electric vs gas theory

[Chalo]

Direct injection diesel two-stroke engines of stupendous size are the most thermodynamically efficient reciprocating engines around. They don't bear any relation to engines in personal vehicles, but they're somewhat related to two-stroke diesels that were used in buses and big rig trucks up until very recently.

This is the crankcase of one such two-stroke engine.

[LockH]

Hi. How `bout watt Zach points out... looks like despite a "tiny gas tank" electrics get waaay better energy efficiency?

[Ianhill]

You have give me something to look into why do diesels have 2 stroke on some applications as 4 stroke diesel uses compression ignition so how that works out on a 2 stroke is one to be looked into.
No doubt electric is king at efficency combustion engines have losses in heat vibration and friction all of which an electric motor has smaller factors of each and that's with out magnetism being a better method of placing force on an object than creating an explosion or using high preasure air or steam etc.

[Dauntless]

Meanwhile in the U.S. John Stevens got the first railroad charter in 1815, leading to him building track in the yard of his summer home so he could test locomotives and give people rides to promote the coming railroad. But the Baltimore & Ohio railroad beat him into action.

[Ianhill]

That John Stevens locomotive don't look like it will pull a stripper with a pocket full of cash the boiler is minature the water tank just a barrel lol and it's steam pick up is going to be filling the piston with water so I bet it didn't do to many journeys in his personal collection.


If we think of the fuels and their efficency it goes to explain why electric is so efficient it's the application of force electric is near linear while high preasure steam is next with a upto 63% efficency in turbines using the ranking model and then diesel is next with a long slow duration burn giving a fairly even push then gasoline with a short sharp hit but the main thing is keeping heat vibration and friction losses small as possible then you get close to 100 as practically possible.

[LockH]

Oh oh... By 1900 THE GOOD FAIRY OF THE CONTINUOUS CURRENT WANTED TO BANISH THE DEMON KING SULPHUR.

[Ianhill]

[quote="LockH"]Oh oh... By 1900 THE GOOD FAIRY OF THE CONTINUOUS CURRENT WANTED TO BANISH THE DEMON KING SULPHUR
That's another good story the original underground had coal trains lmao in tunnels running passenger trips face palm twice and a silly slap round the head lol.

[GreyVlad]

And Coal is King still...
"Coal continues to be the largest single fuel used for electricity generation worldwide..."
http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/electricity.cfm ( U.S. Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2016, May 11, 2016)

[burner1]

If you go to an antique hill climb the Stanley Steemers will out climb any 20-30 years after it was produced.

I was intrigued by watching one drained of all the water amd the residual steem was enough to drive it back into a comercial building and park it.

[spinningmagnets]

You have give me something to look into why do diesels have 2 stroke on some applications as 4 stroke diesel uses compression ignition so how that works out on a 2 stroke is one to be looked into

IanHill, I often find my self find myself staggered by the technical prowess of the information provided here at ES, but this is one area where I may be of help. I was a mechanic on a submarine. It used a small nuclear reactor to boil water, which was fed to a turbine. I, however...worked on the 2-stroke diesel. Why would a "blank check" cost-no-object device embrace such a cave-mannish configuration? It was the ultimate in reliability. When you wanted it to turn-on and run (because the reactor was down), it simply turned on and ran, no excuses.

If you look at ICE engine failure modes, the most frequent is lack-of-spark. Diesels don't have a sparking mechanism, but...why a 2-stroke?

The 4-stroke diesels require an exhaust valve. Exhaust valves and aluminum pistons are the components that will deform and fail when over-heated. Although we had access to plenty of water, our engine was air-cooled, so no cooling-pump failure would affect it. Intake valves have a frequent flow of fresh air across them, so they always run much cooler than the exhaust valves. We used exhaust ports and thin steel pistons (both high-temp steel). How do you run heavy steel pistons? Low-RPMs and 10-cylinders, using 20 opposed pistons that "meet in the middle"

Mechanical constant-RPM fuel injection, and air-pressure start, plus no head gasket to fail. It was very large, but it could be broken-down like Lego's and passed through a 33-inch hatch. The initial design was perfected by Junkers Moteren (JuMo 205) before WWII. A diesel-powered airplane. Aerodynamic due to its narrow cross-section, and reliable...plus a high power-per-motor-volume due to 2-stroke.

Edit: all of the 2-stroke diesels I have seen or read about used a crank-driven supercharger ("blower"), similar to the common Roots.

[Chalo]

Without a cam or mechanical valve train, a two stroke diesel can be started and run in reverse. This characteristic is used for giant ships to avoid having a transmission-- the screw is coupled directly to the crankshaft.

[LockH]

...in tunnels running passenger trips face palm twice and a silly slap round the head lol.

