Re: Valve area to cylinder volume ratios for various engines
Posted by:
Caleb Ramsby (IP Logged)
Date: March 01, 2003 04:17PM
<HTML>Rolly,
I had a fealing that was the case. I had looked through my Kent and
Mark books and although they have siginificant data tables about the various specifics of steam engines I hadn't seen any valve area to cylinder volume ratios. Oh well, I guese I will just have to get some more engine drawings and study them.
One of the disadvantages with my engine is that there is a 90 deg. curve just as the steam enters the intake area of the engine and when leaving the exhaust. After it turns it goes straight into the expander. To make it other wise would make it very difficult to machine.
Sometimes I wish that I didn't understand that when one is designing an aparatus, it doesn't matter how well it works on paper if it can't be built or would take a substantial effort on the machinists side of things.
This is where one of my other obsessions comes into play, blacksmithing. After making two forges and many other contrivences that are needed to practice the art, then actually making things from just chunks of steel one gets a much more acute understanding of what it actually takes to bring something from a design to a working object, it also helps that when I was a little kid I was helping my father in his secondary job as an independant constructor. Making porches, sidewalks, walls and such.
When I calculate things I try to do a perfect theoretical calculation first, just to see what the engine could do if all things were perfect. Then I add in things like friction losses, loss of steam pressure through tubing, resistance of flow at valves and ect. After doing this it gives one a better understanding of what is lost in the various real world processes that the engine must do.
Caleb Ramsby</HTML>