Flash Steam Engine and Steam Coil

[K.B.C]

COIL -CASING  and BURNERS.


Now that the coil was made I had to figure out what type of material to make the casing from, on the weekly shop at TESCO i spied a 30 litre St/St pedal bin that had a large dent in it which was listed as £36  so after negotiating with the floor manager I paid £10 for it.
This material turned out to be .015" thk, which suited the purpose fine.

No 1
Is  the casing and the coil , the casing is all Pop Riveted and made square as it was easier to mount in the boat,

No 2

Shows the coil inside the square casing with a round inside liner, a previous inside liner was made square but the intense heat stretched the metal but when it cooled down it staid in the stretched condition and eventually closed down on the coil restricting the gas flow around the coil, so the new one is square.
The white material is Ceramic wool to keep in the heat and prevent the timber boat going on fire.

No3.

This new plant had 3- burners so I made the flame tubes from the same  .015" St/St, the jets are supported in the steel spider shown on the tubes.

No 4.

The spider is cut from the one piece of mild steel, the screwed fitting in the center takes the fuel line from the vaporizer which is 3 ft long 3/16" dia  316 St/St tube bent like a paper clip down inside the coil in direct line of the burners. .
The spider is bored down each arm meeting at the middle and the ends are plugged, the ends have  screw fittings ( 1 BA ) to take the steel jets that are made from St/St and each have a .025" hole in them.
.

No 5.

Flame tubes spot welded to the front plate which has brackets to hold the spider and the front plate is screwed to the casing.

No 6 .

Trial fitting of the coil and casing in the boat and the engine in position with steam pipe not yet fitted.

No 7.

Completed casing and burners.


Just the pics of the complete steam plant fitted in the boat to come.

George.
 

[ths]

George, I'm loving this thread. I have lots of old ME's from the forties and fifties, ETW was always reporting on the 'international' events post war, featuring the best of England against the incredibly popular Gems Suzor from France. Keep it coming. Ending with a vid in action.

Cheers, Hugh.

[K.B.C]

George, I'm loving this thread. I have lots of old ME's from the forties and fifties, ETW was always reporting on the 'international' events post war, featuring the best of England against the incredibly popular Gems Suzor from France. Keep it coming. Ending with a vid in action.

Cheers, Hugh.

Hi Hugh,


If you are interested in Flash steam there are 2- good books available.
Flash Steam  x ET Westbury and  Experimental Flash Stem  x Benson and Rayman, the Benson and Rayman is a more modern update from the Westbury era.

I am just about to conclude my Flash Steam thread but I am afraid that I don't have any videos of my boat in action. if you go on to you-tube try  ( British A/S Class hydro ) and this is a video of the 120 mph engine that I copied with help from R.Kirtley the builder who is shown on the video.

George.

High,
Here is the you tube link to a Flash Steam record breaker.  ( <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVN8iHfQl3s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVN8iHfQl3s</a> )

[K.B.C]

FINAL PART OF A FLASH STEAM ENGINE AND BOAT.

No 1.

Is the boat that the engine is installed in, it's 42" long and weighs in at 25 lbs with fuel on board.
The fuel which is 4/1 Paraffin to petrol, 1-part petrol to help it to start.

No 2
Show s the layout of the steam plant with the water tank on the Starboard side and fuel on the Port side.
water is filled into the tank to enable the boat to get started and when in the water there is a pickup just in front of the prop which can be seen in pic No1.that pumps water into the tank when the boat is in action.

No 3.

Closer view of the engine and pipe work with the fuel and water tanks, both made from .015" sheet brass, the fuel tank holds approx 1- pint of fuel and uses about 1/2 Pint on a 5 min run, note at this stage the cylinder head is still bright from machining.

No 4.
The cylinder head is burned after only 2- runs, it's now burned black after a season on the water.

No 5.

Hydrostatic lubricator that feeds Steam grade engine oil to the engine under pressure when the engine is running

No 6, -7-8.

