A technology question? How did steam engines work ?

[kentuck]

If steam could push a locomotive, why couldn't it work with a car? Just curious...:)

[shraby]

1. You have to have fuel to heat the water to

create the steam which is under pressure and drives the engine. The old trains had stops for adding water and always carried enough coal or wood to keep the fire going to heat the water.

[Igel]

2. Links

http://www.bayberryclassics.com/Pages/vintage/06Stanley.htm

And, graphic intensive:
http://www.stanleysteamers.com/

[Alcibiades]

3. You should make that present tense

Steam engines still do work. They also did push cars--the Stanley Steamer is the best known steam-powered car.

There were problems with the steam-powered car--mainly, it took a while for the boiler to get hot enough to power the vehicle. That's why the internal combustion engine won out.

see:

http://www.bayberryclassics.com/Pages/vintage/06Stanley.htm

[Fovea]

7. And here is the future of steam.

Check out the story behind this engine. it is quite compelling.

http://www.henryengine.com/index.html

[Alcibiades]

12. Awesome!

"Plant efficiency can approach 60% in such a plant where a gas turbine alone is around 35%."

I want one! Of course, you still have the problem that you have to burn something, but this is a heck of a lot better efficiency than I'm getting in my gas-powered car.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. It would work, theoretically, but it's too inefficient.

Which is also why the railroads don't use steam engines any more. You need fuel to boil water to create steam to drive the engine. The process wastes a lot of energy, and the machinery, as well as the fuel and the water you need, adds a lot of weight that has to be carried by the engine.

Anyhow, do you want to be shoveling coal into your car?

[kentuck]

9. If you put water in your radiator, rather than anti-freeze....

It would get so hot from the engine friction that it would get hot and turn to steam..We have all seen people with the hood up and steam going everywhere...Why could that steam not be directed to push the pistons that move the car?

[evlbstrd]

5. They burned wood at first.

Then coal. They had huge fireboxes that gave off sparks and smoke to boil huge amounts of water to make steam under high pressure, which drives a piston.

[shraby]

6. The sparks from the engine smoke stack

cause a lot of fires along the railroad tracks, too.

[dcfirefighter]

11. They still cause a lot of fires

from sparks thrown from the wheels. I suppose fewer than before, but still quite a few.

[Chico Man]

8. World's first steam engine..

Heronas’ steam engine



Heronas of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician, engineer and inventor of the first century BC. He initially worked as shoemaker but he eventually decided to explore his ideas. He is better known as an engineer for his hydraulic mechanisms, simple machines and automations, but he was also an important mathematician of his time. He served as a director of the famous Technical School of Alexandria (maybe the world’s first polytechnic university).
He presented and operated the world’s first steam engine, consisted of a closed, spherical container, filled with water. When the water was heated and began to boil, the stream was relieved by two nozzles, configured in a polar alignment. The container was fixed in such a way that was allowed to rotate. The steam release caused a rotating motion of the container that could be used as a steam motor for various applications. The principle of this simple configuration is the same used today for jet propulsion.

[Alcibiades]

10. Here's a fun link

http://www.toysteam.net/

A site dedicated to selling toy steam engines. I had one when I was a kid--the Jensen model 60. Loved that thing, though I used to get into all kinds of pyromaniacal mischief with the little fuel logs they use.

Follow the "how steam works" link for a description of, well, how steam works.

[Ready4Change]

13. Largely an issue of power density.

There were steam powered cars. They were tempermental, but so were other methods used to power cars and small vehicles back then.

However, what killed them was their power density vs that for petroleum fueled internal combustion. With a car, that basically equates to range. Steam cars can't go as far as a gas powered internal combustion powered car on a single load of fuel.

Other things, like ease of operation, turned out to be in petroleums favor as well.

Steam still has a place, however, and may make a comeback. One advantage is it doesn't much care what you use to boil the water. Gas, wood, coal, the sun, geothermal. If it can boil water it can drive a steam piston. Or, more often today, drive a steam turbine.

In fact, in a way, you could say many nuclear power plants are also steam power plants, as some use the heat of the reaction to create steam and drive turbines.

When oil runs dry, we may very well become a steam powered society (again.)

[The_Casual_Observer]

14. I suppose you could boil the water with gasoline

However, it is kind of intuitive that it is probably better to just burn the gasoline directly the expanding cylinder attached to a crank rather than using the steam in there.

[leveymg]

15. The maker of Learjets tried to revive the idea in the 1960s

Claimed a number of advantages, including the fact that the fuel didn't have to be petroleum-derived. But, that's also true of internal combustion engines as well, which can run happily and rather more cleanly on ethanol (alcohol).

The Lear steamcar project, not surprisingly in a period of 30 cents/gallon leaded gasoline, went nowhere.

Lear's concept used a steam turbine unit that fit under the hood of a conventional passenger car. It was capable of performing at least as well as the piston engine Chevy V-8 it replaced. In the 1980s, some Brits took a surplus Lear powerplant and plunked it into a fiberglass kitcar and went 145 mph at Bonneville. http://www.steamcar.co.uk/Challenge/Barber-Nichols.htm

[Maple]

16. I knew it !

The return of the steam age.

Ohhhh America. :-(