Billy and Al in my chase car,,1925 Packard sport,,The meet was 1915 and earlier,,HCC meet, [Time,....1m,1s]....,,Cheers Ben...[ Is my writing style O-K do I leave out too many sentences,? to follow? CB]]

Ben, I for one really like your writing style, emphesis on style! You leave just enough room between the lines for a good bit of imagination, I also tend to hear a cadance to your writing, some where in the background a metrenome. . . or would that be a hand crank phonograph with Joplin leaping to and fro. .

Your seven seconds could be in the cold engine or as George says in the fenders and running board. Do I remember right, you have a 4" X 5" Bryan instead of Freds 4 1/2" by 6 1/2"(or was it an inbetween sized engine)? The extra low end umphhh from the larger engine might be part of it, although the(in theory) more effecient Bryan would be making more hp from the limited steam supply at higher speed. I am right in reading that you can find and hold seven different cutoffs?! Do you know the range max to min? I wonder what gearing Fred was using. . .

Also curious about your boiler dia/height, number and size of tubes, along with the set water height. From this I would be able to find the weight of water and steam in the boiler.

Your mentioning of the Serpelot type anti carry over setup, ie red hot tube superheater, I have though that an interesting mod would be to have a thick tube above the blue flame of a Stanley type boiler, one end connected only to a small secondary water pump, other to after the throttle, close the bypass(or release the inlet valve) on the small secondary pump and use up that red/yellow/getting white hot heat, would this be an anti-normalizer?grin hummm, abnormalizer.hah

Great story, there is nothing more inspiring to the young then real reality. . . 320' climb in one mile, 1m1s, WOW! I have seen the video of the start, very impressive to say the least, the announcer sure called it right!

I am trying to visualize an innocent bystander walking down the street and having your caravan pass by. . . !hah rub eyes, huhhh, havn't been to the bar YET

Caleb Ramsby

The best description i've heard so far,,was,,,2 boys,11+13 one asked what the start was like,,,,other shot back [NO hesatation,,],]. "LIKE A BOTTL' ROCKET " tHOSE ARE THE TIMES YA really WISH YA HAD A VIDIEO,,,,, The people on the track,,,,RePlay of 1904 Vanderbilt,,,I couldnt believe it,,Ben

Mark,

Here is a link to the LSR cars boiler setup.

[www.steamcar.net]

The tubing failures, as far as I know have all been in the small dia evaporator tubing, which as is indicated is in the middle.

My comments about their design may have come accross as harsh, and while I don't agree with their engineering principles, I do wish them success. It would be tragic if their 10 year endevour were to end in nothing. If they car at least best Freds 150 mph crash run, without any failure that is at least something. Something to get us yanks going. . .

Jeremy,

That is an interesting history, as I have never said before, "There is no constructor like a destructor."

Caleb Ramsby

Hello,

Then from what data they have given the hoped for steam rate is 14.6 lb/hr and the boiler efficiency is about 70%.

Nice picture of the boiler module, said to be about the size of a suitcase. One of twelve. Lots of room in there for more luggage.

I don't know what to say about this either Caleb other than to wish them success.

Best, ----- Bill G.

Bill,

Reading inbetween the lines it also apears as if they have only one boiler setting as to output and don't throttle the steam to the turbine, they "throttle" by bypassing the steam to a vent tube. I could easily be wrong, there appears to have been a lot of modifications of the operation system.

From what apears to be the latest, they are trying to seperate the boiler sections such as in a water level boiler. Except it is a once through monotube multipass type. In a regular monotube the economizer, evaporative and superheating sections are moving all over, I don't see any reason to try and control it, just what goes in and what comes out.

White with their same dia/length per tube section counterflow, Doble varying od/length sections and Newcomb same dia/length but I believe a semicounterflow principle or am I confusing it with another design. . . or my imagination. . .

If it is a success then it shows what can be done and how, if it fails then it shows how not to do it.

I have found various lbs per hp hour from calculating their given data, anywhere from around 16 to what you gave.

Caleb Ramsby

They state on the website that they can use 2200 lbs. of water in 25 minutes. = to 88 lbs. per min or about 7 lbs. per boiler, per minute. Total = 5280 lbs an hour.