Are pics of the boat at speed, it can do 40 mph with a submerged prop and I believe that it would go faster if I changed to a Surface drive prop.
However the boat is controlled by 2 - channels on R/C, stop and steering using 15k pull steel geared servos but it's becoming very dangerous as there are many swans on our pond and if I hit one of them I and the club would be in serious trouble as I think it would kill one if hit without any trouble. The boat has been laid up for the past year until I can think what to do with it.
It's very much uncontrollable and it could only take a radio glich to cause some serious damage.

The name OOYAH comes from the shout that one gives on touching a highly superheated steam pipe, as I have done to my cost many times but that's the attraction to steam.

I have no idea of the steam temperatures or the steam pressure but some of the Flash Steam boys down South of who's engine and coil I have copied talk about 1000 C and 2000 p.s.i.I don't think that I am up there but not far off.

To those who asked me to post details of the engine I do hope that it has been instructive, any questions and I will be only to glad to try and answer them.

George.

[steamer]

I bet that rudder quadrant has tough duty!.....I take it the servo's are forward?

Thanks for posting this....very interesting!


Dave

[K.B.C]

I bet that rudder quadrant has tough duty!.....I take it the servo's are forward?

Thanks for posting this....very interesting!


Dave

Yes Dave,
The rudder and post has a hard time of it, the post is 3/16" dia stainless and the rudder which is 16 swg  ( 1/16" thk ) is S/Soldered to the post with a sold brass arm inside the boat,
This is operated by the servo in the front of the boat via a heavy duty bicycle brake cable.

The other servo operates the blow, down or stop valve. which can be seen on my last post on pic No 3. between the brass water tank on the starboard side and adjacent to the pump, it's also operated with a H.D bicycle cable.
It comes off the cross piece on the water line from the pump and breaks the pressurized circuit and stops the boat.

The flash steam system works on a closed pressurized circuit and when I operate the blow down the boat stops in about 6 ft.

Pic No 1 shows the servos in the front compartment with the fire wall between them and the engine.

No 2.
Is of the rudder and the prop with the water pic up to the tank .

Please excuse the condition of the paintwork on the boat as it's had a few bashes and dings at the pond wall and after all the boat is just a test bed for the steam plant.

George.

[JohnC]

That's very impressive George!  Any idea of the RPM of your engine?

[K.B.C]

That's very impressive George!  Any idea of the RPM of your engine?

Hi John,
The engine does 15,000 rpm running free on the bench and probably about 25% less in the water under load and with prop slip, the pumps are geared down 6/1 from the main shaft.
As it's a submerged drive if I changed to a Surface drive the revs in the water would be greater therefore the boat would be faster but as I have already intimated it's too fast as it is.

George.

[lohring]

I have a lot of experience with high speed, radio controlled, model boats but no experience with flash steam.  This series of posts was very interesting and reflects the state of the art in flash steam.  For radio control you need more than just on and off, though.  I read the treads on microprocessor controlled flash steam on Model Boat Mayhem.  Has anyone considered a simpler, mostly mechanical system?

It would seem to me that a servo controlled variable link between the two pumps and their crank something like that in the picture below would work.  Modern radio systems allow variable mixing between the two channels that control the water and fuel pumps.  That, along with the design of the linkages, would allow a variable ratio between the two pumps as well as control over the total flows.  It all depends on how the engine responds to these changes.  I notice that most flash steam engines have a means of varying the pumps' delivery.  How does the engine respond to changes in the fuel and water flow?

Lohring Miller

[K.B.C]

I have a lot of experience with high speed, radio controlled, model boats but no experience with flash steam.  This series of posts was very interesting and reflects the state of the art in flash steam.  For radio control you need more than just on and off, though.  I read the treads on microprocessor controlled flash steam on Model Boat Mayhem.  Has anyone considered a simpler, mostly mechanical system?

It would seem to me that a servo controlled variable link between the two pumps and their crank something like that in the picture below would work.  Modern radio systems allow variable mixing between the two channels that control the water and fuel pumps.  That, along with the design of the linkages, would allow a variable ratio between the two pumps as well as control over the total flows.  It all depends on how the engine responds to these changes.  I notice that most flash steam engines have a means of varying the pumps' delivery.  How does the engine respond to changes in the fuel and water flow?

