Triple expansion to I6?

My main idea was to build a high rpm, fast acting, self starting steam engine with good primary and secondary balance and variable cutoff for efficiency.

Below is a a description of the SES steam car, one of the most successful modern steam cars. This last gasp of automobile steam power promised low emissions and several projects were funded in the 1970s. However it and the other steam powered vehicles couldn't compete in economy with the IC engine cars of the day and all serious research into steam power for cars stopped. I doubt the situation has changed, even with more modern computer controls. These days the only really efficient steam power plants are the large central electric generating stations. Maybe you could argue that Teslas are steam powered in some parts of the country.

Lohring Miller

View attachment SES Steam Car 1.pdf

View attachment SES Steam Car 2.pdf

jazz256 said:

My main idea was to build a high rpm, fast acting, self starting steam engine with good primary and secondary balance and variable cutoff for efficiency.

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In the steam car? Nope... Stanley steam car was fast enough in acceleration with low rpm steam engine, it can lift front wheel in case acceleratorpedal was depressed fast down. Acceleration was 0-75 miles/hour at 5 seconds.

High rpm steam engine is a question about how much the flash boiler can produce an amount of steam per minute og how high will working pressure be.

Mechanicboy said:

High rpm steam engine is a question about how much the flash boiler can produce an amount of steam per minute ...

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Jens, I am afraid your thinking on this is coming over as very muddled. You are right that the power output of the engine depends primarily on the power output of the boiler (and secondarily on the efficiency of the engine). However, you can get the same power output with a small, high-speed engine, or a with larger, lower-speed one. Relative engine to road speed depends on gearing. Personally I would go small.

jazz256, if you want a high-speed engine, why do you persist with talking about such a long-stroke configuration as 2" x 4.5"?

Look at this video of Jay Leno's [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUg_ukBwsyo"]Doble[/ame] to see what the last great steam car was like. He has a great low tech explanation of how everything works. His [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Me8b0ed59s"]Stanley[/ame] was more primitive and represents what most steam cars were like. You can start to understand why an IC engine is much simpler than a really good steam plant. Good luck trying to replicate it as a hobbyist. A better project would be Richard Smith's Educator steam buggy or his steam bicycle.

Lohring Miller

Charles Lamont said:

Jens, I am afraid your thinking on this is coming over as very muddled. You are right that the power output of the engine depends primarily on the power output of the boiler (and secondarily on the efficiency of the engine). However, you can get the same power output with a small, high-speed engine, or a with larger, lower-speed one. Relative engine to road speed depends on gearing. Personally I would go small.

jazz256, if you want a high-speed engine, why do you persist with talking about such a long-stroke configuration as 2" x 4.5"?

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Jazz 256 talked about a sports car with a "hyper trimmed" long stroke steam engine that is far from reality. Not even high speed steam turbine being useable in the car. Requires a "high trimmed" steam engine a more powerful boiler so there comes a question about traffic safety that day the boiler burst into pieces and damage people, animals and other ..

Flash boiler is the most expensive part to make and requires approval by authorities before being released into the traffic.

The real experience can be seen on the old steam cars in function.

I apologize everyone, Im getting all over the place in thought and planning. I just want a even balance of steam expansion in the cylinder, engine balance, rpm and efficiency.

Charles Lamont said:

Jens, I am afraid your thinking on this is coming over as very muddled. You are right that the power output of the engine depends primarily on the power output of the boiler (and secondarily on the efficiency of the engine). However, you can get the same power output with a small, high-speed engine, or a with larger, lower-speed one. Relative engine to road speed depends on gearing. Personally I would go small.

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Charles Lamont, To find out how much a steam engine consumes steam per indicated horsepower per hour and select a boiler in right size to give enough amount of steam. So we set up a formula:

Q= A x S x 60 x F : H

Q = Number of cubic meters of steam as the steam engine consumes per indicated horsepower per hour.

A = Piston area in square meters. If calculations are based in a compound steam engine or an expansion steam engine, then the value A = piston area in square meters in the high pressure cylinder.

S= Piston speed in meter per minute.

60 = Steam consumption per hour.

F = Filling of the cylinder. If the steam engine works with quartz filling (cut off) then be written F = 0.25. If the calculation relates to a steam engine where the steam is expanded in stages several cylinders, when the value will be F = filling of the high pressure cylinder. The other cylinders are not with under this calculation.