30 lbs of propane per minute

[www.steamcar.net]


Best,
Scott

Bill-Scott-Caleb,

My question is now and always has been, not that they built the car this way; but what was the reasoning behind it and who is funding this?

If you believe that 14 lb/hr water rate at the speed that turbine is said to run, just stick around, the Easter Bunny will be here shortly, followed by Tinker Bell.

That steam generator design and the fact that they chose to use twelve of them in parallel simply defies any logic, as does their throttling idea.

I hope that the car does really run, I really do; but so far I am turning blue holding my breath.
Two Doble F, or Bryan engines geared properly, a draft boosted Lamont with a carburetor burner and a nice streamliner would smash the record by a large amount.
Or just use one of Harry's Mk-6 truck engines, that would do it nicely.

What is stated on the web site smacks of the press releases once issued by Bill Lear.

Jim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2009 09:33AM by James D. Crank.

Hi Jim,

"My question is now and always has been, not that they built the car this way; but what was the reasoning behind it and who is funding this?"

I believe its public funded, who ever is interested in the project helps it along. Which I dont think is bad. We should be doing the same thing, just to get something out there. Now, getting everybody to agree on a final design, that's a little tricky.

I agree that there seems to be alot of redundant equipment, on-board of the UK LSR car. However, I do not want to limit the possibility that I can be wrong.


One detail that I did find intriguing was the on-board electric heaters.

On my first generation of injector's the L912 model, I did infact use 900watts of electrical heating. This was part of the evolution, of what I was trying to do. Convenience nothing more. But bear in mind my design's aim is stationary gen-set at this time. Where all these extra systems dont really matter in light of shear kw power output.

I use superheated steam instead of electric heaters routed thru simular tubing pathways on the latest injector models, this helps to maintain the working fluid's temperature, as it is passing thru the injector.

My 'opinion' is this-

These guys need a portable starting boiler that they can connect, during start-up then allow the primary boilers to come on line. This would eliminate some resitive heating losses, and enable them to reduce 'sprung-weight' by eliminating all there related support system's. It does seem troubling to me, that the unit, cant warm its self up. I mean if the heating electrics are mentioned, they have to have something to do with the run.

I do not doubt that there multiboiler generator can produce some serious output flow volume. The weight of the computer system's is totally aceptable, that I can see. But the starting/bench testing electrical heating system is most likely to high a weight cost, since this function can be disconnected, and relpaced by an AUX connect/dis-connect boiler before it comes out of the pitts. The idea of driving the car back is not needed. Another vehicle can push it back to the Pitts.


Jeremy

Jeremy,

Public funding is fine if you can get it. I think there would be even less interest in such a car in the U.S. than what we see for even a road car today.
I think they get contributions of equipment donated.

Now it's electric heaters???

Not quite. If it is a record run, you have one hour to turn the car around and refuel or whatever, then make a timed run in the opposite direction.

Jim

"The four flues over which are installed the liquid gas evaporators.
The box to the left of these is the electicly powered heater, used when starting the car."

Caption text from Scotts link above

caption from #8 picture counting up from the bottom of the page.






Jim, have you seen these picture's, the thing looks like a spacecraft. Im impressed with it.



Jeremy


-edit-

"Not quite. If it is a record run, you have one hour to turn the car around and refuel or whatever, then make a timed run in the opposite direction."

You got me there, I saw a documentary on FUELING, the guy that burns 100% ethanol, I seemed to have missed that detail, nobody's perfect.

-




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2009 12:02PM by Jeremy Holmes.

I believe that the electric heaters are for the propane. They have the feed tubes from the propane tanks in the exhaust flues of the boiler(s), to assist vaporizatin of the fuel, that is resist freezing.

The gearing that they have is not going to let the turbine get going fast enough to get anywhere that low of a steam usage, much less as it is getting up to speed.

This seems to be a practice in, "What is the most unique way this could be done.". Well, it's unique all right. . .