Lohring Miller

What you have to consider with this Flash steam plant is that it's designed on an engine in a Tethered Hydro for max speed, which at the moment is above 120 mph and that is R.Kirtley's Pisces 2.
Pisces 2 is designed to run out of fuel after about 6 laps with no other method of stopping it.

My aim was to get the boat running as fast as I was able to design it without tethering it to a pole with all the associated wading gear and helpers, so R/C was to be the method.
All that was required was steering and stop.
This plant works on a closed pressurised system so to stop all that is required is to break the pressurised system by installing a screw down valve just after the pump and the boat at 40 mph stops in about 6 ft by R/C., also the engine will not run on anything less than 150 p.s.i. and very lumpy at that.

There is about 6 years of development in my plant, this being the second and larger engine installed, in all my researches over the years I have never come across anybody who controlled a flash steam high pressure set up and this goes back to the 1930's from researching Model Engineer mags in the Mitchell library in Glasgow which has one ,if not the , best reference library in Europe.
Now I am not saying that it can't be done but it will need somebody to give it a try and there isn't much room for fitting some sort of controllable pump system in the boat, to me it would be defeating the purpose of a racing flash steam plant to have a controllable system fitted.

Your reference to the flash steam plant in Model Boat Mayhem was built by flashtwo and it was not flash steam, the designer Ian conceded to me in posting that this was so, but it did produce super heated steam in a D10 slide valve engine.
If the heat that is produced by my coil and burners had to be put into a D10 it would melt the valves and severely damage the engine, it may even melt the brass pistons and seize the engine.
Also Ian's engine was only producing well below 700 rpm at 20 psi where as mine is doing 15,000 on the bench and probably about 10,000 in the water with temps possibly 1000 c and unknown pressures.
Ian's main aim in his boat was to develop all the electronic gear that he could design to control his boat.

I would not like to try and control the speed of this flash steamer as it's quite a handful tearing around a pond with swans and ducks in attendance without having to think about controlling the speed at these dangerous speeds and that is why it's been laid up this past year until I decide what to do with it.

Back to your original statement that for R/C you need more that "on and off " that may be the case for the R/C boats that you use which I presume is I.C. but the most important function on a Flash Steamer is " steering &  stop "

George.

[lohring]

I didn't mean to be critical.  A very few people including yourself have done a lot to advance the state of the art in flash steam.  I couldn't find any serious attempts to throttle a flash steam plant either, so I thought about how it might be done.  It seems that in experimenting to get the water and fuel flow adjusted correctly someone might have noticed how off optimum settings varied the speed. 

It seems to me that the steam rate would be proportional to water inflow and that the heat needed to evaporate the water would be proportional to the fuel flow.  As long as the tubing didn't melt with too little water and too much fuel, it should be a safe experiment.  It's also possible to flood the tubing with too much water and too little fuel.  That would hydraulically lock the engine, a damaging occurrence.  I'm afraid the only to find out would be to build a flash steam power plant and try it.

The boats I race that are similar in size to yours use a 26 to 31 cc internal combustion engine and run in the mid 60 mph area around a 1/6 mile oval.  We race at full throttle but need to throttle the boat at the race start and while retrieving.  We set the radio controlled 26 cc gas straight a way speed record of 109+ mph in 2004 with an outrigger hydroplane similar to the tether hydroplanes.

Lohring Miller

[lohring]

After some searching I found this variable stroke mechanism.  It would vary the stroke of both pumps the same amount, but maybe that's all that's needed.  It should be easy to control with a servo but would still need the blow off valve for a firm stop.

Lohring Miller

[K.B.C]

Lohring,

You have to realise that these engines are not like your I.C. engines that can be bought off the shelf, installed in a boat with R/C and you have full control over the speed range.

If you read my post No 11 at pic No 3  you will see that the stroke of the pumps are adjustable via the drive disc on the cross shaft from the engine, these holes are pitched on the disc to give 1/4" stroke, 3/8" 7/16",and 1/2" stroke and after much experimenting 3/8" seams to be the optimum stroke.
Move it to the next hole up and it runs too wet, move it to the next one down and it runs out of water therefore steam.

