Flash from the Past... Wondering...!

simple economics and power density killed the Stirling Engine.

Outlaw IC engines and it will shine.

will this ever be done? Perhaps

Except for those few who worked on those engines all the engineers at both companies and their entire management were firmly in the internal combustion camp and locked into Big Oil. Using a steam engine to run an onboard generator to recharge the batteries of an inexpensive short-range electric car would now be very practical. Jeep wants to do it with a diesel engine, which is more polluting. They are still fixated on IC engines and the use of oil-based fuels.

e-mail - beesidemeusa@yahoo.co.uk - & ask about the steam-electric hybrid idea

steam lost out due to the slow startup. Flash boilers have partially solved this, but flash boilers have freezing, high pressure and corrosion problems.

the use of oil is totally economic. once oil gets costly enough it will go away. This will take 300 years as tar sands and oil shales can provide enough oil at $150/barrel for that period.

I laugh at the myth of big oil. A better cheaper way would kill oil soon enough.

The trouble is, we have a huge installed base of oil/gas distribution and use.

So all we have is slow change as prices go up.

The drive to ethanol from food must be stopped. banning importation of ethanol from food grain is needed. It can only come from waste cellulose.

30 seconds is not slow startup. Design and modern materials solve most of the freezing problems. Stainless steels also solve corrosion and pressure problems. Besides, a steam-electric hybrid solves the startup and freezing problems too. Also solves the problems of an all electric car too.

e-mail - beesidemeusa@yahoo.co.uk - ask about steam-electric hybrids

there will always be people who never maintain their cars, be they gas or steam, so this will show uop as lower reliability. I am sure you have known people who never change their oil, I call them dummies. Steam will have more risks and more costs. True steam electric starts fast, but does not solve the freeze problem once the batteries go flat. Steam lost due to all these factors, even with it's strengths. A lot of early steam cars exploded and killed a number of people. That was part of theloss of share.

Not enough nickel to make all cars with stainless steel coils. SS is a less good thermal metarial = larger gradients andd less efficiency.

In a market if a better faster cheaper steam car had emerged it would have swept the IC away. They spent billions on steam and failed to beat IC.

Since the car will be plugged in to the grid or the steam engine will automatically start to recharge the batteries which power the heat strips that keep the system from freezing, the problem is solved. The onboard computer would allow freezing only to preserve enough power to thaw and restart and modern materials and designs prevent any damage from freezing.

In all I have read about White, Locomobile, Stanley, Doble and other production steam autos there was no mention of boilers exploding. The only ones who said they did were internal combustion engine makers and it was a lie. Stanley had a $50,000 reward for anyone who could show that one of their fire-tube [the most likely type to explode] had actually exploded. They went out of business and no one ever collected because they never had a boiler explode. Doble used a water tube boiler [a spiral of tubes inside a firebox] and none of them exploded. All the pressure from a burst tube would go out the exhaust anyway. Do the research and get your facts before you say things that are just IC makers lies.

If not SS then something equally resistant or simply make the coils easy to replace. Distilled water should not cause corrosion.

Steam cars failed due to startup times and difficulty, because the companies made expensive cars and the Depression hit [a bunch of expensive IC car makers went out of business too] plus the poor management and business practices of the Stanley brothers and Abner Doble and his business partners. The electric starter made IC engines quick to go and even Doble's electric ignition still needed 30+ seconds before the car could move. The Doble weighed about 5000 lbs and could cruise at 85 mph at about 15 mpg, which was better than the IC cars of the same weight.

Today they are viewed as old tech by too many who believe the anti-steam propaganda. Too much is invested in IC engines in technology, study and money for a steam-electric hybrid to be any more acceptable than an EV or fuel cell car which costs more than 3 X as much. It will work, but it would take some time and effort. By the way, I do not favor steam cars or EVs, but a hybrid of the two which solves the problems of both and uses the advantages of both.

There are two documents that - beesidemeusa@yahoo.co.uk - has put together from research on the steam-electric hybrid idea on e-mail

You said distilled water should not cause corrosion. PURE Water itself is the solvent with metals. Even stainless will eventually corrode using distilled water. Anti freeze has two uses. the first is to prevent boil over or freezing. The second is the additives to prevent corrosion. Of course if you want the water to turn into steam then the use of antifreeze is out.

You mentioned that the car should be plugged in to prevent freezing and to preheat to steam. This is an expensive proposition. How much water are you going to be heating. Add up that cost. That may solve the freezing problem but now you have a cost problem to deal with. You say modern material will solve this problem, OK, what are those materials that have the ability to hold water that might occasionally freeze and can handle the heat requirements to quickly turn water into steam? From a mechanical engineering point of view stainless is probably off the table with these requirements. Stainless will crack in these types of circumstances.

