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US Team Seeks To Top Steam-Car Speed Record

Posted by timothy on from the ready-with-the-coal-ready-with-the-shovel dept.

Zothecula writes "Steam-engined vehicles are quaint, retro and obsolete ... right? Well, maybe not. The current land speed record for a steam-powered vehicle currently sits at 148 mph (238 km/h), set by the British car Inspiration team in 2009. Now, Chuk Williams' US Land Steam Record (USLSR) Team is hoping to steal that title in its LSR Streamliner, powered by a heat-regenerative external combustion Cyclone engine – an engine that could someday find common use in production automobiles."

21 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. 240 km in THAT thing? by Rinnon · · Score: 3, Funny

    You couldn't pay me to take that... thing up to 240 km an hour. It looks like a metal coffin on wheels.

    1. Re:240 km in THAT thing? by PseudonymousBraveguy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Speed Record Cars like this are usually build to run in a straight line on a salt flat. If you don't have wind from the side, there is no need for much stability. Building the car as narrow as possible reduces the area exposed to the wind and thus reduces drag.

      Now if you try do drive that thing on a regular road, you'd probably not survive the first turn.

  2. Making Steam uses up Water by For+a+Free+Internet · · Score: 4, Funny

    Steam is burned water, a limited naturil resorse that should not be frittered away by greedy car owners. Water beloongs to all of us to share so don't waste it, ride a bike you stupid dickface!

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    1. Re:Making Steam uses up Water by kent_eh · · Score: 2

      What!?!?!
      You want to conserve the stuff? It's dangerous!!
      Take a look here.
      We should be calling for the banning of it all together.

      But if this type of engine can produce useful energy while safely incinerating what you claim as a "limited naturil resorse" , then I'm all for it.

      --

      ---
      "I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
  3. Waste Heat Engine by PseudonymousBraveguy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Cyclone engine may be grat as a waste heat engine, i.e. to convert process heat back to some more useful type of energy. I doubt it's really usefull as primary engine, because converting fuel to heat and then heat to motion does not really sound more efficient than your usual internal combustion engine. And the main advantage "can burn all kind of alternative fuels"? Come on, I can do that with my diesel engine already. Increasing the efficiency of a car with a internal combustion/steam engine hybrid by using the waste heat of a combustion engine to gain some additional power could be a much better idea.

    1. Re:Waste Heat Engine by PseudonymousBraveguy · · Score: 2

      Well, the main reasons why otto and diesel engines don't reach the theoretical maximum efficiency of the otto or diesel cycle is that they lose energy to the cooling medium. If you could use some of that heat, you might close the gap between the theoretical maximum efficiency and the practical efficiency. The added weight will of course reduce the gain, but it still might be greater than zero.

    2. Re:Waste Heat Engine by sznupi · · Score: 2

      Uhm...no, it's because practical implementations have limits (nvm general imperfections of the real world - the major thing for Otto are properties of fuel / octane number; for Diesel - materials of the engine). Cooling medium, efficient disposal of waste heat is required for the cycles to work!

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    3. Re:Waste Heat Engine by 7-Vodka · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Well, if you look at what they are claiming to have already achieved, it's pretty good.

      Sure, the Carnot equations do predict that they have a lower theoretical maximum efficiency 1- dT/Th, however, they seem to make up for that in the following ways:

      1. more efficient combustion process
      2. recycling waste heat, not work heat, to get more heat to do work. (ie the heat that gets exhausted without going through the system)
      3. making use of the lower Th to use lighter materials and better design. The videos shows the kind of materials they use are much cheaper looking and lighter for example
      4. more useable tq and tq/vol ratio
      5. they might be able to drop transmissions, oil, other added weight
      6. They could probably harness heat off the brakes
      7. much cleaner and more flexible engine with a closed loop Rankine design
      8. They could end up with less maintenace and cost per maintenance too by the looks of it
      9. Their exhaust temps seem just about right to think about heating the cabin as a final efficiency boost in the winter too

      So, they give up some theoretical max efficiency to get a whole bunch of nice trade offs, and from the numbers they allege, those trade offs come back in terms of real world efficiency as well.

      It seems worth more investigation before writing it off.. Plus, it looks like a Mr. Fusion.

      --

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    4. Re:Waste Heat Engine by d3ac0n · · Score: 5, Informative

      As a Steam enthusiast I can add that while your statements are technically correct, in a more practical sense they are not. What do I mean? Allow me to explain;

      While Steam engines, being external combustion engines, can technically burn just about anything, in order to make burning low grade fuels such as soft and green woods, dung bricks and garbage useful, you need a very large and well aerated grate in a boiler designed to handle those kinds of fuels. More specifically, you need a very large boiler with a gigantic grate and an easily cleaned and serviced heating surface. You can see an examples of low grade fuel burning boilers over here: www.tinytechindia.com The boiler pictured is the smallest they make with 54sq feet of grate area. That's about as large as the back of your average small pickup truck.

      Most steam boilers, particularly the more modern designs (such as the one in TFA) have very tightly packed and not easily serviced tube arrangements. This means that one must avoid "sooting" the tubes with low grade fuels that don't burn cleanly as soot and creosote buildup on the tubes causes loss of efficiency and can cause tube failure. Thus one must use cleaner burning fuels such as high-density hardwoods, low sulfur coal, steam atomized oil, propane or Nat Gas. In an automobile application one is pretty much restricted to the liquid fuels, so you are back to using hydrocarbon fuels for heating.

