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Steam engines

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Stub Mandrel07/01/2011 20:25:54
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I have just read Robert Seig's book on hot air and caloric engines. There are some really unfamiliar engines which used, for example, hot, wet air drawn through a furnace.
 
One engine in it I'm sure was essentially a fuel injected internal combustion engine with a normal two-stroke cycle, except there was a separate induction cylinder instead of using underneath the main cylinder.
 
Neil
Ian S C08/01/2011 11:08:58
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I had a look on Google and found reference to an idea of an engine with an injection nozzle, and very high compression, with the expectation that the compression would heat the injected water to steam, there by running the motor.  Ian S C
Maurice13/01/2011 19:33:47
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      I recall this type of engine being described in M.E. in the 60's. I believe it was called the Hall effect engine. The inventor was inspired by globules of water fizzing and moving around on a hot suface such as a stove top. If one of the droplets is hit with a hammer, forcing the water into intimate contact with the hot suface, it explodes. In the engine, the piston forced the injected water into contact with the hot cylinder head.I think the contributor was Mr. Hall himself. He proposed putting them to work in lawn mowers and similar.
 
Coxy
John Olsen14/01/2011 01:47:30
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Ian, that one won't work. The incoming water will cool the hot air, so the net effect wll be to reduce the pressure. There would have to be an external source of heat.
 
regards
John
 
PS, hope the postie dropped you a package by now?
Richard Parsons14/01/2011 05:17:09
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Michael The nearest thing to what you have described is the flash steam or mono-tube boiler.  This is a tube usually coiled and heated by a blowlamp.  Water is pumped in a one end, flashes into steam which drives the engine.

Ian S C14/01/2011 09:03:34
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    John, you know that, and I know that, but that does'nt stop a groop of blokes going for pages on the subject, I suppose their other hobby is building perpetual motion machines, which this one is getting near to. 
     Richard, I think you'r right, as far as steam goes, the flash steam boiler  seems is the way to get an efficient engine.  Like other exteral combustion engines, there is a choice of fuel, and the fuel is alowed to burn at its natural temperature, there by eliminating a lot of the noctious by products of the internal combustion engine.  Ian S C
 
,14/01/2011 20:26:19
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" Such an engine would have to work forlong periods with essentially no maintenanc"
 
It already exists - its called a Gardner diesel!
Terryd14/01/2011 23:58:06
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Posted by Kinlet Hall 4936 on 14/01/2011 20:26:19:
" Such an engine would have to work forlong periods with essentially no maintenanc"
 
It already exists - its called a Gardner diesel!

 But the title of the thread is 'steam engines' ??

Mark Smith 329/01/2011 01:10:34
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I have read with interest the comments so far and some have merit, as many people have thought about this principle for a long time.
 
I have thought for some time about the idea of combining the hotair engine (open cycle) and a boiler, probably a flash generator.
 
The main idea behind the hotair engine is to get as much heat across the steel wall of the displacer cylinder as possible to expand the compressed air.
 
Steam has a large quantity of heat latent in it so it seems to me that if a quantity of air is compressed in a cylinder and steam is admitted via a valve, that latent heat will disipate in the air causing it to expand.
 
So instead of using the expansive properties of steam we use its latent heat to expand the air, much in the way an IC engine works; but remember, the IC engine only uses a fraction of the heat available from combustion to expand the air, the rest is dumped into the exhaust and cooling system. It could, if it works, be an economical way to use fuel.
 
If I am talking a lot of hotair, I'm sure someone will set me straight.
Mark
 
MichaelR29/01/2011 09:11:39
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Michael, is this what you had in mind. Click on the link
 

Edited By Stick on 29/01/2011 09:15:56

Edited By Stick on 29/01/2011 09:22:25

Edited By Katy Purvis on 01/06/2015 09:35:44

Richard Marks29/01/2011 13:47:02
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Gentlemen
concerning the link fromStick, it says it is a valveless steam engine but if you get a continuous flow of steam into the cylinder as per the link surely you need to admit steam at TDC only otherwise it wont work which means that you need some sort of valve system, sorry about the typing, i have one wing out of action at the moment.
Richard Parsons29/01/2011 18:31:58
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Long ago at a MEX –at Wembley there was a ‘mini-stand’ where I was given a pamphlet about ‘Plenty & Co’. It was all about their heavy oil engines which the surplus heat from cooling the engine was used to run a small Curtis (I think) turbine. The other ‘thing’ in the sort of moving images might well have problems as even uni-flow engines –like that used on Pices II- need an inlet control valve and can have quite a high back pressure. I once tried to design a uni-flow which when the piston passed the exhaust port opened a series of ports up the cylinder. I never built it or the 4 cylinder 4 stroke with variable valve geometry which changed when the thing was running.

Richard get your 'wing' back soon -Good luck Dick
Ian S C30/01/2011 12:10:30
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Michael, I don't think you could evaporate water, then condense it, etc etc., fast enough to run a motor at a speed that would be useful, say 1000rpm, there is a heading in one site about this, but click on it and the site is vacant, must have another look. Ian S C
Ian S C30/01/2011 13:46:55
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It could be interesting to look at Artemis- Malone's modifications of the stirling engine, and "How to make a stirling engine more powerful using steam".
One problem with the steam, its more viscose than dry air, it may even cause erosion to things like the displacer. Ian S C

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