I am all for steam. I am not going to pay a lot more for it.

I am not a metallurgist and it has been many years since I was around a machine shop. How long is eventually? A 1932 Doble steam car has 600,000 miles on the original boiler. That sounds pretty good with just normal maintenance. Surely metallurgy has improved since then. As for the steam-electric, when parked at a place where it can be plugged in to recharge the batteries, they would run heat strips to prevent freezing inside insulated areas and if not plugged in the steam engine would start automatically if the heat strips drained the battery charge below a set point, it would then recharge the batteries, warm all the water and turn off again. AT NO TIME DID I SAY THAT BY PLUGGING IN IT WOULD PREHEAT TO STEAM!!! The Doble of 1932 only required heat to thaw and freezing did no damage, so they had those materials then.

I often wonder why so many people see the words steam engine and it is as if their mind switches off. They can no longer read what is said, Then they come in with everything from left field to "prove" it can't be done. The idea is only a different configuration of technology that has already been successful with the assumption that in the last 77 years there would be improvements in materials and equipment.

If stainless steel is not suitable, then how about a suggestion of a material that would make a better boiler, since you seem to know about metals. And don't say steam cars were not successful just because they went out of business during the Depression, so did many internal combustion auto makers for the same reasons. Expensive cars. Modern prototypes actually perform very well, with the same delayed start of 30-40 seconds to build up steam pressure. A steam-electric hybrid would not have to wait.

A steam electric hybrid would cost about the same as any IC hybrid, but have the advantages of low emissions without complex pollution controls and the ability to be configured to run on any liquid or gaseous fuel. You would not have to pay more for it. To get a car with the same range, size and convenience in an EV would cost a lot more [see Tesla Motors, Meyers Motors]. Fuel cell cars and hydrogen cars also would cost a lot more. Perhaps you are a die-hard IC engine supporter?

In the early days someone developed a V8 engine that got well over 50mpg and Standard Oil bought the person out and buried the engine design. They didn't want gas economical automobiles on the road, they want you to buy their gas.

Now that the automotive industries have gained enough financial power to develop and compete for targeting a market that is looking for gas economy the oil companies can't assert as much influence anymore.

Forget the concepts and bolt on goodies and concentrate on fundamentals of the cycle.

When a very high Tmax can be obtained the steam engine will be competitive on fuel economy.

As I understand it, but may be wrong, this is regettably still not achievable, maybe through lack of research and development.

Also, if we are to drive a generator, wouldn't a steam turbine be the way to go?

I don't know why stirling engines seem to have lost out. I always liked the idea of a hot air engine that would run on any fuel.

I wonder if this is even relevant....the age of the private motor car may be almost over. As they get increasingly expensive to build, run, and maintain, it may be time to look at alternative modes of transport. The cost to bring the North American infrastructure back to 1950 standards is more than the gnp, and sooner or later, we are going to rebel at the ridiculous price in cash, yearly deaths which exceed 9-11, and injuries which fill hospitals the world over worse than any outbreak of plague.

Most public transit ideas are also mired in a last century model....crowded subways, trains, trams, and busses are not an attractive option. Me....I prefer taxies. When we look back a hundred years, we see pictures of city streets in Toronto and Ottawa which are still dirt, and people would have been amazed at the idea of the motor car taking over from the horse and buggy. That all that dirt would get paved over to accomodate a 14 inch rubber tire. Yet it happened, and swiftly too! What will those same streets look like a hundred years from now? What vehicles will be moving along them, and why are we thinking those vehicles will look anything like the cars of today?

Where are the moving sidewalks....the monorails...the computer guided electric taxi cabs? The delivery of goods from the market by pneumatic tube or self powered guided shopping carts? The virtual conference rooms, the grassy roofs, the city as a park? The engineering is all done, all this is possible. All that remains is to either run out of oil naturally, or to wean ourselves off it with thought and foresight. This should not mean a reduction in freedom, or limitations on movement, but it WILL require that we get our heads out of the sand, and think "gee....my next car will be a hybrid", and the one after that will be electric." All the while, we will see if we can make busses more attractive to their passengers.

You know...technology that is good for people! And who knows, there might be a little engineering work available in the process.