H= Total horsepower of the steam engine either it is 1 cylinder or multiple cylinder.

Written from the old book "Handbook for mechanics of Peder Lobben"/ Lommebok for mekanikere, Peder Lobben. Printed in 1938.

So I just read about the Pritchard steam car and found something interesting. The car had a v twin double acting uniflow engine that had a maximum rpm of 4000. Can anyone explain this?

jazz256 said:

The car had a v twin double acting uniflow engine that had a maximum rpm of 4000. Can anyone explain this?

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The steam engine has very short stroke at 2" with cylinder bore 2 3/4" hence the steam engine has maximum revolution without load with a steam working pressure at 1200-1400 PSI.
The Stanley has large stroke at 5" and a bit small bore at 4" who give 60 horsepower at 2500 revolution with a steam working pressure at 600 PSI and the engine gear has 40 teeth and the differential ring-gear 60, so the ratio is 1.5 to 1. Also normal driving is revolution lower than maximum revolution without load. Lower revolution ---> more torque because the boiler will produce more pressure to drive steamengine.

The 1924 model Doble Series E steam car could run for 1,500 miles (2,400 km) before its 24-gallon water tank needed to be refilled; even in freezing weather, it could be started from cold and move off within 30 seconds, and once fully warmed could be relied upon to reach speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour (140 km/h). In recent years Doble cars have been run at speeds approaching 120 mph (190 km/h), this without the benefits of streamlining, and a stripped down version of the Series E accelerated from 0 - 75 mph (121 km/h) in 10 seconds. Its fuel consumption, burning a variety of fuels (often kerosene), was competitive with automobiles of the day, and its ability to run in eerie silence apart from wind noise gave it a distinct edge. At 70 mph (110 km/h), there was little noticeable vibration, with the engine turning at around 900 rpm (boiler at 1200 PSI working pressure in Doble steam
car).

Question, I found an early proposed engine idea I had for the car I did a while back. My question is would a tandem compound steam engine work in a steam car?

jazz256 said:

Question, I found an early proposed engine idea I had for the car I did a while back. My question is would a tandem compound steam engine work in a steam car?

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Yes, it is possible. Steam engine in tandem will be longer than side to side cylinder steam engine.

Mechanicboy said:

The steam engine has very short stroke at 2" with cylinder bore 2 3/4" hence the steam engine has maximum revolution without load with a steam working pressure at 1200-1400 PSI.

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Does anyone have anymore information on the Pritchard engine? I think it would make an interesting model if I ever get the time to get back to the shop.

Richard1 said:

Does anyone have anymore information on the Pritchard engine? I think it would make an interesting model if I ever get the time to get back to the shop.

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Here is the link to Pritchard engine: http://kimmelsteam.com/pritchard.html

Mechanicboy said:

Forgotten to write in early post.. Do not have too big steam engine is to be believed that it performs best when you do not take the size of the boiler. Horsepower is determined by the boiler that produces steam flow / pressure steam engine will provide the best effect. Thus it is not the steam engine that determines horsepower. Too little steam boiler -> steam engine loses power.

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You can have a beautiful engineered engine but my experience with my flash steamer it's the steam generator that's the heart of the power you can create.
Keep every thing simple it absorbs your power having a lot of moving parts in the engine.
My latest flash steam project is full size but will take a few years to have it running and will keep it under wraps till then.
A friend who will help me if required used to watch me when he was lad on his push bike chasing motorcycle speed records in the 70's says about his own mind blowing steam speed machine it's a motorbike that does not exist until he runs it in speed trials then it will be public knowledge.I have seen a static test as he is a professional engineer his work on his own and his friends gas turbine machine is first class

lohring said:

Another resource for all the things steam people have tried is Tom Kimmel's steam museum. It will take several days to look through the various papers on his web site. Chuk Williams converted an old Force 3 cylinder outboard engine to steam for his Bonneville record attempt. Others have converted various Mercury outboards. To get an idea of what the engine for a 150 mph streamliner looks like, see below.

Lohring Miller

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I'd like to know what is the fastest Chuk Williams has done to date on a one way run.

Chuk wrecked his streamliner on its first high speed pass. He was going over 140 at the time. From Chuk:
"There has never a question in my mind regarding the stability of the streamliner-it's always felt very stable and tracked like it was on rails. Until this time at the Flats-that is. When we did the first shakedown runs at Bonneville in October '12, the salt was hard and dry, the vehicle tracked straight and was very stable.

