Breakthrough solar engine

[Timberwolf]

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1976-03-01/Solar-Engine.aspx

Really want Rick to comment on this one.

[ChainsawGrandpa]

Interesting. Should work just fine.
Some hurdles I can imagine would be:

*That's a BIG honkin' wheel!

*R-12 might work better since Delta T is farther apart and it may be easier to
achieve a more complete blow-down, or at least the ratio of gas-liquid transfer
might have a better power ratio than propane, butane, etc..

*Might be easy to have overshoot (heating to say...150F, and then have to cool
way down to condensing temperature with propane). A wide Delt T might
give less rpm, or be more forgiving of sloppy boiler temperature maintenance.
Water would be far too slow.

*Chains are effecient, but need regular servicing. Serpentine belts are almost
indestructable, but the belt running at speed (1,800 rpm can cost you about
8% of your shaft horse power.

*That's a LOTTA refrigerant!

*A very small Delta T might allow more power through higher RPM, but would
take a lot of supervision. Hexane maybe? Of course we might be back to
Rod's "bomb" scenario. How about anhydrous ammonia? Corrosive, but
pressures aren't too unreasonable, the price is semi-low, and you'll certainly
know if you have a leak in your system.

*The system would need to stay very clean.
Contaminates might greatly alter performance.

Wonder if the wheel spinning into a wood or waste oil boiler with a sand
heat sink (large volume of low temp. heat) would work well on a winter day?

Still, a 40' wheel might put out a constant 3Kwh...may 75 Kwh in a 24 hour day.
That's a lot more power than I'll ever need.

Comments?

-Rick

[RodneyG]

The date on the solar engine article is 1976. If it worked I would think by now it would be in production. I know someone at work who's husband is going to try and make the water to hydrogen thing that goes in your car. Thats not being made by any company either.

[mlr1968]

Attended Class March 25th/26th of 2006.
Hey RodneyG, if you are reffering to a hydrogen hybird, (guess that is the correct term) a company does produce one of these devices, not too sure about the validity of such a device but it is interesting to say the least. check out www.wildmpg.com . Hey if water can be made to burn and cut metal why not run a auto??

[StressMan79]

I don't know how closely members read the details, but to get the power output advertised, the wheel diameter needs to be 40'!

Needless to say, this would be an engineering difficulty, and the cost of the wheel (and maintenance) would be prohibitive. Say you get 2 HP on average, but it costs you 30 k to build the wheel, that is some expensive HP. Also, a 40 foot wheel will catch some serious air-load, so it would have to be good for say 100mph winds, so It wouldn't be built of wood. The aluminum alone would cost at least 10k.

Anyway, it will work in theory, but there are large technological hurdles that makes the limited HP produced not worth it. You'd be way ahead to buy a solar array.

-Peter

[ChainsawGrandpa]

I wonder what winds would do to the rotation.
The models I have seen are a little jerky in motion.
I can see how to greatly increase the torque, but
a smooth 24 rpm might be the minimum for semi-
clean power. One good use might be resistance
heaters. They really don't care if the power coming
into them is all that clean. The computer... well,
that's a different story.

Here's something that might work well. A heatsink
might keep this unit running 24 hours a day even in
the most severe winter conditions. Another advantage
is that uniflow engines a fairly effecient. Google search:
Mexican butane Belize.

-Rick