Using a compressed gas to force the water into the boilers, tyring to seperate the sections of a once through boiler(which results in their using tons of electornics), using propane as a fuel. Just about the most dangerous fuel I can think of to use for a LSR car. I would feel safer burning solid rocket fuel in the boiler. . .

This page shows their gearing and vehicle layout.

[www.steamcar.net]

From it one can figure that the turbine is geared for 4,500 revolutions per mile. That makes the turbine speed at 170 mph equal 12,750 rpm. hummmm.

This one tells the output steam conditions and what their boiler failure looks like. Along with an illustration of the boiler with the headers.

[www.steamcar.net]

Converted these are about 580 psi and 680 deg F.

It would take forever to find a leaky tube in that "boiler matrix".

Aparently they ran the tubine on a giant stationary boiler somewhere. Where it made 356 hp on a dyno, what rpm that was at or how much steam it took to do so. . .

Caleb Ramsby

Caleb,

Now you are seeing what I have been yapping about.

Propane?? Tell me when you are going to run so I can be in another county. What about a rollover, or is that not considered? Broken line? Sorry, not very smart.

Gas pressure to serve as the feed pump replacement? Sure, so what do you do to compensate for the drop in tank pressure as it runs? Use a 10,000 psi supply?

They say 3,000 rpm at 200 mph with that turbine, unless that is a misprint. Two stage Curtis, which is an impulse turbine. Seem to recall it is 12" in diameter.
Assume 1,000 psi steam, so about a 4,000 ft/sec spouting velocity from the nozzles.
As Bob Barbor ( Barbor-Nichols) and a couple of old friends at Garrett Air-Research, who ought to know something about turbines, said, the bucket velocity should be 2,000 ft/ sec past the nozzles to satisfy the 1/2-V ratio. The point of highest efficiency with an impulse turbine. So the wheel should be running at 38,216 rpm if I figured it right.
If that speed they state is correct, start thinking about an 80+ lbs/hp/ hr water rate. Let alone what happens when starting up from rest. Well over 100 lbs/hp/hr.

Tested on a huge industrial boiler? OK, at what rpm, steam pressure and temperature? Calibrated dyno with the dyno constant included?
Do not believe any horsepower numbers.

Tell me how one insures equal water flow to 12 steam generators. Oh yes, of course, computer control, the magic panacea.
As to the entire subject of using that steam generator design and 12 of them in parallel, this simply defies any logic, let alone good engineering practice.
Vaudeville was never as funny as this one.

The vehicle design and aerodynamics are good.

Like I said, give a couple of us two Bryan engines or on new Doble F, a used Bonneville streamliner body, a Lamont with a draft booster and I know 225 mph is in the cards.

Jim






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2009 09:33AM by James D. Crank.

Hi jim,

I couldn't quite figure the volume of 12 large suitcases, but say 1 ft X 2ft X 3 ft for 6 ft^3 per boiler or 72 ft^3. How big a Lamont boiler would you think would fit in that space? That would be about 10 ft long 5 ft wide and 18" high.

Feed it with fuel oil and save some fuel storage space space. Now for S&G what would your turbine have put out with this big Lamont boiler?

Best, --- Bill G.

Hi Jim:

Actually, getting exactly the same water feed rate to 12 steam generators is simplicity itself. Just build a 12 piston feed pump, all pistons driven from a single crankshft, and have each piston feed a different generator! OK, I didn't say that was an elegant solution, but so far the car design doesn't look that elegant either.... I'm betting it will work better than whatever solution they did adopt!

As I recall, the tip velocity of some of the large, efficient steam turbine power plants I dealt with is somewhere in the range of Mach 2. The rpm was well above that 3000 rpm at top speed, and this for a vastly larger turbine diameter than the LSR car. So I have to concur, the steam rate given the data supplied looks horrendous. I know the trend for a speed machine is to 'screw efficiency', but obviously this is only a relative condition. You don't have to go THAT far down the efficiency curve for any powertrain before the input masses start to defeat you.

My back of envelop calculations suggest Chuk's dragster has a good shot at taking the current record (maybe not by a big margin) if you ignored little technicalities like passing the inspection and not getting killed in the run. It has a nice engine, boiler and all but hardly what I would call 'aerospace', showing the record is well in reach of a reasonably modest effort.