This time the track conditions were very different....as in-wet and slushy. The handling of the vehicle was very different, and very difficult. Nonetheless-the track conditions were not to blame for my accident.

The blame for the accident lies squarely on my shoulders. I packed the parachute-I diverted my attention to the parachute release when it didn't function as expected-those two things are the reasons for the accident. The track conditions were a contributing factor, but if either one of the two reasons above had functioned as they should have-the accident would probably have never happened. I had control of the vehicle all thru the run-right up to the 5-1/4 mile-when I diverted my attention to the parachute release."

"Yes there is a video, taken from about 3/8th mile away. The photographer was Randy Maxwell, affiliated with the guy who had the big truck with a V16 with quad turbos. He was getting anything that looked interesting, and part of that included my run-along with the accident.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbHzR3LGMtM&feature=youtu.be[/ame]
The video is 5+minutes long....Randy had the video running as we started the vehicle at the start line in prep for the run. You can hear the radio announcer thru out the tape, calling off speed as we progressed down the track. Finally, at about the 2:10 portion of the tape you can see the streamliner enter the video on the right.
As you watch the streamliner progress down the track-moving from right to left-you'll notice that as it passes the last two black markers(they're the 1/4mile designator) the image of the vehicle changes and you can see a fog of salt being thrown up....that's the beginning of the end! Watch closely, and you'll see a small change in the image again-with more salt being thrown up. At this point the vehicle makes a ninety degree turn away from the camera-this is when it became airborne for approx 400 feet-you see lots of pieces flying off/clouds of salt obscuring your view because the vehicle is going away from the viewer. If you pause and restart the video at this point(for a split second at a time)you can see the vehicle go end-for-end at least once, before finally rolling to a stop to the right of the body pieces. If you listen closely during the crash you will hear the violence of it. Then you will hear-and see-the emergency response teams doing their thing. "

Lohring Miller

lohring said:

Chuk wrecked his streamliner on its first high speed pass. He was going over 140 at the time. From Chuk:
"There has never a question in my mind regarding the stability of the streamliner-it's always felt very stable and tracked like it was on rails. Until this time at the Flats-that is. When we did the first shakedown runs at Bonneville in October '12, the salt was hard and dry, the vehicle tracked straight and was very stable.

This time the track conditions were very different....as in-wet and slushy. The handling of the vehicle was very different, and very difficult. Nonetheless-the track conditions were not to blame for my accident.

The blame for the accident lies squarely on my shoulders. I packed the parachute-I diverted my attention to the parachute release when it didn't function as expected-those two things are the reasons for the accident. The track conditions were a contributing factor, but if either one of the two reasons above had functioned as they should have-the accident would probably have never happened. I had control of the vehicle all thru the run-right up to the 5-1/4 mile-when I diverted my attention to the parachute release."

"Yes there is a video, taken from about 3/8th mile away. The photographer was Randy Maxwell, affiliated with the guy who had the big truck with a V16 with quad turbos. He was getting anything that looked interesting, and part of that included my run-along with the accident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbHzR3LGMtM&feature=youtu.be
The video is 5+minutes long....Randy had the video running as we started the vehicle at the start line in prep for the run. You can hear the radio announcer thru out the tape, calling off speed as we progressed down the track. Finally, at about the 2:10 portion of the tape you can see the streamliner enter the video on the right.
As you watch the streamliner progress down the track-moving from right to left-you'll notice that as it passes the last two black markers(they're the 1/4mile designator) the image of the vehicle changes and you can see a fog of salt being thrown up....that's the beginning of the end! Watch closely, and you'll see a small change in the image again-with more salt being thrown up. At this point the vehicle makes a ninety degree turn away from the camera-this is when it became airborne for approx 400 feet-you see lots of pieces flying off/clouds of salt obscuring your view because the vehicle is going away from the viewer. If you pause and restart the video at this point(for a split second at a time)you can see the vehicle go end-for-end at least once, before finally rolling to a stop to the right of the body pieces. If you listen closely during the crash you will hear the violence of it. Then you will hear-and see-the emergency response teams doing their thing. "

Lohring Miller

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Thank you for the video link wonder what he will do if he has another attempt.

windy said:

Thank you for the video link wonder what he will do if he has another attempt.

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Here is the steam car under test driving..

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3eatDRIV-s"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3eatDRIV-s[/ame]