[modeleng] Re: steam car (OT)
- From: Allen Messer <al_messer@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: modeleng@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 20:06:00 -0800 (PST)
Very good. Thanks for sharing it with us. I have
often wondered why no one has apparently tried to
"marry" a Stanley engine/rear end, and a White Steam
generating system. The White system was a mono-tube
design that produced steam at app. 750 psi and 700
degrees F..
Al Messer
--- alanjstepney <alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> It is full size, unelss someone happens to want to
> make a model of it...
>
> Steam-powered vehicles are not usually deemed as
> being parked at the cutting
> edge of transport technology.
> Nor do they seem to be the type to race across
> desert landscapes in a bid to
> smash land speed records in the 21st Century.
> But British design engineer Glynne Bowsher and his
> team have almost finished
> building a super-fast vehicle reminiscent of the
> Batmobile.
> And this car puts a new technological breath of life
> into what is regarded
> as a traditional means of power.
> He knows engine and vehicle design like old friends,
> having worked on
> Richard Noble's record-breaking Thrust 2 jet car and
> having designed
> ThrustSSC, the first vehicle to break the sound
> barrier on land.
> His team, the British Steam Car Challenge (BSCC), is
> hoping that its
> Inspiration vehicle will live up to its name and not
> only break a
> long-standing steam-car speed record, but also
> inspire thinking about
> alternative fuels for the future.
> In and out
> The search for a suitable alternative fuel source to
> hydrocarbons which can
> cleanly power our vehicles has touched on various
> different options.
> Fuels which do not "rot" the environment usually
> bring to mind images of
> gently humming electric cars, clean hydrogen,
> natural gas, or hithane - a
> concoction of hydrogen and methane.
> The most promising, believes Mr Bowsher, is either
> nuclear or hydrogen fuel.
> The public is reluctant to explore nuclear; but
> researchers and engineers
> across the world are exploring how best to generate
> and, more importantly,
> store hydrogen fuel, one of the main barriers to its
> widespread use.
> Nine European cities are taking part in a pilot
> scheme to use hydrogen
> fuelled buses on certain routes, for instance.
> But until a viable mass-scale way of storing and
> distributing hydrogen
> effectively is developed, it remains limited in use.
> External combustion engines - like steam ones - hold
> several advantages over
> internal ones.
> They have the potential to produce fewer harmful
> nitrogen oxides (NOx) than
> conventional cars which use internal combustion
> engines.
> Although steam engines still need to burn
> hydrocarbon-based fuels like
> petrol and diesel, which in turn release carbon
> dioxide, external combustion
> engines can control the release and the production
> of CO2 more efficiently.
> And because such engines can work well at lower peak
> temperatures and
> pressures, the creation of NOx compounds can be
> almost negligible.
> Inspiration is a far cry from the steam cars made
> famous by the Stanley
> brothers, however.
> The 1906 record, set by a Stanley Steamer at what is
> now Daytona Beach, is
> the longest-standing officially recognised land
> speed record for a steam
> car.
> It was set at a time when the battle for supremacy
> between petrol-powered
> internal combustion engines and steam-powered
> external combustion engines
> was in full sprint.
> Although Stanley Steamers had enjoyed a boom in the
> early 1900s, they were
> quickly being overtaken by internal combustion
> engines. The steam car,
> driven by Fred Marriott, reached 127.7mph (205.5
> km/h), beating four
> petrol-powered vehicles to pick up the Dewar Trophy
> rewarding the fastest
> vehicles on land.
> Even before steam became speedy, a steam-powered
> engine designed by Nicolas
> Joseph Cugnot drove the first self-propelled vehicle
> in 1769.
> But it had to rest every 15 minutes to generate
> enough steam power to send
> it on its way again.
> To Mr Bowsher, it is steam's historical legacy that
> has always attracted
> him.
> "I grew up with steam locomotives in my own town, so
> steam was a part of my
> life. When I was young we didn't have a car - my
> father never owned one," he
> explains.
> "We went on the railway or the bus. It was quite
> important to me; I always
> had a love of aviation and steam so those two things
> in terms of transport
> are still with me."
> Own design
> Designing a steam engine fit for the demands of a
> 21st Century land-speed
> attempt has proved somewhat of a challenge, however.
> "We basically had to come up with our own design,
> which is innovative in
> some ways," says Mr Bowsher. So innovative, in fact,
> that the team is
> exploring patenting the design.
> Inspiration's engine works in quite a simple way, he
> explains.
> Water is passed through a steam generator where it
> is heated by burning
> propane gas into superheated steam at 400C and at
> 40-bar pressure (4 million
> Pa).
>
> Inspiration is designed to break the long-standing
> land-speed record for
> steam cars
>
>
> That steam is then fed into four nozzles on a
> two-stage turbine arrangement.
> "With a turbine, you either use the pressure energy
> or velocity energy. In
> this case, we turn the pressure energy into high
> velocity.
> "Then the moving gas stream strikes the turbine
> wheels and starts them
> rotating - a bit like a small-scale power station,"
> explains Mr Bowsher.
> "Once we have a turbine that goes round, rotational
> power, that along with
> gear ratios can be used to drive the wheels and once
> we have the wheels
> rotating we can make it go forward fast."
> It sounds simple enough, but there were big
> challenges technologically to
> generate enough power in such a small vehicular
> space - 300 brake horsepower
> to be precise.
> That is 225kW of power operating at 12,000rpm.
> Formula 1 engines typically
> operate at more than 17,000rpm, while aircraft
> turbine engines turn at
> 85,000rpm and above.
> "One difficulty was getting a turbine and
> transmission system in such a
> small space.
> "But the worst problem was providing a steam
> generator to provide steam the
> turbine needed in such a small space." It is a
> method of steam production
> that seems not to have been used previously,
> according to Mr Bowsher.
> He does not imagine that steam cars will be the
> complete road ahead for cars
> on our streets.
> "Gas turbines have been used in the past," he says.
> "But the problem of
> turbines is that to be efficient, they have to run
> at a predetermined speed.
> "The very nature of road cars is that their speed
> changes all the time, so
> this design would be no good for road vehicles."
> But he can imagine the engine design being used in
> diesel-based commercial
> vehicles which belch out a large proportion of
> pollution, like buses and
> lorries.
> "Burning propane is environmentally more friendly
> than burning diesel. If
> the technology could be adapted, then it might just
> be a possibility - it is
> something we are investigating," he says.
> Engine spec.
>
> Two stage turbine on single spool
> Output: 300bhp at 12,000rpm (turbine speed) (225kw)
> Output shaft gear ratio: 4:1 or 4.45:1 to twin
> output shafts
> Differential: Epicyclic type with viscous couplings
>
> alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> www.alanstepney.info
> Model Engineering, Steam Engine, and Railway
> technical pages.
>
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