Actually, I'm kind of wary basing my opinion of how well something will perform based on the looks. I participated in building a few concept show cars that looked like DYNAMITE. They looked like they were going 100 standing still. Since there wasn't an engine, transmission, chassis or suspension the odds of it moving at all unless thrown off a bridge were slight, they were fiberglass mockups of what the designers were aiming for. One of these made it into production and enjoyed decent success, so it served its purpose. The first time I saw Bill Ryan's gokart I was skeptical that it wouldn't blow up on the spot, but that day it performed extremely well and I dare say that it's performance that day would have handily beaten anything at this years SACA meet but the dragster.

Regards,

Ken

Jim,

I couldn't agree more.

One must look a bit closer to figure out their turbine speed, from their web site.

"Motive power is from a two-stage steam turbine, fed by a boiler fired on LPG. The turbine drives a gear train with a 5:1 ratio for a wheel speed of 3000 RPM at 200 MPH."

The 3,000 rpm at 200 mph is for the wheels, the turbine is running 5 times faster then this. So 15,000 rpm at 200 mph. With their around 600 psi max, the spouting velocity will be less and turbine velocity more. Still, the biggest issue with using a turbine is getting up to speed, even if the design max vehicle speed and turbine speed for best effeciency was set. Then anything under that and the acceleration will be horible from the increased steam usage of the turbine.

I equate turbines with rockets, that is a very powerfull leak.

Defenitally two Bryans, a few Doble Fs or heck even two or more Stanley 4 1/2" by 6 1/2" engines could make a lot of power but would require a much lower gearing.

It appears as if their original goal was to make over 200 mph, this has been lowered to 170 mph.

Their chasis and body look to be capable of more then 300 mph, it is really a shame.

Hey, mabey they will prove all of us wrong.

Jim, can you remember what the maximum volume of the boiler proper was for the "steam class" when you made your car? To me limiting the amount of water and steam that a boiler can hold is very dangerous, especially when the outputs get really high. Limiting the tubing dia to around 5 1/2" I can understand that is from the steam codes, an arbitrary total internal volume. . .grrrr

Caleb Ramsby

Just for chuckles,,,Have we any idea what Stanley's 1906 body would need for power at 150 and 200mph,,[and say make it 3' longer],[scheme],,same question for this new streamliner,,I havent a clue of the pounds of thrust needed at those speeds,,,,but I realize wheel slip and tractive effort are major players,,Cheers Ben

Hi ben,

That would be easy to figure knowing the speed and horsepower the Stanley was using at top end. Extending the body by 3 ft wouldn't increase the air drag much, if at all, so the horsepower is a function of the cube of the speed.

Be fun to figure out.

Best, --- Bill G.

Ben--
To answer your question about the HP required to get the Stanley
Rocket to 150 or 200 MPH...
Art Gardener did quite a lot of work on analyzing the '06 and the '07
runs that the Rocket made and he put out a coupla graphs that I happen to have
a copy of...
To get the Rocket to 150 MPH-according to Art's figures-would take 180 HP.
To get the Rocket to 200 MPH would take almost 400 HP. Incidently, his figures
show that--taking into consideration all the info that's available-the Rocket
was most likely doing approximately 140 MPH when it crashed...
A large part of the drag associated with the Stanley Rocket-again according
to Art's research..would be caused by the uncovered wheels..

By comparison, my Streamliner-with a weight of 2500 lbs, a drag coefficient
of .02, and a frontal area of 9 sq ft, will be able to reach a speed of 200 MPH
with the use of approximately 130 HP. That figure might be a bit off--my frontal
area might have to be more than 9 sq ft...but the numbers give us a ballpark
idea of what will be required.


Cheers---Chuk

Chuck, Ben etc.

I ran some numbers and came up with a different answer for the Rocket, the two major variables are the cd and rolling resistance. I ran the following with a rolling resistance of 10 lbs per 1,000 weight. Soft sand can move that above 100 lbs per 1,000 lbs.

