Re: Steam Turbine Question
Posted by:
Jim Crank (IP Logged)
Date: September 29, 2003 05:02PM
<HTML>Caleb,
Adding a unecessary hydraulic loop would only make matters infinitely worse. For such a car, direct drive and push start it.
Arnold,
Reheat is useless on a one shot non condensing system, it is only used with huge powerhouse turbines that have to squeeze every last BTU out of the steam. Also, where they have boilers expressly designed for incorporating the not so small reheat tubing area, not to mention the control problems that they would have controlling the reheat temperature. Not at all feasible. It looks like they are using a two stage non condensing turbine.
A steam record car is all about brute power, the right gearing to keep the engine from flying apart, and a steam generator/burner capable of keeping up. Economy is not on the screen, burn all you can and go for it.
Dobles got over 25 lbs/hr/sq/ft and that can be done today, so a powerful steam generator is a known entity.
Steam turbines are simply useless for a car. The crossover point where they are starting to equal a triple or a quad compound engine in efficiency, is somewhere around 500 hp. Under that they have the efficiency of a half inch hole in the steam line. Look, if a turbine was in the least bit usable at the 200 hp level I wanted, cost notwithstanding, I would leap on it. Tiny for the power output, no cylinder oil, one moving part. It just isn't there. Small turbines won't work well enough to do the job as it has to be done today.
I tried so very hard, long talks with Bob Barber, the Lear turbine designer, the experts at Sundstrand, and several most expert turbine designers at Garrett Air Research, it just won't work in a car, so forget them.
I looked at the Brit's web site again, and quite frankly just don't believe what is said there.
My questions are: 1) Not one person with steam car experience in any fashion. 2) Four steam generators in parallel, give me a break!! 3) Propane fuel with it's low BTU per pound? 4) Not one mention of the control system and how it is going to syncronize and control the four generators in parallel.
5) An inpulse turbine with two counter rotating wheels, apparently one acting as the second stage? 6) Four nozzles for all the steam flow they would need to even get the car going, and yet keep the steam velocity up? 7) Getting the water flow correctly proportioned to each of the four coil stacks under all conditions? 8) Adjusting the said flow to keep each sections steam temperature under control, when running full out? 9) Throttles?
Not to mention that there is one horrible problem with monotube steam generators with little water inventory, trying to get the car up to speed, even with a push car? That one they can just pay for the information, which I seriously doubt they will want to even know about. I know, I fought this for a long time before successfully overcoming it in my car.
If the car is ready to test, as they claim, how about one of our British steam car club member friends photographing the car and then let us all see some real proof that it even exists. Then let's all hear how successful it was, or wasn't, and what the problems were that they experienced. Let them be open about it.
My car's steam generator, just to mention the base line, had an output of 5500 lbs/hr @ 1200 psi and 1100°F, and the little 5-1/4" Lear turbine was spinning at 85,000 rpm, still not optimum. The burner gave some 8.5 million BTUs and burned 72 gallons per hour of JP-A commercial jet fuel. The burner air blower took 420 amps at 24 volts and screamed like an air raid siren.
It was an all out brute force design and nothing else. Economy or air pollution concerns didn't enter the equation. Racing is an all out effort to win, gentlemen, nothing else matters in the least.
I do wish them well, I really do; but until I see actual proof that there is a real steam racer in existence and it runs as intended, I still think this is just posturing and B....S..... Not unknown in the steam car world, is it.
Then, should they actuall succeed, why not borrow a Doble F engine and blow their car into the weeds.
It sure can be done and not overly expensive to do. Ex multi engined streamliners are around to be carted away and now I can wind any coils I want up to 36" in diameter, the rest is easy. Geared correctly, the F engine can easily push such a streamlined Bonneville car up to 250-275 mph.
Let us see if this car really exists, then let's see it run. Then go from there.
Jim</HTML>