Uniflow Steam Engine

This is a; single acting, partial Uniflow steam engine. I built it out of a old air compressor, and mostly stuff that can be made with a metal saw and a drill press. A small lathe would make some of it easier. The intake valve is a poppet whistle type valve. The engine pictured is running on air at 18psi. It picks up speed untill it gets up to about 60psi when the speed of the engine causes the exhaust valve to "float" at which point it becomes true uniflow engine. It is nearly impossible to start it whithout the exhaust valve engaged. At this point I have no cutoff ajustment that can be made while it is running.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• steam
• engine
• uniflow
• air
• compressor

[accordeon]

The steam car we built uses a hydraulic cyl for the piston. We mounted it to the top if a air compressor with the same stroke. The AC served as the crank,flywheel ,and cross head.

[hypnofan35]

You know i think the steam engine was made artificially obsolete because it doesn't throw away the heat like an internal combustion engine. You can collect the heat after it's done pushing. That means the waste heat does not go flying out the exhaust manifold. If anyone want's to talk about it. or read about it, i'm pretty sure a moderized steam engine could be twice as efficient as internal combustion.

[accordeon]

@hypnofan35

Engines do not throw away heat, the heat left over is what is too difficult to extract energy out of. I did a lot of reading and personal study on this. The one idea that has not been exploited much, and can extract energy from the waste heat of gas/diesel engines is to use the exhaust heat to produce steam and run a "extra" piston on steam. This was used with good results on ships , but the added cost of having to employ a diesel engineer and a steam engineer was the problem.

[hypnofan35]

@accordeon I am pretty sure that if you had a closed system you could get an expansion of steam on one stroke at which time it would lose most of its heat while being converted into power. The remaining heat would be left in the condensed water. which would be staged for more power strokes, Hence most of the heat lost could be between the flame and the boiler. If it goes out the back in the form of vapor and N2 and Hot CO2. If we could use it, and we are not that means "throwing away".

[accordeon]

@hypnofan35

the exhaust on a simple boiler will not be much above the boiler water temp, most boiler use this heat to raise the temp of the incoming cold feed water, each 11 degrees of preheat of this water gives you a 1 percent increase in efficiency.

You can get more efficiency out of an engine by condensing the exhaust ,and in effect sucking the piston back on its exhaust stroke.

The steam engine exhaust is often used to pre heat the boiler feed water.

[pusstjulio]

great build i need one about 8hp for my boat

how much steam "cuft" does it consume

[porpoisefathom]

@accordeon its not rocket science- most people could leanr to run things on steam in a dya or so...once the principles are grasped its pretty simple--three main things about steam- steam volume, temp, and pressure. thats about it...

[hibraisil]

I have an old hydraulic cylinder....I think it has a 1.75 inch bore....any way to turn that into a steam cylinder?

[accordeon]

@fizzguts

The seal has not been much of a problem, Viton, and even Buna-N seem to deal with the heat ok.

[fizzguts]

Thanks for the information it is much appreciated. Any problems with the shaft seal on the circulating pump?