There are quite a few parameters that would preclude me from considering going any further with the set up.
Firstly it's going fast enough.

Secondly there is no space to try and fit some sort of system in.

Thirdly the minute adjustments required to get a control system to work is too great

Fourthly the intense heat generated by the burners would melt any servo system that would have to be mounted outside of the compartment that the 2- existing ones are in as there is no space in the compartment.

Lastly as I will possibly not be running the boat very often I just don't think it's worth the effort, over the years of research and what is happening down South in England these steam plants are out and out racing and record breaking boats and they are very delicately balanced with no thought of speed control,  I don't think speed control would work.

However you seam extremely interested so why not build a steam plant with speed control but please do it soon , as at 75 years of age I may not have the time left to see your efforts.

George.

 

[lohring]

I'm only a little behind you at 70 and am still working on projects I started thinking about in high school.  Internal combustion two strokes have been by main focus, but flash steam is very interesting.  I have built IC engines and hop up parts so I understand the even greater effort to build a flash steam power plant.  I was hoping for a little input like that in your reply on the effects of varying water and fuel flows.  It's easy to dream up solutions, but there's no substitute for actually doing the experiment. 

I may actually take you up on your challenge.  You can never go fast enough.  LOL

Lohring Miller

[K.B.C]

Lohring,

I do wish that I could give further input to your question on speed control so to give you a little bit of background on my experiments.

About 2002 I saw an advert for a video on flash steam which I bought and was hooked on the subject, it was about R.Kirtley's experiences in attaining 120 mph round the pole with his Hydro.
I can safely say that even up till now I was the only one in Scotland experimenting in high speed flash steam so I had nobody to bounce ideas at with the subject being so specialized, R.K lives in the N/E England 200 mls from me but he was very helpful with me on my building and to eventually get going but there is a certain amount of time that one can phone for advice so it was a lonely road that I was on , mainly by trial and error with no thought on controlling the speed of the beast.
There were many break downs  and rebuilds but eventually I managed to get the thing running with a diary kept of the adjustments made and only one at a time.

The first engine was 3/4" bore x 3/4" stroke  with 22 ft of Stainless 316 tube and 2- burners, which was eventually wrecked and rebuilt.
The current engine is 1.125" bore x 3/4" stroke with 32 ft of 316 Stainless tube and 3- burners, the main problems arose with the intense heat generated and trying to get a poppet valve to with stand the heat that was generated.
I tried H.T steel with the same material as a seat but had to constantly adjust the .015" gap on the cam follower.
Silver steel oil hardened eventually annealed and again the tappet clearance failed.
The eventual solution was to make the poppet valve and seat from a Cummins diesel engine exhaust valve which cured the problem.
The cast iron piston ring is called a Dyked ring, which has an "L" shaped  cross section and when the steam hits the piston top it pushes the ring against the cylinder wall and is very effective.
As you can appreciate all of this was taken 1- step at a time and I had a very full diary of notes on all the changes that had been initiated.
Sometimes the engine would run great and then the next outing it would splutter round the lake  so it was an investigation as to what the problem was, with many a sleepless night trying to figure out what was wrong.

So I hope this short history will let you see that I didn't have any thoughts on speed control at the time but mainly trying to get the correct metals to with stand the heat and the pressures.

If there was 1- thing that I would change it would be to have a surface piercing prop set up rather than the current submerged one to allow the engine to rev more freely but I am afraid that this is only a dream and a small dream at that.
My main concerns are the danger that it causes and if it went A.W.O.L due to a radio glitch as it has done in the past with a piece of cord wrapping around the rudder and off setting it causing the boat to go crazy before stopping it .

Quote
It's easy to dream up solutions, but there's no substitute for actually doing the experiment.


You have no idea as to how true your statement is, I have had many ridiculous suggestions which I had to take with a pinch of salt and still try to remain civil at the suggestions.

Please don't think that I am being facetious or nasty in suggesting that you have a go at a Flash Steam plant, I am not and if you do I will be only to willing to pass on things that I have learned.

George.

P.S.
Lohring
Here is some interesting reading  (  http://www.onthewire.co.uk/bamf2.htm  )