are there any practical things we can do with hot radiator water ?

[Frank Lee]

the thermos flask for hot start up idea would work with a 20litre tank. from my biodiesel days, i know that a 20litre tank should keep its heat over-night if insulated. if its positioned in the passenger footwell the escaping heat would nicely warm the car. but would the weight be an issue?

I wouldn't think so. How much would your insulated tank weigh + 40 lbs coolant.

I'm not getting what you would do with the steam engine, and when you'd run it?

I dimly recall reading something about BMW experimenting with steam heat recovery.

[modmonster]

would this DIY steam engine alternator work?

the working fluid would be an organic solvent.

[Frank Lee]

I'm not sure what all I'm looking at there.

[modmonster]

its a steam engine. the coolant from the engine comes in the and goes out from the bottom right. this heats the solvent which evaporates and powers the drill-pump to make electric. the solvent condenses in the radiator. and the solenoid valve, reservoir and level switch are there to stop vapors from by-passing the drill-pump. the solvent is returned back to the heat exchanger to form a closed loop.

a steam engine powered alternator, from components all readily on ebay.

[Frank Lee]

Judging by the looks of it, there wouldn't be enough power to spin an alt under load.

Got power specs?

[Bicycle Bob]

I thought I just posted on this recently. I think it works out that to store the waste heat from a couple of gallons of gasoline (including exhaust heat) you want a tank with several hundred pounds of water. However, for short to medium trips, bringing the heat home for the house makes sense. You could eliminate the radiator, and aim to have the tank just full enough that it would come to a boil as you got home. If you guess short, there's lots of water to boil off for cooling, and you can vent the exhaust heat. With no cooling intake, drag could be lower, offsetting the weight.

[modmonster]

only on the components. we only need about 200w to completely replace the alternator.

some drills are rated to 800w
the car radiator is already rated for the same job
the heat exchanger would need to be at least 200w
the pump might need to be bigger

[vtec-e]

You could heat the gearbox with the coolant. Ok, in hot climates and in big cars and trucks it might overheat the gearbox. But in a small car in a cold climate it could work wonders. Incorporate this into a block heater setup and you have a toasty gearbox before you turn the key!

ollie

[modmonster]

yer but how could you reallise that practically? you would need a water jacketed gearbox. do these exist?

[Daox]

BMWs turbosteamer was a fairly elaborate engine heat recovery system and only gained them 15% FE sadly. They recovered heat from the exhaust and the coolant. I don't know why it was so inefficient. It seemed like a very well thought through idea.

Considering 2/3rds to 1/2 of gasoline's energy is expelled through the coolant/exhaust this is an area for huge improvements. I'm not sure why more development isn't put into this area. Regenerative braking is great for city driving, and electric hybrids do allow engines to be downsized or atkinsonized, but if you recover half the heat energy from the coolant/exhaust you have the possibility of doubling fuel economy ALL THE TIME.

I like your idea modmonster. I do see some very big problems though. Steam components need to be able to handle lots of heat and lots of pressure. Once we start thinking about the lifespan of the system we really need some beefy components. This starts racking the cost up very fast unfortunately.