Hehe... In a sense we're all "passengers in tunnels" where a modern gas/diseasal-powered car at highway speeds and driving "straight up" would run out of breathable oxygen/atmosphere in just a few minutes. At ground/surface levels in crowded urban environments exhaust engine gases are MUCH more concentrated. Then there's that whole "noise pollution" thingee... One recent/local news report:
http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/20 ... cials.html

(In print titled:"Toronto: The city that won't let us sleep")

[Sigh]

[Ianhill]

I had a little read into how the 2 stroke diesel works and it's still compression ignition Ive got my head around how the cylinder runs through its cycle tha ks to google but I much more prefer the explanation presented by spinning magnets and toped off by chalo on here, it gives me good reasoning to the methods useds and the criteria of whats needed extremely well engineered to have very little weak spots robust as possible and with good reasoning too.
I love looking into the past its truly inspirational what has already been achieved and should never be forgotten even if times do move on.

[Ianhill]

...in tunnels running passenger trips face palm twice and a silly slap round the head lol.

Hehe... In a sense we're all "passengers in tunnels" where a modern gas/diseasal-powered car at highway speeds and driving "straight up" would run out of breathable oxygen/atmosphere in just a few minutes. At ground/surface levels in crowded urban environments exhaust engine gases are MUCH more concentrated. Then there's that whole "noise pollution" thingee... One recent/local news report:
http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/20 ... cials.html

(In print titled:"Toronto: The city that won't let us sleep")

[Sigh]

I'll second that the globe we live on is nothing more than a big greenhouse in circular form and we are all in it, the temps varie all over but there's a global average that is climbing, China with they smog problems are not helping there'd many country's still burning coal by the bucket full but one thing I did not realize was that US is still using 30% coal grid energy where uk is under 10% always somedays no coal is burnt if its a strong day for renewables.

I don't get noise pollution luckily but if I had an airport strip lined up with my house and a subway system or rail that passed all night I'm sure I'd be pissed enough to want to move, light is not a problem with me either the stars are 1uite visable and on a mountain top I can see very clear, Since our street light have changed from soduim to led the light is less wasted, if I looked to Cardiff years ago from my mountain top I'd see an orange glow over the area now I see nothing just dark sky.
I don't think I'd fit in too well in city life I'd be stressed to much hustle and bustle to fast paced for me and I'm barely over 30.

[LockH]

Great News! From 2015 Ontario Permanently Bans Coal-Fired Electricity Generation
https://news.ontario.ca/ene/en/2015/11/ ... ation.html

... unfortunately, Ontario commonly uses nuclear "clean" power half or more of the time:
https://cns-snc.ca/media/ontarioelectri ... icity.html


So "ebikes" in Ontario are actually often mostly nuclear-powered! Yay!

... `cept lots of folks may not think that's so "great":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_a ... _incidents

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima come to mind... but lots of "accidents" to choose from. And today the Ontario gov't plans to spend millions (of taxpayer money) to "refurbish" suspect technology while the costs to install and maintain solar has "dropped like a stone" in recent years.

[Sigh]

Seems like living in a "modern" world means massive consumption... and waste. Watt regularly "kicks us in the head". But US Guy Benny Franklin pointed out:

[Hillhater]

? Low-RPMs and 10-cylinders, using 20 opposed pistons that "meet in the middle"

Mechanical constant-RPM fuel injection, and air-pressure start, plus no head gasket to fail. It was very large, but it could be broken-down like Lego's and passed through a 33-inch hatch. The initial design was perfected by Junkers Moteren (JuMo 205) before WWII. A diesel-powered airplane. Aerodynamic due to its narrow cross-section, and reliable...plus a high power-per-motor-volume due to 2-stroke.
.

What Engine was that SM ? ... Fairbanks ?
I know the Navy used the Napier Deltic 18 cly (another mechanical marvel !). in Fast patrol and Minehunter boats for a long while ("60s-80s"),.. but i have not heard much of the 10 cyl aux engines.

[Ianhill]

? Low-RPMs and 10-cylinders, using 20 opposed pistons that "meet in the middle"

Mechanical constant-RPM fuel injection, and air-pressure start, plus no head gasket to fail. It was very large, but it could be broken-down like Lego's and passed through a 33-inch hatch. The initial design was perfected by Junkers Moteren (JuMo 205) before WWII. A diesel-powered airplane. Aerodynamic due to its narrow cross-section, and reliable...plus a high power-per-motor-volume due to 2-stroke.
.

What Engine was that SM ? ... Fairbanks ?
I know the Navy used the Napier Deltic 18 cly (another mechanical marvel !). in Fast patrol and Minehunter boats for a long while ("60s-80s"),.. but i have not heard much of the 10 cyl aux engines.

The deltic was used on diesel electric trains too in the uk stunning bit of kit wasn't it a nazi design ? I don't want to link any videos with copyright issues for the site so for anyone wanting to see the history of uk steam check out mark williams on the rails it's more engineering based than the others ive seen and being a cornish lad he was brought up around industry so tells a good story too nice lad.

