Re: PT 2 would like your input on alternative fuel

Posted by Gerald J. on July 05, 2006 at 17:22:07 from (67.0.97.211):

In Reply to: PT 2 would like your input on alternative fuels posted by Truth seeker on July 05, 2006 at 15:10:34:

Give John T. much credit. He's a retired electrical engineer. I'm almost retired and an electrical engineer.

The 1910 era steam locomotive did 10% efficiency fuel to tractive effort. The boiler is insulated, they call it lagging, the cylinders are lagged too. What you see is thin steel covering the lagging.

The classic steam locomotive looses efficiency by boiler losses, by cylinder looses, by using feedwater once, and by not condensing the used steam. The feedwater is cold and so has to be warmed from the outside air temperature (say 50 degrees F) to boiling (212 F), that takes 1 BTU per degree F per pound. 162 BTU. Then it takes 550 BTU to boil that pound of water. And some more heat to super heat that steam so it doesn't condense in the cylinder (liquid in the cylinder removes cylinder heads or bends connecting rods instantly). You can only recover that energy until you condense the water back down to 212F at atmospheric pressure.

The steam engine running 180 PSI (like the one on the Boone and Scenic Valley near here where some of my electrical hardware rides) runs at 390 degrees F, if I recall correctly. All the heat energy required to heat the water to that boiling point isn't recovered but is wasted blowing steam and smoke out the stack. Some of that exhaust energy fans the fire, some just makes noise.

In the steam electric plant, the water is used over an over, and so once its heated to the pressurized boiling point, its not cooled way below that. The steam turbine isn't bothered by the cooling of the steam by the relatively cold cylinder walls, so it doesn't loose heat energy there, then the pressure difference is all used, then added to by the exhaust steam being condensed with creates a vacuum. That gets up to 35% overall efficiency.

The steam turbine has some limitations for vehicular use. In personal vehicule size its small and runs at 40,000 or 50,000 RPM. It doesn't vary speed well, and for sure doesn't lug well. There has been a steam turbine RR locomotive or two built. If they survive they are in museums, they didn't fit into the railroad operating scheme and probably didn't match the oncoming diesel for fuel efficiency and longevity of operation.

The steam locomotive tended to run 15 or 20 miles before it was ready for more water and 40 or 50 miles before it was ready for maintenance. The diesel locomotive ran all day maybe a few days before needing fuel and the better part of a year before needing maintenance and used 1/3 the fuel of the steam locomotive for the same loads. Those facts along sealed the fate of the steam locomotive in railroad practice. The only reasons steam stayed on in a few places likc China were that the steam locomotive burned coal and was low technollogy to build. That locomotive on the Boone and Scenic Valley was one of the last ones built in China.

It is good to be impatient with alternative fuels. It is not good to experiment without doing library research to see what has been done before and without the thermodynamics and fuel chemistry education to understand that work and to understand what is fantasy and what may have a chance of working. Get thee a college education in mechanical or chemical engineering and you can contribute the fastest. Without that education you will be forever traveling up blind alleys. With your quest for knowledge, you can extract far more from a college education than the student there only to acquire the degree. My interest was more in radio, but I've learned much about these other things. Graduate education is more about learning to learn on your own than the research topic shows.

Gerald J.

Replies:

• Re: PT 2 would like your input on alternative fuel John T 06:41:43 07/06/06 (2)
  • John T - FYI nballen 09:04:56 07/06/06 (1)
    • Re: John T - FYI John T 15:18:26 07/06/06 (0)

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