Quote:
Originally Posted by jeff88
That is an awesome idea! I was thinking about the theory of a 6 stroke engine like that last week, but I didn't think about steam! I wonder if there is a way to capture the steam, let it cool down to a liquid again (maybe at that point you would still need a radiator, or at least an intercooler) and then inject it again. You might have to put something like anti-freeze in for it to not rust anything and to keep the water from condensating out just like a 'normal' cooling system. Would the engine be hot enough to make the anti-freeze turn into steam with the water though? Also, I wonder if this would work with a turbo, where the steam would turn the turbo turbine rather than exhaust gases (or maybe both?).
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Not sure the answers to all those questions, but they are good questions. The thing has been discussed on here before, but I'm not sure where. Some were claiming "unicorn" and citing no further word since the article in Popular Mechanix describing it as evidence it didn't really work.
As I recall, he anticipated needing a variable volume water injector to match the amount of heat the engine was producing at the moment, since that isn't a static number. He tested it on an old one cylinder diesel engine he had, because one cylinder is a lot simpler to test something like that on, and because diesels tend to be stouter due to their high compression, etc. I think he used the regular injector for the diesel to squirt the water in & drilled & tapped a new hole for a spark plug to fire the gas, then just put a carburetor in the intake path.
He fiddled around with it until he got it running really good, sent off for a patent, and, if I remember right, once the patent was in place, was going to try to find someone to sell the manufaturing rights to.
Seems like they did mention whether they should try to condense & recirculate the water (which would require a much more involved "exhaust system" though, right?), or rely on people being smart enough and reliable enough to know to fill the water tank as well as the gas tank. And of course, the "anti-freeze question" for those of us who get sub-freezing winters was brought up, too.
The discussion on here about why they aren't on the road yet (this article was several years ago, now) ranged from some evil oil company buying the "rights" & then "burying" it to having lubrication problems with the steam (steam engines have different - and in many ways, more severe - lubrication challenges), to having metal fatigue problems from the wider range of temperature fluctuations with it getting heated by burning gas & then cooled by vaporizing water dozens of times a second.
But who knows? In this age of "space age" materials and engineering, I can't imagine those problems being insurmountable. Personally, I thought it was one of the most brilliant ideas I'd ever seen!!