[spinningmagnets]

Fairbanks Morse, almost identical to the larger WWII submarine main engine, but with a smaller 5-1/4 inch bore. I can't remember my own phone number or where I left my keys, but I remember that.

http://www.tugboatenthusiastsociety.org ... ern-fm.htm

"...Fairbanks-Morse also built a smaller 5-1/4 inch bore opposed piston engine with very similar design and features..."

[Ianhill]

The deltic that was used in the diesel electric trains was two engine blocks back to back for 36 cylinders in triangle formation with 3300hp and god only knows the torque figure some steam trains where 7800hp and rated for 5000 tons but modern electric trains and this is a electric forum after all can top at at a staggering 18000hp now that's why electric is king if you can feed it the power in a reliable continous fashion.

[GreyVlad]

So we can say that locomotives and ships that have electric transmissions were first hybrid electric vehicles.

As for railway histories, in USSR the Fairbanks-Morse Model 38D-8-1/8 was 'reverse-engineered' in the late 1940s to the Model 2D100 diesel and long lived as a prime mover of TE-3 freight locomotives
(more than 7000 copies, picture: http://12mm.ru/base/teplovoz/teplovoz-t ... /24big.jpg

And Deltic locomotives worked with express trains until about 1978?

[Hillhater]

I believe some Deltics are still in use in the UkRoyal Navy.

[Ianhill]

People who worked on the deltic said it was a extremely powerful bit of kit but it was problematic with 3 supplementary cranks connecting to a main crank with lots of connecting rods the frictional losses where quite high.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Deltic
This test unit produced 5600hp but threw a rod through the block doing it so the 3300hp version in service must of been detuned to stop a catastrophic failure.

It's strange how we decided to use a petrol electric hybrid in cars with a CVT after researching the CVT it is poor on efficency so I guess the best setup would be a direct drive no clutches or gears minimal frictional area in the motor with high efficency and simple design as possible, make it so it's like spinning magnets fairbanks morse so I could use it as a taxi for the rest of my life and only minor service and maintenence is needed.

[GreyVlad]

Four hub motors (4WD) ?

[Ianhill]

Four hub motors (4WD) ?

Think of the efficency losses of one motor × 4 so it would give an awsome ride but for a long range battery only ride then one motor with good efficency around 20-75mph and even wider range of speed if possible and sent through a diff to the front two wheel like a fwd, the mini slaughtered the opposition with this simple but effective setup obviously it need a gearbox for its ice engine but that can be binned these days.
I little electric gti is what would set the world alight basic but effective I don't need a tablet on the dash and millions of buttons, just power windows simple stereo and heaters few cup holders led exterior lighting etc to bring the cabin wh consumption down lower than apollo 13.

I looked into the making of the American transcontinental railway and wow what a story with links to north wales narrow gauge railways and built by Irish and chinnese imagrants, with a Scotish chemist making the nitroglycerin on site as it was illegal to transport due to its volatility, when the railtrack was finished through the rockys an estimated 10 tons of bones were exported back to China along with many more tales of fights and land being inflated in price and sold on in dirty fashion tracks that carried on past eachother for more goverment grants lots of interesting stuff went on.

And last but not least one of my favourite trains from my youth The 4-4-0 American Type, I seen it in back to the future 3 as a little en and it been just as iconic as mallard or rocket too me I love the look of the large chimney to catch the embers of the wood.

JamestownDouble.jpg

[Dauntless]

Well, darn, the western part of the transcontinental railroad they had to put the Catholic Irish and Protestant Irish in camps so far apart that the Protestants couldn't travel to the Catholic camp and kill them, as happened a few times before they finally had them far enough apart. I've only read, I don't know this for a fact, but supposedly the western side still had crew all over the place finishing, as they were supposed to build from one end to the other and as far as you got was all you would get. (The government loans/land packages were per mile of rail laid.) But given the problems with the Protestants and the Chinese, who also didn't play well with others, it worked out well for the Union Pacific to build sections out ahead of what they'd finished and there'd be no satellite images or planes flying over to dispute the progress they claimed.

What did railroads have in common with new car dealers? The main product was a loss leader. Like selling new cars, the railroads lost money on offering their services, but the government loans included buying "Government" land at perhaps $2 an acre and they could sell it for $15-20 once the railroad was there. Thus did they repay the government loans. To this day AMTRAK loses money and the government subsidizes it so the not as rich can afford to travel by train.

Meanwhile the remnants of the Ku Klux Klan set out to terrorize the railroad into selling the land real cheap, promising anyone who would sign a contract to give a 1/3rd of the savings to the Klan that they'd force a real low price, while burning out anyone who refused and paid the railroad price. Although many died in the resulting fighting, (Mussel Slough, etc.) the surviving Klan members got together after their time in prison and started California's first Socialist political party, counting such members as Jack London.