Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Mechanic
Animated Engines, CO2 motor
Here is an interesting and simple design. Like the air motor in the Air Hog planes.
Any reciprocting engine is going to give you significant losses due to the laws of inertia.
regards
Mech
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I think this CO2 motor link was posted earlier in this thread. On a positive note it is simple and would be easy to make, but it wouldn't be vary eff. The steam isn't allowed to fully expand, and the remaining pressure is wasted. After the exhaust port is covered the piston wastes energy and a useless compression stroke.
I wouldn't say that a reciprocating motor has significant losses due to the laws of inertia. The energy of accelerating/decelerating the pistons isn't lost it is simply transferred to other cylinders and into the flywheel for example decelerating piston 1 helps accelerate piston 2. The energy is all transferred mechanical through solid parts so the losses are almost nothing. The only losses would be form increased friction on bearing surfaces due to the forces of acceleration (basically only the con rod bearing) and from the vary small amount of flex and dampening in the solid parts.