Now that hybrid electric-gas cars seem to becoming feasible. I am wondering why the steam car hasn’t been revived. To my mind, a steam car has some advantages:
-it can burn fuel that is almost non-polluting (like alcohol or propane)
-it allows a very simple drivetrain-no transmission needed!
-it can be made very safe-no danger of volatile fuels exploding in a collision.
Yet, there hasn’t been a production steam car since the 1930’s-the last one I believe was the DOBLER (last made in 1933). It was actually pretty good-it had an automatic burner system, and could get up adequate steam pressure within 90 seconds of starting. The late Bill Lear tried to manufacture a steam car in the 1960’s-but gave up (his design was around 3 times the price of a gasoline engine). So what is wrong with steam engines? Are they too inefficient to be used to power automobiles? Or could a modern design steam engine now compete? I always like the idea of chugging along with steam pourin out the back-will we ever see steam cars again?
>> So what is wrong with steam engines? Are they too inefficient to be used to power automobiles?
If you can make a steam engine with a power to weight ratio comparable to internal combustion engines you’ve got something there. Then we can talk about the other problems.
Steam doesn’t bode well for change in velocity, stop and go, etc.
The History Channel just went into a good explanation of steam limits and the automobile.
But, steam RULES the power world in reactors and most power generating equipment.
Not having put too much thought into this yet, but wouldn’t a steam engine require an enormous onboard water tank? At 8.3 pounds per gallon, a 20 gallon tank would add the equivalent weight of an extra passenger. And how far would 20 gallons get you? I suspect you’d have to fill up every day. Now add the weight of your propane tanks, etc…
Then we have the issues of sediment & corrosion to deal with. You’d probably have to use distilled water, or be prepared to give your car’s plumbing system a vinegar constitutional every month.
“it can be made very safe-no danger of volatile fuels exploding in a collision.”
No, instead you’d have the danger of your boiler going kablooey in your face! :eek: I don’t know about the early steam cars, but boiler explosions on railway steam locomotives and on steam-driven ships were, to understate the matter, not unheard of.
Sultana disaster, anyone? http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvwags/sultana.htm
Boiler explosions generally:
http://www.asme.org/history/asmehist.html (paragraph beginning with “Since its inception,”)
There’s been lots of people who’ve tried to build steam cars in recent times. GM did some research on it in the 60s. They’ve even got the warm up times cut down to less than a minute and eliminated the danger of a boiler explosion and by using what’s known as a condensor, are able to recycle the water. So why hasn’t any of the car makers come out with a steam powered car for mass-production? Because steam is seen as “old-fashioned” technology and fuel cells are the latest flavor of the month in what’s going to be coming down the pike. Lots of folks are working on steam cars in their spare time, don’t know how many are doing it in hopes of getting rich and how many are doing it because they think it’d be pretty cool to own one.
Here’s some links:
http://members.tripod.com/~KnauffL/
http://www.steamautomobile.com/
http://www.greenhills.net/~apatter/steam.html
I’ve heard that the real problem is finding a way toefficiently cool the steam between cycles. One engineer had cooling coils going all over the car, which mmeant that in a collision, you were likely to be scalded.
Don’t know if it’s a problem with steam cars designs generally, but it does give you pause.
Re: DOBLER
That’s Doble:
http://www.greenhills.net/~apatter/doble.html
Possibly the apex of steam automotive technology before it (and electric) definitively lost out to internal combustion. You will note that Dobler solved a lot of the problems alluded to. He had the startup time down to a very short interval. He had perfected a condenser so that you didn’t have to keep filling up with water.
One of the crucial factors which killed steam was the introduction of the electric starter. People were not bothered by a car with a warmup interval when the IC car meant you had to crank it to start it and risk breaking your arm in the process. When the electric starter came along, IC was perceived as “just hop in, mash the starter with your foot, and go”, and even the shortest warmup interval for steamers looked bad. I’m sure the manufacturers of IC autos took full marketing advantage of the point.
I recall a movie-biography on Howard Hughes several years back where he chewed out his engineers for developing such a car, for the exact reason mentioned above. He made his point by throwing a hammer (or something) at the prototype and watching it gush steam. I don’t think it quite exploded, but it would have given a good scalding.
I don’t know how fact-based this episode was, but it made a good story.
That may have been true at one time (saw the film, had Tommy Lee Jones as HH), but Doble worked it out as did others. In fact, these guys make a radiator that’d be perfect for a condensor design.