We here in the States suffer from G. W. Bush's marriage to his Saudi friends. The price of crude has skyrocketed to $ 100 to $ 110 a bbl. I can't even guess the number of gallons of diesel, jet fuel and gasoline we've burned (used) in Iraq. It was in the billions a few years ago. Iraqi oil was supposed to pay for rebuilding Iraq. Now we hear that at least half the Iraqi oil has been siphoned off into the Black Market, and thousands of millionaires have been made from this venture. Where are our military commanders that allow this to happen? Who is getting "paid off" to allow this to happen? Entire arms shipments have "gone missing", surfacing in the Black Market. You'll notice that you don't hear any of the presidential candidates screaming about correcting the problem, sealing the leaks to the Black Market. Our own companies are immersed deeply into the corruption. Haliburton selling the U. S. military 10 to 15 meals a day for each soldier , Marine or airman in Iraq. Selling gasoline and diesel by the billions of gallons to the military at exorbidant prices. And here we sit, stunned at the economy crashing down around our heads and we wonder why? For 5 % of the cost of the Iraqi war, we could fix health care, education, new schools, new teachers, repair and replace our sad highway infrastructure. But the people who make these decisions are either "on the take", or they already have enough money stashed that they could care less if gasoline is $ 5 a gallon, if milk is $8 a gallon, if our bridges collapse, if we have 4,000 dead military in Iraq. What a sad state of affairs!

Well, I see you have followed the money.

Fact is, there is simply not enough oil any more. Not enough to sell on the black market, not enough to prop up our oil producing nations, and not enough to carry on the way we have been going. it doesn't really matter why any more. There will be a sea change in how we get around, and how we manufacture, and how we do business.

Why can I move miles in an airport on a moving sidewalk, but have to drive to the mall to get a new hat? Why are yards of snow being moved by dozers and plows when they can be melted on site at a fraction of the expenditure of fuel? Why is natural gas being mined and distributed when we could be making all our fuel gas from coal gassification plants? Or biofuel like cornstalks, sea weed and sawdust? Instead (get this!!!) we take food (yes, food!!) and turn it into fuel for our gas guzzling cars while half the world is starving. OMFG! I think the Stirling Engine, particularly operating to power stationary power sources, may YET be the saviour of our present way of life. Now lets get ready to retrofit factories to run on bio gas. And dust off the stirling engine. Its a good design, works fine.

The engineering is done to fix all this mess. Now it is time for the political will.

What part of "economic meltdown" does not have oil shortages as its prime mover? Seems like a no-brainer to me! Get off the oil! (pant pant...rant rant rant!)

Sorry....trying to stay positive and upbeat....I'll leave you with this thought.

Nobody has ever heard of "bus rage". the "social engineering" which will get people to live downtown instead of the suburbs, and to take public transport needs some serious work though.

Great post and a good job.

Yes, and the earth is really falt, man never went to the moon, the CIA killed Kennedy blah, blah, blah... Grow up.

Malarkey! We here in the states have the power of the people but don't know how or are educated to believe we can't use it!

The US consumer is the most powerful group in the world, just say no, no, no and stick to it for two weeks and the world would change. We are to busy looking out for #1 to realize we shoot self in foot...

The Doble got comparable mileage to IC autos. In the steam-electric hybrid configuration you would use about 80% less fuel than an IC car. Please define Tmax as I cannot find it in a Search. Steam is actually more efficient than IC. Steam turbines require superheated, high pressure, dry steam which is not suitable for a vehicle, also they are more expensive and delicate than other steam engines. Only the Tesla Turbine might be suitable for a car, Check the Green Steam Engine, Cyclone engines, Lynx Engines and the Lysholm expander design, all of which might be good to drive a generator.

an e-mail to - beesidemeusa@yahoo.co.uk - asking about steam power will get some good info. If you read it carefully, without preconceptions, you will at least understand the concept and not make statements through ignorance.

I have no opinion for this thread, as to why the Stirling Engine has not flourished... Only a link to the Stirling Engine Society for you to pursue if you so choose. www.sesusa.org

I am amazed that an engineering discussion site would repeat long disproven myths such as the Bush's secret marriage to the Saudis and the 50 mpg V8 that was spirited away by the oil companies. If we are going to solve the real transportation problems of today we are going to have to deal in facts rather than fantasies that suit our feelings about the world.

The problem is not that we don't know a lot of things, but that we know too many things that just are not true. It's hard to let them go but it is the only we to move forward and solve problems using the scientific method.

"I are an en-gin-eer 'cause I have a piece of paper that says I are one", statement of a self taught engineer and machinist about the classroom engineers who were unable to build things because they didn't know anything except what was in their books. A person can be an absolute genius in his field yet absolutely ignorant and gullible about things not in his narrow field of expertise. Which explains why so many otherwise intelligent people are so gullible about things outside of their field. They know a lot about their field and that makes them think they are qualified in politics, religion, art, history and many other things that they know nothing about.

I know a little about a great number of things and a little more about a few things, but I do not pretend to be an expert at anything, therefore I can talk about a lot of things sensibly.