Re: new steam car
Posted by:
Arnold Walker (IP Logged)
Date: December 10, 2005 10:44PM
<HTML>Nice to see combined cycle used on a smaller scale than 100MW+ lightplants.If BMW is on the stick, with this to the degree that you see
GE,Westinghouse, and Caterpillar,60 to 80% total efficeicny is possible.
Have been kicking this idea around for years, for heavy truck applicables.
As a sidenote,Caterpillar owns Leland who bought the Sentinel(of steam lorry and steam train fame.....to some, the one of the last places, Doble worked in the last days of his design career.) out.
By that time virtually nothing was left of Sentinel to prove it ever existed.
Leland was into diesels, not steam products.
Hopefully,Bmw will look at kalina cycle as well to push the upper limit on heat extraction from the gas engine.(Adsorption refrigation with a energy production twist.....steam puritans will take exception ,but that is the best "man on the street" definition I can think of.You add enorgh ammonia, to steam with lower grade heat on a "bottoming cycle"To wring every BTU,
of heat down to 160F.(the temperature the water is adjusted to boil at)
Lower than that and you shock cool the gas engine.
Not sure about BMW,but the motor block ,oil cooler,and transmission cooler. "work" as the evaporator.and the exhaust as the superheat,reheat,and normalizer sections.On most designs for diesel engines.</HTML>