–Tuckerfan, who as soon as he can scrape up the cash is going to build a steam powered car just for the hell of it. Right after he builds a steam powered motorcycle, again, just for the hell of it.
AFAIK steam is rather inefficient. ICE is a one step conversion (chemical energy -> mechanical energy) and steam is at least a two step conversion. Eavh additional step causes some losses in energy as conversion is not even near 100%.
Actually, steam powered cars can be made to operate more efficiently than ICE cars. Steamers don’t need transmissions, whereas ICE’s do, roughly 65% (or more) of the energy produced by an ICE is lost (radiated as heat, friction, etc.), a steamer can put more of its energy to the wheels than an ICE, plus it has fewer moving parts (as low as 20), so any losses that might be incurred in the two step conversion are more than compensated by this. Besides, if ICE were more efficient than steam, we wouldn’t have electric power plants with steam turbines.
-it can be made very safe-no danger of volatile fuels exploding in a collision.
Are we forgetting the fuel that heats the water?
Some people may be confused. The “chugga-chugga” external combustion engines in old trains and modern turbines are are both called “steam engines”, at least by the layperson, but are very different beasts.
I don’t think an reciprocating combustion engine is practical for an auto. Also am not sure what a steam turbine offers versus a gas turbine (why use the fuel to boil water, just use the expanding gas directly)
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Has anyoen ever built a recipricating steam engine powered plane? I know it wouldnt be practical, but niethre is the rubber band powered plane. Their is at least one model plane http://www.flysteam.co.uk/index.htm but i was thinking of something that could acrry a person.
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Brian
Reciprocating piston engines were used in Stanley, White, Doble, etc. They worked well enough to be competitive with the IC engines of their era. Warmup time, weight, and maintenance problems (perceived or real) helped to do them in, as well as cheap, plentiful gasoline and a good gasoline distribution system. I won’t deny that other designs might be a better choice if you were to try to develop a modern steamer, but I wouldn’t call the reciprocating piston design impractical. More like the industry decided to back IC, and quit trying to refine external combustion designs.
Since condensers have been part of the design of external combustion engines since Doble, and we’re effectively talking about having a closed system which doesn’t vent water, is there something better than water that could be used for the transfer mechanism?
>> Actually, steam powered cars can be made to operate more efficiently than ICE cars
I’d like to see some support for that if I may. I’d like to see a steam engine in the 100 - 300 HP range which is more efficient than an internal combustion engine. Supposing it exists we can then deal with using it in a car.
So the questions this leads me to is how small of a fission reactor can we build?
Small enough to steam turbine power a present day locomotive?If so why not use steam turbines rather than diesel to drive the generators on them?
How far away are we from building something the size of a typical car engine that would do domething like this (condensers, heat exhangers, reactor, turbine, etc)
We could certainly apply the same technology we use in our submarine fleet to rail cars by building the reactor(2) horizontally rather than vertically. But currently there is no way you are going to get a commercial vehicle of any kind in the US past the greens.
The Russians have nuke commercial shipping, the US none. Think of the petrolium savings in shipping alone. I tried to get statistics from the NTSB, the Coast Guard and industry representatives on relative damage to wildlife per tonnage shipped by vessels using conventional turbines and ones in the fmr Sov Union using nuke power in cases of catastrophic engine failure. The reason I was specific in that example is that from what i could gather engine failure in reactor vessels is almost unheard of, but in other vessels it accounts for a large number of annual groundings.
Putting one in something as small as a car, however, seems currently impossible to do safely. Shielding alone as well as sufficient cooling capability would be prohibitive in terms of mass and volume. But i think mass transic commuter trains could greatly benefit from reactors. Mag-Lev certainly could use it, and mayin Europe.
sailor don’t have time to search for a cite, but couldn’t let this sit without a response (will find a site after 12 AM CST). A steam powered car doesn’t have to have 100 HP engine to be comparable to a 100 HP ICE car. Remember, a steamer gets more power to the wheels than an ICE car, so in reality a 100 HP car is only 35 HP (not entirely correct, but I’m in a hurry and grabbing shit out of my ass as I go along), therefore, a steamer with a 100 HP engine would put 60 HP on the road (again not entirely correct, but I’m in a hurry and grabbing shit out of my ass as I go along).
Freon maybe?