Occam's razor - water

Not to mention the maintenance required. Steam machinery can be a pain.

 

One of our neighbors is considered a leading expert on Stanly Steamers. He has a whole barn full of them. Once in a while in the summer I hear one chugging up the hill in front of our house. The giveaway is the trail of water on the road.

Tom

 

Hi bbald123,

Check out: Green Car Congress: BMW Developing Steam Assist Drive Based on Waste Heat Recovery

and : Green Car Congress: Study: Steam Hybrids Using Waste Heat Recovery Could Reduce Fuel Consumption Up To 31.7%

 

Should have tried pulse and glide in your sub. Use gravity to glide down to the sea floor and then pulse to the surface, etc.

 

Why would carbon that did not burn in the combustion chamber be burned in the cat (just asking)?

Tom

 

Thanks, I'm off to do that right now!

 

Who wouldn't want water injection... Even if it is only a modest improvement in HP or MPG.

A little note on the electrolysis cars. One of these guys who built one of these things noticed that he was sucking small amounts of water droplets in to the intake. So he installed a vapor extractor so that only the H2 and O2 would pass. His 'measured' increase in MPG became a loss in mpg (as it should be) he took the vapor extractor out and saw the MPG increase return.

He rightly concluded that it was the water droplets which resulted in the improved MPG. Electrolysis seams like a l inefficient method of making water mist...

improved mpg = good. Using water to get it is even better.arty:

 

Particulates can form in the engine if the timing or fuel/air mixture are wrong, because things happen there so fast. They can get stuck inside the converter and burn there. Sufficient oxygen is deliberately left in the engine exhaust so that CO conversion to CO2 can occur.

 

Years ago (I know it was after '78) I saw an article in a Sacramento newspaper about someone who "invented" a water injection system used on planes in WWII (IIRC). I met that person (I can't remember his name now, but he looked like an old "Kentucky Colonel") and got some details about his system. The idea was that it acted like an octane booster. You could advance the timing in situations where demanded and increase power and supposedly efficiency. I experimented with it myself some, but like so many cases where you don't have lab equipment in controlled experiments it was impossible to verify other than subjectively.

Dave M.

 

My guess is that it's about 50% of the energy in the gasoline that is going out of the tailpipe in the form of hot steam. While it may not have been economically feasible to utilize it in the past, that may change for several reasons:

1. The cost of energy continues to rise.
2. Materials technology continues to improve.
3. Environmental protection corncerns/requirements.
4. Manufacturing costs continue to drop.

I would imagine that gas-powered electric hybrids (like the Prius) is where it would be the most likely to happen. I'm no expert on exactly how to do it, but I imagine if a heat transfer device was able to turn the exhaust steam into liquid water, you would have a significant amount of, albeit "low-quality" energy. It could most certainly be used in two ways:

1. To bring the engine to working temperature quicker (we all should know how much gas that costs).
2. To run a turbine which would drive a generator (this is where the gas-electric hybrid has an advantage, in that it could readily use the electricity).

Of course, the turbine would use part of the energy to pump the liquid through the heat transfer device, but still.

 

Look to WW2 for an example of this steam water injection in the P-38 twin tail fighter. The pilot would start injection when he needed more power for a tally ho. (attack) It gave him a super kick in the pants until he ran out of course.