      Sadly, even the most efficient steam engine cannot compare in efficiency to even the LEAST efficient gas or diesel engine. The absolute best one could expect to get from a conventional steam engine plant is about 15% efficiency, with most ones in existence (primarily small Hobby sized ones in boats) running at around 7% efficiency. A specialized high-tech plant like this one probably runs at a real-world efficiency of about 25%. That's not bad, but nothing compared to the 50% efficiency of an 80 year old V8 from a 1940's Ford. I'm sorry, but Steam power won't make a true comeback until hydrocarbon options are simply too expensive to use anymore, or we have a global socio-economic collapse requiring a "rebuilding" period.

      Don't get me wrong, I LOVE steam. But I'm also realistic about it's capabilities and applicability. Maybe this engine design is good enough to get over that hump. I guess we'll see.

      --
      Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
    5. Re:Waste Heat Engine by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2

      That's not bad, but nothing compared to the 50% efficiency of an 80 year old V8 from a 1940's Ford.

      I suggest you recheck your facts. Thermodynamic efficiencies above 50% are in the realm of modern combined-cycle gas+steam turbine power plants, or gargantuan low-speed diesel engines (with cylinder bores that can exceed 36 inches) in big ships. I doubt that a flat head V8 from the 1940s even approaches 20%.

  4. external combustion? by shish · · Score: 2

    external combustion engine

    This can only end well.

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    I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
    1. Re:external combustion? by necro81 · · Score: 2

      There are all kinds of external combustion engines out there. External combustion means that you have a heat source (a boiler, burner, etc.) that heats up some working fluid (often steam), and the working fluid performs useful work as it expands and cools. Every coal- and oil-fired electrical generation plant is a kind of an external combustor. Nuclear stretches the semantics a bit, because the heat doesn't come from combustion per se. Some natural gas plants are, too, though the preferred architecture these days is combined cycle. Stirling engines are another external combustor. The "external" in this case means that the combustion is happening outside of the mechanical workings.

      External combustion has the significant advantage that it doesn't really matter where the heat comes from. Boilers are tuned to work with a specific fuel, and can be further tuned to work on a specific grade of a specific fuel. But beyond that, all the rest of the infrastructure can be input-agnostic: all you need is heat. Contrast this to the internal combustion engine, which is very heavily tuned to its fuel source. Diesels tend to be a bit more forgiving, and modern engine controls allow for a wider efficient operating range, but you would destroy a typical gasoline ICE if you accidentally gave it diesel.

  5. OK by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 2

    Cue car analogies in 3... 2... 1...

  6. Radiators by jamesl · · Score: 2

    The fatal flaw in portable/mobile steam applications to date has been the need for large radiators (really really large radiators) to cool the steam, converting it back to water to complete the cycle. I see no magic fairy dust in this device that solves that problem.

    The alternative is to carry enough water to run the engine without recycling and eliminate the condensers. And that's a lot of water.

    1. Re:Radiators by mangu · · Score: 4, Informative

      There were a few condensing steam locomotives built. I don't know why they weren't more common, surely a train has space enough to fit a condenser there and stopping to get water must have been a PITA.

      In the 1960s Bill Lear a very prolific inventor started working on steam cars. By then Lear had already a number of important inventions to his name, among them the car radio (he created the name "Motorola") and the business jet plane (Lear Jet).

      He claimed to have the condenser problem solved by 1969, using an advanced accordion-shaped radiator, but nothing came of his steam car plans. I remember seeing an article on Popular Science mentioning he had a steam turbine bus prototype.

      He also had plans for a steam powered race car to run the Indy 500. This car would use a delta-shaped engine, inspired by the Napier Deltic

    2. Re:Radiators by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      Because it was much easier to scoop up water from a trough every so often than to condense water (which added to the complexity). A train has a hell of a lot of momentum. Putting out a scoop to refill every so often will not slow it down at all...

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    3. Re:Radiators by d3ac0n · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Except that most steam engines didn't refill by "scoop". They refilled from the TOP via a water tower. They would come to a stop under the tower, the engineer would open the input cap on the hot-well or make-up tank, and a large pipe on a swing-arm would be positioned over the opening. A lever was pulled and gravity would drain the water down into the tank.

      The reason that more steam engines weren't condensing is because air-condensers are notoriously inefficient. You simply couldn't make them large enough to condense the water fast enough to supply a large engine. Eventually you would start getting steam back into the hot-well, and it would cause all sorts of problems. It was simply easier and more efficient to set up water-refilling stations all along the track that were refilled from local sources or via "water trains" that were sent along to the drier outposts.

      --
      Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
    4. Re:Radiators by GiveBenADollar · · Score: 2

      Some steam engines did refill by scoop. There was a long water trough that the engine would go by with its scoop out and pick up what it needed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_locomotive#Condensers_and_water_re-supply There were also engines that could only refill at water towers.

  7. *ALL* kind of alternative fuels? by mangu · · Score: 3, Informative

    And the main advantage "can burn all kind of alternative fuels"? Come on, I can do that with my diesel engine already

    I'd like to see what sawdust, wood chips, grass clippings or charcoal would do to your diesel engine. Even liquid fuels will not work if they are high-octane, like ethanol. Diesel engines require liquid fuel at a certain cetane number range.

    A steam engine, OTOH, has basically a single requirement for fuel: it must burn without damaging the boiler.

  8. Century of progress by boustrophedon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The 2009 records by Inspiration were the first beat the 1906 record of 127 mph (204 km/hr) set by Fred Marriott driving a modified Stanley Steamer.

  9. They'd better hurry by Cytotoxic · · Score: 2

    From the links at the bottom of TFA, the British team already has a body on their 200mph steam car. Looks a lot cooler too.