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Non Steam Discussions
Re: How many steamers? - 15 years ago
In the late 80's (that's 1880's) my great grandfather Ed Kachelhofer made the chassis for a steam-powered wagon at his wagonworks in Ackley, Iowa. Unfortunately it appears the engine was not reliable enough to make a workable truck. Who knows, there could have been fleets of Kachelhofer trucks on our nation's highways, I could be stinking rich and Obama might be looking for money to bail out theby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Solar Thermal Car - 15 years ago
Peter, I'm real curious about the "thermal liquid" discussed in the article. It was referred to as a refinery byproduct, so I checked and found bitumen as the bottom of the refinery barrel. According to BP, the specific heat of bitumen is .52 kCal/kg/ degree C near room temperature. Four hundred pounds of that with the temperature range noted should hold about 57,000 BTUs, not 200by TH - SteamStuff
Re: Hobby Shop - 15 years ago
Heck, Ken, I'll come out if I'm in the area. Just a (very) big kid at heart. Lakeville has a great launching ramp and is big enough to make it fun, without the waves and traffic of Lake St Clair. I've got a buddy in Romeo that uses it all the time and would have a "just in case" boat available. Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: piston valve tubing - 15 years ago
Hi Rusnan... Can you take the engine out of the box and show us how it is put together? If you can take the engine apart and show us the parts in pictures we can get a better idea how it works, and can give you advise on some improvements. Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: cyclone engine - 15 years ago
Jeremy, The release form I signed was quite specific. They own the rights to the paper, and they sell copies. Posting a copy on a website that can be viewed by the general public is a definite violation. I plan to do some more work with them, and do not want them mad at me. Once I get my picture editor working again I'll post a few shots. Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: cyclone engine - 15 years ago
Scott- My paper is copyrighted by SAE, so I can't post it. The essense of it was there's a lot of work being done with advanced high strength steel grades like Dual Phase 590/600 for body parts and frames, which allows more thickness and weigh reduction than the standard high strength low alloy grades. My work was on suspension parts like motor mounts or McPherson struts, which have been mostby TH - SteamStuff
Re: cyclone engine - 15 years ago
Hi Harry, Just as well you skipped the SAE Congress this year. There were literally half the exhibitors compared to two years ago, and I understand it will not be in Cobo next year. Even the Chinese cut their booths way back. A lot of the booths were for "green" projects, and I got several engineers from places like Delphi and the GM tech center to admit it's just window dressiby TH - SteamStuff
Re: cyclone engine - 15 years ago
Harry, Just wondered if you are going to the SAE Congress in Detroit next week Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Energy storage (was Hybrids question) - 15 years ago
Regenerative storage is a serious push for the CAFE folks at EPA, but instead of air they are using hydraulics. A lot safer than compressed air. Not sure how this could be tied to a steam plant. They are replacing the tranny with a hydraulic pump, and put a variable displacement hydraulic motor on the differential. Interesting idea, but seems like a plumber's nightmare to rig the valving.by TH - SteamStuff
Re: cyclone engine - 15 years ago
Harry, Saw the announcement about going commercial with the WHE. Congrats. Are you going into manufacturing yourself or farming out the work? Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: cyclone engine - 15 years ago
Max,Billybob The high pressure tank was a carbon fiber housing, bladder type using nitrogen. I want to try dual phase steel, but the hoop stresses for the size tank needed for this project are too high for the thickness I can get currently. They are looking at metal bellows types down the road. The whole idea is to get rid of idling and low-speed inefficiency. Think how many times aby TH - SteamStuff
Re: cyclone engine - 15 years ago
In the for-what-it's-worth category, I was at the Washington Auto show/SAE kiss up to Government meeting last week, which had a heavy emphasis on all the dumb "we are greener than you" displays from the car companies. The government had a booth in one corner, and a really interesting project was highlighted about mechanical hybrids, using hydraulics. Replace the tranny and drive shaftby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Looking For Construction Drawing Of Iron/Steam Hydrogen - 15 years ago
Jeremy- I think you should take another look at those temperatures. 3700 Celsius is really toasty, since steel melts around 1470Cby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Parts copying machine - 15 years ago
I know a prof at Southern Methodist U that has combined CNC manipulators with deposition techniques such as weld wire and laser melted powder to make three dimensional shapes. He has welded D2 tool steel into absolutely amazing shapes, using a CAD program to direct the metal placement. He can make darn near any shape you could imagine, and they are STRONG! D2 is an air quenching grade, so theby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Why Has No One Ever ..... - 15 years ago
Rolly, I looked at the Mike Brown site for his 20 HP engine. It looks like a good one, but buying a finished engine takes most of the fun out of the project. I can pour cast iron and have access to a CNC, so why not use them? I am interested in the Besler engines, can anyone tell me which report in the storeroom has enough details to turn into plans? Alternatively, I would like to see theby TH - SteamStuff
Re: VerticalFarm.com - 15 years ago
Jeremy- While I like the idea of a distributed power system, and have done some preliminary planning for a home steam setup for myself, I do not favor using corn. The world food supply is already seriously messed up because of a poorly-thought-out government push for ethanol. Adding another market to divert corn to non-food uses seems a bad way to proceed. I understand that dried corn kernelby TH - Miscellaneous Technical
Re: Why Has No One Ever ..... - 15 years ago
