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.

Comments

Re:Damned inefficient

[frdmfghtr]

Should be well over 4000 bhp, since one bhp is 746 watts. Looks like an amazing amount of conversion loss there.

I think it's more a case where not all the energy contained in the steam is used for forward motion. The last thing you want to do is extract all that energy from the steam in the turbine, since in doing so would change the steam back into water. Water and high-speed steam turbines are not a good mix, unless you want to have shards of turbine flying about.

Instead, you extract as much energy as you can, while keeping the steam hot enough at the final turbine outlet pressure to prevent the phase change. In fact, most of the energy put into the steam (in some cases 75%) is removed AFTER the steam goes through the turbine, by way of the condensers.

Re:Damned inefficient

[spaceyhackerlady]

Precisely why the internal combustion engine was developed. The IC engine is far more efficient in comparison.

Back in Ye Olden Tymes (TM), it wasn't at all clear how those newfangled horseless carriages were going to be powered. There were electric ones, steam ones, and gasoline powered ones. Steam was a mature technology and well-understood, electric was silent but had range issues, and gasoline was just plain dangerous. Steam was the initial leader. Henry Ford selected gasoline for his Model T, and the rest was history.

With fossil fuels, greenhouse gases and all that, it doesn't matter how efficient gasoline engines are, if what they run on is too expensive to be practical. Sure, steam engines have thermodynamic limits. But they also have very nice emissions qualities, and excellent torque characteristics. I'd be very interested in seeing what a modern steam car could do.

The gasoline engine car makers actually ran FUD ads about how dangerous electric cars were. They were so quiet that you couldn't hear them coming, and risked getting run over!

...laura

Coolest thing about steam cars

[PenGun]

Max torque ... 0 RPM. The Stanley Steamers used to be able to put one wheel on a phone pole and drive up it a few feet.

Re:Damned inefficient

[spaceyhackerlady]

It's important however to understand *why* gasoline won out however. External combustion cars required anywhere from half an hour upwards before they were ready to creep, and required considerable maintenance. Internal combustion cars were ready to go within a few minutes and required much less maintenance.

Yup. That advantage came with the development of kettering ignition. Prior to that most internal combustion engines used glow ignition, where you had to heat the external part of the ignition system with a blowtorch until it was hot enough. The same sort of system is still used in model airplane engines, but their electric glow plugs make them a lot easier to start.

The local electric car club have a 1912 Detroit, albeit with modern lead-acid batteries replacing the original Edison cells. I've ridden in it; it feels like a telephone booth on wheels. But except for a slight whirr from the driveline, it's silent. These were the cars that made people like Henry Ford nervous.

...laura