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The British Steam Car Challenge
Van Cutter Romney sends us word of a British steam-powered car that will attempt to set a world record speed of 200 mph. The car, constructed on a tubular chassis, holds four boilers that deliver four megawatts of power, producing 300 bhp. The current record of 127.659 mph was established in 1906. More photos and specs at the Steam Car Club of Great Britain's site.
4 mega watts? You could power a small town with that.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
Your point is moot.
And where does the electricity come from?
Coal - oh so it's a coal powered car.
Steam is an energy source - as in it is something that contains usable energy.
Precisely why the internal combustion engine was developed. The IC engine is far more efficient in comparison.
This challenge is nothing more than novelty. Nothing wrong with that, I would love to be a spectator at this event.
Life is not for the lazy.
What's the point of this? Steam reached the peak of its development for transportation in the 1920s. Thermodynamically you can't do much better than 25% efficiency and that's with all the technology you can muster. More typically you only get 10%. The focus for engineers should be transportation that doubles car efficiency to 60 - 70%. Not halves it.
Like, totally tubular, man!
This article is pointless. This is not a steam car in the conventional sense, as it does not burn coal. It would be a poor match to put a LPG vehicle against a coal-powered one for a record that has stood for a hundred years. Then again, it is an easy target for a world record, so there you go.
Yep. Damn silence used to blanket the world like a fog. Thank god modern progress has defeated the awful quiet. We have driven it away with beeps, honks, bangs, rings and clashes. I don't know how I would sleep without the gentle lullaby of the cooling fans....
Sarcasm naturally (it is my specialty!).
If I had a sniper rifle, every last son of a bitch with a Harley modded for sound would have it shot out from under them as they rounded the corner to my house. I don't accept the "It's so other cars can hear me coming" excuse either. I have been riding motorcycles for decades, and the best way to do that is to drive like everyone around you is out to get you.
We have allowed our world to become polluted with more than just chemicals - we let the noise in too. I am willing to bet it has as much an impact on our long term health.
[RANT OFF]
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
"The current record of 127.659 mph was established in 1906"
Actually, from TFA, the accepted speed was 121.57mph over one kilometer.
Regardless, I am very, very impressed by the above.
With the advent of better machining, lighter materials, and vastly better bearing and bushing technology etc of today, this makes the 1906 record all the more incredible.
I am going to make a fairly spectacular statement. This small team, in 1906, was as clever as the 14 person combined team that is doing the current days project.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
It's interesting all the people they list at the end with their credentials. However, someone with experience at designing high capacity high pressure boilers is noteable by his absence from the list. (The heat exchangers listed in one fellow's brief biography are almost, but not quite the same thing.)
One of the pictures on another page shows the water becoming superheated steam inside one of the boilers - seemingly in the last of the four boilers. Though much depends on the exact layout of the tubes in their boiler, normally superheaters are behind a wall of other tubes. It is very easy to overheat a superheater - leading to tube failure.
But most interestingly - there is no steam seperator between the water tubes and the superheater. This will make it easier (trivial in fact) for a slug of water to reach the turbine if things go pear shaped.
4 megawatts is 5.2 THOUSAND horsepower. If the turbine were 28% efficient, should be over a 1,400 bhp car.