Gentlemen (I haven't seen any posts from ladies recently)- I still haven't seen an answer to my question. I'm not a good enough engineer to design an engine from the ground up, but I can build someone else's design. I want to power a small pickup, a Chevy S 10. Which designs are well-documented enough to produce, and which one would you build? Forty horse power should be plenty. Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Why Has No One Ever ..... - 15 years ago
OK, all you great thinkers, which would be a better engine to build for a car, a Bryan or a Besler, and WHY? I have access to CAD and CNC machining, so I can build almost anything with good plans. It will probably go in my old S-10, so any thing that will fit in an average engine compartment will work. I plan to put the boiler in back until the major bugs are worked out. Rolly- Where cby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Why Has No One Ever ..... - 15 years ago
Getting back to the question, are there sufficiently detailed drawings of some of the better engines available to do a set of construction plans? I am thinking of the Bryan, Williams or Besler engines, or maybe one of the later Stanleys. Do actual plans exist? I have concluded Doble was more of a German clockmaker than an automaker. Let's see, how complicated can we make this and still haby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Substitutes for water - 15 years ago
OK, alternative question. Why not take the exhausted steam, recompress it and shove it back in the boiler? Of course that takes energy, but is it more than shoving water into the boiler plus the heat of vaporization? Getting rid of the radiator, or at least downsizing the unit, would also improve overall efficiency. It may be a dumb question, but I am a materials guy, my thermo was mostly reaby TH - SteamStuff
Substitutes for water - 16 years ago
I remember over the years seeing proposals of using some other fluid than water for steam engines. such as Freon. The premise was to lower the boiling point and make it easier to scavenge waste heat. Has anyone worked on this? Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Have the big 3 included steam engines in their retooling plans yet. - 16 years ago
Max- Once the auto guys figured out that by reshaping the body more aerodynamically they could come up with a (relatively) cheap way to improve fuel economy, every design has spent MONTHS in the wind tunnels. Believe me, this has been a big part of new car development for a long time. The catch is that there are only so many variations on a fish or a bird that you can style into a car that sby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Have the big 3 included steam engines in their retooling plans yet. - 16 years ago
MK- My first reaction to that aerodynamic Honda was what loon would want to be seen in that thing. My second thought was people are buying that Scion mini-milk truck. I guess you can sell anything. All car and truck designs are compromises among the engineers, marketers and bean counters. There's costs to putting all those doodads on, and many potential customers won't be happy payingby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Another great idea from the government a new IC engine - 16 years ago
Peter- I remember a story from the 70's (probably mechanix illustrated) about an outfit in Ann Arbor that was making Sterling-powered gensets for RV's, powered by propane. The attraction was the silent running aspect. I haven't been able to find anything else about this, does it ring a bell with you or anyone? Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Williams ws. Rankin - 16 years ago
Caleb I thought I was the only one dumb enough to get a timing belt 180 off and still get the engine to run. And I did it on a Honda, too. Jeremy I've lost pets to cancer, too. It's a tough thing to handle. Your Tomcat looks just like my Caesar. He's 16 and I sometimes wonder how much longer I will have him around. Like Caleb said, concentrate on the good memories. Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Looking for a steam engine for a car/truck/rv - 16 years ago
To get back to Kdah's question, do any of you have an engine design that is buildable? Just as important, how about a boiler? As a side note, I was looking at the Besler movie recently. Was this a workable package or a con, and if it was a good one do the plans still exist? What happened to them? Tomby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Nickel - Boron Nitride Coatings - 16 years ago
Hard coatings like vanadium carbide and titanium nitride are common in the stamping trade, usually applied at high temperature. I'm not sure how well they would stand up to no lubrication, but they do significantly reduce the coefficient of friction, so less lube is needed. I found an outfit that does Ni-BN in-house; I think if I am going to try this I want someone else to do it to be sure itby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Steam Bearings - 16 years ago
Just a thought--- can this be approached as a diminishing returns problem? Rather than do a lot of materials and design work to eliminate the oil, can we just try to reduce the oil in the cylinder exhaust to a tolerable level? Which brings up the question of what level can a reasonable separator take out if you drop the total level coming into it, and is that enough for a viable design? My ideby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Another great idea from the government a new IC engine - 16 years ago
Hi Jeremy- I went to the site to figure out what the heck "para" meant. It's a liquid phase change. This site is mostly talking about cars with no on-board cooling capacity beyond a big thermos storage; for power plant storage this problem is irrelevant. There's no reason to store the hydrogen as a liquid for solar, because it will be used the next night. Wind might be more prby TH - SteamStuff
Re: Another great idea from the government a new IC engine - 16 years ago
"Tapping into the grid along the highway" ?? When I see the guy from Oracle pushing electric cars I wonder where he thinks all that juice will come from. Assuming an net average usage of 25 kilowatts to run a car, one million cars would take 25 gigawatts generating capacity. That's more than 20 Fermi 2 plants, at several billion apiece. If we go with Boone Pickens' boondoggleby TH - SteamStuff