For the Stanely using 9 sq ft frontal area and 1,900 lbs, I added a bit more then the 1,500 something that I have a feeling was a dry weight without driver, another variable. te is tractive effort.

A cd of .25..cd of .3.....cd of .2
mph...hp..te....hp...te...hp...te
150...110.148...131..174..90...122
175...173.195...206..230..140..160
200...255.249...304..295..206..203

From the 07' after wreck pictures it looks like the bottem of it was uncovered, this should increase the drag a bit. Rather difficult to estimate the drag, could be more then .3

For the British machine.

From their numbers, 11.84 sq ft frontal area, 6,000 lbs(last I saw, might have changed).

mph...hp.....te
150...133....196
175...200....245
200...290....302
250...550....438
300...920....604
350...1,400..800
400...2,125..1,026
450...3,000..1,285
500...4,100..1,570
550...5,450..1,890

One of the major issues on the salt is the traction, it often has a cf of .4, that is if there was 1,000 lbs on the driving wheels one would only be able to get 400 lbs of traction out of them. Note that many if not all of those that try to make it above 300 mph use multiple engines driving both the front and rear axles, 4WD.

To me there is only one land speed record, that is wheel driven, set in 2001 at 458 mph, by the Turbinator.

Here is the Team Vesco site, they will be trying to 500 next year.

[www.teamvesco.com]
[www.simonlewis.com]
[www.simonlewis.com]

I think that a steamer has a chance at 500, even higher, it's all about the boiler making enough steam and the engine not wasting it.

Caleb Ramsby

I forgot to mention that the hp and tractive effort figures are for sustaining the given speeds, not getting up to them. Most of the racers are still accelerating through the measured mile.

Here is a good article on the construction of the Rockets body.

[www.steamcar.net]

A few other sites featuring the Rocket.

[www.ormondbeach.org]

[www.conceptcarz.com]

[www.stumpranchonline.com]

[www.moah.org]

[www.cartype.com]

Have fun

Caleb Ramsby

That is something Caleb;

Nice Link

[www.teamvesco.com]



jeremy

Hi,,My idea on the 3',,would allow the engine in front of the axle instead of the engine being BEHIND the axle,,,not sure how many people have noticed that,,,AND FRED was very aware of that,,,when I asked him about starting torque,,he almost came out of his chair,,said that the front end got light,,hadda be careful of steering as the front end got light,,,Wonder what pressure he noticed that at,,,,I was about 17 at the time,,,,Ben

Hi,,My idea on the 3',,would allow the engine in front of the axle instead of the engine being BEHIND the axle,,,not sure how many people have noticed that,,,AND FRED was very aware of that,,,when I asked him about starting torque,,he almost came out of his chair,,said that the front end got light,,hadda be careful of steering as the front end got light,,,Wonder what pressure he noticed that at,,,,I was about 17 at the time,,,,Ben

I don't want to keep on and look like I'm just a negative nellie on the British LSR effort. I actually hope they do make it as a failure will reflect badly on steam cars in general.
Anyway I've done a bit more thinking (dangerous I know) and I'm bit clearer on the super heater cracking problem recently mentioned having gone back through the photos on the LSR website. I looks like the super heater is a zig zag grid of say 30mm? diameter tubes made by welding 180 degree bends to straight sections. These welds may be the where the cracks occur. This would be a separate problem to tube splits or burn outs in the parallel evaporator sections.

To avoid blowing the superheater according to the website they are running saturated. Hmm I've read that water droplets from wet steam are a real bad thing for turbine blades. Not problem currently as the wheels are turning so slowly at 40mph?
Cheers
Mark

All files from this thread

File Name	File Size		Posted by	Date
Bryan Engine photos.jpg	84.6 KB	open | download	Rolly	10/18/2007	Read message
1924 Stanley.JPG	59 KB	open | download	Rolly	10/22/2007	Read message
P1010001.JPG	59.9 KB	open | download	Rolly	10/24/2007	Read message
harryspts.pdf	18.8 KB	open | download	Andy	10/24/2007	Read message
Thorney runway.JPG	87.3 KB	open | download	Greg Walker	12/05/2008	Read message