1,000 ft/lbs of torque in a Production car from 1925

[custom442]

Well, you heat it with fire in a boiler. Use gasoline, kerosene, etc. I am not saying the boiler technology needs to be changed much from what Doble and SAAB did as they pretty much had an efficient system worked out for regulating temperature, etc.

Hmm. It just seems this is the weak link, I can't see how generating steam through combustion would be more efficient than internal combustion, except that the rate of combustion can be fixed. But then the steam element could just be cut out and we have the hybrid...

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

Well, the rate of combustion IS fixed in this design. It is an enclosed system with no external fire. Think of it in terms of a pyrolization , AKA wood gas, engine. the reaction rate is controlled by controlling the amount of air the fire gets. The same can be said of the Doble boiler. In essence, it uses a carburetor to inject raw fuel into the combustion chamber which is where the water coils are located. When it gets too hot, the fuel is shut off and the remnants are burned completely due to the high temperatures. Thus, the thermal barrier coating as it burns so hot that it melted through aircraft jet engine grade stainless.

 

[custom442]

Well, the rate of combustion IS fixed in this design. It is an enclosed system with no external fire. Think of it in terms of a pyrolization , AKA wood gas, engine. the reaction rate is controlled by controlling the amount of air the fire gets.

Hmm...one of the byproducts could be alcohol. Which in turn can be used as a fuel source...

 

[custom442]

Hmm...one of the byproducts could be alcohol. Which in turn can be used as a fuel source...

^ if it's distilled out of the system, otherwise it's just burnt off.

So you're saying using a carbon based fuel and controlling minimal amounts of air (or in the absence of air) you can generate power out of it to heat steam?

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

Anyhow, here is a link to the Automotive X Prize, which is $10,000,000 to the first team to come up with a viable 100mpg car.
http://www.xprize.org/auto/press-re...rize-announces-first-round-of-registered-team

As for wood gas, it was only an example of one type of non traditional system. It would be too bulky to work with a steam driven car, but...hmm... lemme think about that...

Just think of this without the conventional box you put all ideas in normally, and let your mind roam free. Sometimes, that is when your mind has the most fun!

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

Hmm...one of the byproducts could be alcohol. Which in turn can be used as a fuel source...

^ if it's distilled out of the system, otherwise it's just burnt off.

So you're saying using a carbon based fuel and controlling minimal amounts of air (or in the absence of air) you can generate power out of it to heat steam?

Well, I am saying that ANYTHING that generates heat can make steam. My point is that the reaction rate (fire) can be controlled. We are not talking about a campfire here. The burning of the fuel heats the chamber that has the coils in it. This is the boiler. Since it is enclosed, you can control the rate of burn and where the heat goes from the fire by both designing the chamber right, and by controlling the amount of fuel and air present for reaction. The actual reaction itself is started by a spark plug.

 

[custom442]

Well, I am saying that ANYTHING that generates heat can make steam. My point is that the reaction rate (fire) can be controlled. We are not talking about a campfire here. The burning of the fuel heats the chamber that has the coils in it. This is the boiler. Since it is enclosed, you can control the rate of burn and where the heat goes from the fire by both designing the chamber right, and by controlling the amount of fuel and air present for reaction. The actual reaction itself is started by a spark plug.

Yes, I understand. That's absolutely genius if it were made to work on a small scale. But there's still variables that don't match up. First, you'll still need a large fuel source. Gasoline burns too fast, it's not practical. Then you'd have to find a way to distill out the byproduct and either use it to power another aspect or to help with the burning of the fuel. It would be very efficient, problem is the efficiency would increase on a larger scale. Not sure what fuel source you'd use on a small type engine to pack carbons like that. It'd need to be more dense than coal. Then you have the problem of hydrocarbon emissions.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

The thing is, there are already working examples of this sort of vehicle from 80 or so years ago that worked quite well. The thing to remember is the divorced nature of it all. The heat from the fire is not always needed to power the engine, it is only needed when the water needs to be heated again. The working examples that do exist are very fuel efficient and reliable with one of the cars going almost 400k miles without much trouble. My change to the original Doble design is in how the power is actually transmitted. The original cars did not have a transmission, but instead has the engine connected directly to the rear axle. Reverse was achieved by changing the direction of steam flow through the compound engine. What I propose is a power flow like this:

Fuel heats boiler chamber -> steam flows from boiler into engine at 700psi -> engine converts steam into kinetic energy -> Kinetic energy drives a generator -> generator charges batteries -> current from batteries runs to a speed controller -> which powers an electric motor and turns the wheels or a transmission that then turns the wheels via the rear axle.

Remember that a well insulated boiler chamber will stay hot for a reasonable amount of time. So, even though it is heating the water, the fire need not be lit until the boiler chamber temp drops below a thermostatically controlled point. In this way, it uses the water to convert much of the heat energy into kinetic energy.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

Some links to read about the boiler technology:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/jay_leno_garage/1302916.html?page=1

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=669

Jay Leno and the Doble Model E Boiler Coil

Quote from Leno about the emissions of his Doble:

I took the Doble to the smog station to have its exhaust certified and its emissions are 13 parts per million, which means my 1925 Doble with its 80-year-old technology passes all current smog laws. Nothing like 2 million BTU to burn up all the fuel. There's nothing left over, literally. It's just pffft. Gone.

 

[custom442]

Fuel heats boiler chamber -> steam flows from boiler into engine at 700psi -> engine converts steam into kinetic energy -> Kinetic energy drives a generator -> generator charges batteries -> current from batteries runs to a speed controller -> which powers an electric motor and turns the wheels or a transmission that then turns the wheels via the rear axle.

Remember that a well insulated boiler chamber will stay hot for a reasonable amount of time. So, even though it is heating the water, the fire need not be lit until the boiler chamber temp drops below a thermostatically controlled point. In this way, it uses the water to convert much of the heat energy into kinetic energy.

Yes, I work with bomb calorimeters and pressurized evaporators all the time. I still believe the boiler chamber is the weak link. You need something more dense than coal and the chamber needs to be pressurized. Like an industrial pressure cooker. In theory, you could even burn a mineral or mixture (somewhere between coal and diamond) at high enough pressure using a simple but effective vacuum pump. This would allow you to burn more dense fuel, keeping the boiler compact enough for today's cars. For example, if you use the right compound/fuel and pressurize it, you could burn a half a shoebox of it for potentially months at a time. Maybe 6 months, maybe a year. Nonstop.

Thing is, this still isn't practical. Hydrocarbons like gasoline combust easily. Free energy of a boiler with dense fuel is very high, it's not spontaneous...unless it can be pressurized. What this means is the energy cost to start up the process is much higher than to start an IC engine. But the long term benefits are greater in the steam example. Like a TV - if you turn it off an on every minute you waste more energy than if you kept it on all the time. So two things need to be considered - one is to either keep the boiler going while the car is sitting and store the energy in batteries, or two make a very efficient way to start the heating process.

But this is where the idea of wood gas comes in, you create methanol in a distillation process and can recycle it back into the engine using a spark plug like you said. This would cover the start up but then the vacuum would need to be powered by something also. Strong vacuum pumps take a lot of energy...

I say you can't use coal because it's not powerful enough, we'd be shoveling coal into our engines every few days/weeks (or less) depending on the boiler's size.

You'd also need a battery system or capacitor to store enough energy to power the electric motor for as long as it takes to heat the steam to operating temperature on start up. This way people have their instant gratification like a fuel injected IC engine.