Steam engines

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Steam engines

This topic has 18 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 30 January 2011 at 13:46 by Ian S C.

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5 January 2011 at 23:30 #61827
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
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@michaelwilliams41215
There is a type of steam engine where water is injected directly into a continuously heated cylinder head on an otherwise conventional uniflow single acting engine . Since there is no boiler the overall plant is very simple and whilst not too efficient it is cabable of generating high powers in a small space and can use a variety of fuels .

These types of engine have turned up several times in history and then disappeared again but there was a period of active investigation during the 1960’s including description of a model size engine in ME .

It always seemed to me that these engines merited further investigation
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5 January 2011 at 23:30 #21776
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
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@michaelwilliams41215
7 January 2011 at 20:25 #61959
Sub Mandrel
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@submandrel
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
8 January 2011 at 11:08 #61987
Ian S C
Participant
@iansc
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
13 January 2011 at 19:33 #62403
Maurice Cox 1
Participant
@mauricecox1
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
14 January 2011 at 01:47 #62414
John Olsen
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@johnolsen79199
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?
14 January 2011 at 05:17 #62415
Richard Parsons
Participant
@richardparsons61721
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.
14 January 2011 at 09:03 #62422
Ian S C
Participant
@iansc
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 January 2011 at 20:04 #62451
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
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@michaelwilliams41215
The engine I mentioned works by injecting timed metered quatities of water direct into heated cylinder head ( or more practically into an extension to the cylinder head ) in the manner of a diesel engine . Water flashes into steam each cycle and then expands and exhausts as in a normal engine . The attraction of this engine is its simplicity . The Mr.Hall mentioned above pursued his experiments with enthusiasm but did not develop a truly viable engine . He had patents but the general principle had been described a hundred years earlier .

I have for many years past been interested in engines for use in under developed countries where any normal fuel is hard to obtain . The ideal engine for this purpose – irrespective of how it actually works – would use easily obtained local fuel such as wood and charcoal . Such an engine would have to work forlong periods with essentially no maintenance . Once such an engine exists much can follow such as deep well pumping and refrigerators .
14 January 2011 at 20:26 #62453
,
Participant
@nousername29627
” Such an engine would have to work forlong periods with essentially no maintenanc”

It already exists – its called a Gardner diesel!
14 January 2011 at 23:58 #62462
Terryd
Participant
@terryd72465
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’ ??
29 January 2011 at 01:10 #63220
Mark Smith 3
Participant
@marksmith3
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
29 January 2011 at 09:11 #63221
MichaelR
Participant
@michaelr
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
29 January 2011 at 10:11 #63224
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
Participant
@michaelwilliams41215
Thanks .
29 January 2011 at 13:47 #63241
Richard Marks
Participant
@richardmarks80868
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.
29 January 2011 at 18:31 #63260
Richard Parsons
Participant
@richardparsons61721
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
30 January 2011 at 11:36 #63283
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
Participant
@michaelwilliams41215
If I were building a practical version of this type of engine I would use a diesel style one shot per cycle variable dose injector to put the water in . This would then be the only mechanical valve of any sort needed to make the engine run .

Richard Parsons :

Note in your inbox

Mark Smith :

(1) Have a look at the construction of the Kitson diesel/steam hybrid engine .

(2) It is possible in theory to make a ‘hot air’ engine which is in fact a steam engine where the steam is rapidly raised in one cylinder and rapidly condensed

in another cylinder or alternatively at opposite ends of a displacer type cylinder . No valves are needed . Apart from top up the system is closed and recycles the same water all the time . I have never heard of a practical version but I don’t see why it couldn’t be done .
30 January 2011 at 12:10 #63287
Ian S C
Participant
@iansc
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
30 January 2011 at 13:46 #63293
Ian S C
Participant
@iansc
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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