Wood chip burning vehicle?
 

I was wondering if anyone on here has built a wood chip burning vehicle?

The general field is called biomass gasification. It was quite popular in Europe during the WW II gas crisis - you could buy a new Mercedes set up to run on standard wood blocks which were government-inspected for moisture content, until a simple user test was discovered. At the time, the cleanest running rigs required that the engine be torn down for tar removal every 5,000 miles.
The most important factor is uniformity of fuel. Forget about burning available scrap. Blocks of wood 1" X 1" X 2" at 15% moisture content were standard for motor vehicles, and the jiggling helped maintain the proper packing in the gasifier. With tar going through a bed of charcoal at over 600C, good chemistry happens. These days, we also have cyclone tar traps. The biggest problem is that the gasifier only has an operating range that goes from about 15% to 60% of the normal power, so a lot of smoke has to be wasted when stopped. Also, the minimum size is too big for a car-size hybrid.

Thanks for all the good info. I have a 99' S10 chevy P/U that i was thinking about converting.

When Pop landed a P47 at Le Bourget just outside Paris in the summer of 1944, he saw acres of parked and booby trapped Kubelwagens (a type of VW) that used coal gas generators.

regards
Mech

One of the better woodgas projects I've seen - Convert your Honda Accord to run on trash

Theres also many pickups on youtube converted to run on wood scrap. Not a bad way to power a vehicle IMO. Good luck with your project and keep us updated. I'd be interested in how it works for ya

I wouldn't want to tear down my engine every 5000.

The 5000mile figure you read was referencing to gasifiers used in WW2. Today, newer gasifier designs and cyclone filtration have nearly eliminated tar. It's not a problem anymore.

Unless you were being sarcastic.....

...similarly, here in USA, lots of pre-war Fords (my Mom's '39 2 door) were converted to run on white-gas mixed with kerosene by starting the engine on a "spritz" of gasoline, then switching over to the "mix" which was plumbed so the fuel line wrapped loosely around the exhaust manifold. Poor milage and power, but it beat walking!

boiler, and a couple steam pistons? Would not be as picky as to the fuel source.

That converted Accord is just creepy.

I used to have a 3.5 HP rototiller engine that had been re-tuned to run Kerosene. It ran a water pump, it was amazing how long it took to burn a gallon of fuel through that engine, but it did smoke a little.

Dave

Dave -
There is a section in the shop manual for older Briggs and Stratton motors that details how to convert the gasoline engines to run on Kerosene, which can actually then be converted to spark-ignited diesel, thus making them capable to be run on HomeBrew BD!

Opel/Ford/Mercedes
 

Military history book catalogs will have illustrated books about the WW-II German vehicles available.The books I have on Opel/Ford/Mercedes have very clear photographs of the wood-gas units.They may have technical info on construction/operation/efficiency,don't know at present as I was interested in other aspects of the vehicles.
I suspect Japan had similar tech,as they were doing technology transfer with the Third Reich and were also running out of petroleum,ending up digging pine roots for fuel.

Thanks for the good info!!!:thumbup:

I ran my 97 dodge on wood-gas last year. I mounted the gassifier on the front and got a lot of crazy looks.
[IMG]http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-jm...1334-truck.jpg[/IMG]

A number of years ago Popular Mechanics ran about an 80's Malibu wagon with a gassifier unit mounted on a trailer. They went across country from New York to California using only free construction wood scraps. Ash in the gas required them to change their oil often, but other than that there were no problems.

By the way these units can be made to run on coal as well. The more successful units had a gas scrubber to remove the particulate matter and thus solve the ash problem. This can be in the form of an element filter or as simple as bubbling the gas through a water maze. The Russians continued to use this technology many years after WWII because it was cheap, it worked and they had little in the way of fuel production or distribution infrastructure. The manifold mechanism is similar to using propane, NG, etc.

It does require you to bring the gassifier up to operating temperature before taking off so those five minute jaunts for a gallon of milk might take more like twenty or so. For those homesteader types it makes a viable electrical alternator fuel source for living off grid.

Any way to make the gas and store it to be used later? We have lots of trash/debris/clippings/etc. that get burned and nothing ever comes of it except smoke. It's terrible, really. I would love to be able to make something of it and save it for future use, if at all possible. If not, I guess a gas-making-thingy might be a good idea to make/store electricity anyway, eh?

ill think about it when it gets this big

http://paulbuckley14059.files.wordpr...mr-fusion.jpeg

You can only store the gas in it's wooden form. A pound of wood takes up a lot less space than a pound of gas and is a safer way to store it.

Do you have some details on your gasifier?

I experimented with different configurations of soup can sized gasifiers last summer for camp cooking. They used pencil sized twigs, and I was amazed at how much more efficient they were than building a campfire for cooking.

Some good info here...I'm gonna have to check into this some more. It would be nice to have an alternative vehicle to make the commute to and from work.

Off Topic, but, I've often thought about a steam vehicle after seeing a video of a steam powered motorcycle.

There are a number of books out there if you look for them.
I've only seen one vehicle like this in person and that was about 15 years ago.
http://community.nbtsc.org/%7Eryland...g%20truck.jpeg

Ive thought about this quite a bit every now and then. Wouldn't be practical for going downstate but would be nice for running around here. I burn wood for the house anyway and can get all the free 2x4 scraps I want from work.

Amazing it can be registered in California.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-jm...1-gasifier.jpginside

what would you like to know about it. I was trying to use 2x4 scrap but it has a lot of tar. Hard wood is ideal.

You have to think of a gasifier as an enclosed system where the oxygen is limited and the heat restrained within the system which causes the wood/coal carbon to be released in a gaseous form. Though slightly inaccurate, think of it as not completely combusted, like and containing carbon monoxide. You add additional oxygen and an ignition source within the cylinder and the combustion cycle completes. Since the mixture is complex with water vapor, CO2, etc. I don't know if compressing the mixture is feasible. The gas produced though effective is not a purer fuel like say Propane.

DIY with all instructions
 

http://www.global-greenhouse-warming..._generator.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:99woodgas.jpg

Wiki: Wood gas generator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-jm...72-testing.jpg
flaring the gas off the top of the cyclone filter(having fun)