I think we all really didn't want to even think that you might be considering rocket engines as the whole history of those is that failures are nearly always dramatic. Take a look at Gottard, the father of modern rockets and his rather dismal track record.
Historically we started with the steam engine - external combustion; then someone arrived at the conclusion - that with the right fuel, internal combustion would be superior.
Spin offs from there were the rocket engine and the jet engine. Some dream of traveling deep space with a fusion rocket.
But the real market is for engines right here on earth. The Stirling engine still has a lot of room for improvement with new material science and new manufacturing techniques - plus micro-controllers. And I visited a pig farm in Thailand that is exploiting bio-methane to drive fans to cool the pigs and eventually create electricity for the farm. I left them a little micro-controller set up to explore automated control as they hadn't gotten that far yet.
So I suppose the real question is which is more fun? The dramatic or the productive. If you want a career, the latter is more challenging. Anybody can go for momentary 'WOW' factor, TV is full of that. But substantial innovation takes effort. Even Thomas Edison as a youth tried about 1000 materials for a light bulb filament before he got it right with tungsten. The second best filament is rather amusing and worked for an hour or so - carbonized bamboo.
Steam is still vastly exploited in electrical production. Nuclear reactors use it to convert heat into electrical power as it remains the best 'external combustion' solution. One of the more interesting innovations in recent years has been the addition of small amount of NH4 (ammonia) to squeeze more energy out of the steam. One fellow I know works for a German company that consults in Taiwan's electrical production and generally they are constantly looking for ways to get another 0.1% increase in efficiency. They have plenty of heat, but it is the loss in transfer that is important to limit.
Steam can in some forms be exceedingly dangers. Why so? It is claimed to be able to hold a near infinite amount of heat if held under pressure. High pressure steam turbines have pipes with a small inner diameter - say 1"; but the walls can be 9" thick just to contain the pressure. Looking for a leak can be very dangerous as even a small leak in such a system can cut a person in half. So, one method of searching is to use broomsticks waved in front of you. When the broomstick gets cut in half, you know you are near.
Are you really ready for the kind of dangers that modern industry has to offer? It all starts with 'Safety First', to be even allowed to get near these technologies.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
Post Edited (Loopy Byteloose) : 8/3/2010 7:42:28 AM GMT
Chuckz said...
I haven't played with model rockets for ages.· Every once in a while, we would get one that would just burn all the way through the engine without giving any thrust.· We've also had engines that the ejection timer didn't work as planned or even though we used wadding, it would burn the wadding and the nose or body of the rocket.
I heard the hobby is more regulated now which is why I am not interested as much.
Model Rocket Engines = Regulated
Thermite Engine = should be regulated but they can't regulate something that hasn't happened yet
Model rocketry isn't regulated overall any more than it used to be. However, you may find it more difficult to find a field to fly in unless you're flying with a club. Permission of the field owner can be a challenge. I fly dozens of model rockets every year without any difficulty - I'll probably fly a dozen this Saturday. Sometimes model rocket engines do fail, but the failure rate is pretty low, and motors properly cared for (that is, motors that are not exposed to cycles of heat and cold) are almost sure to work properly, with a few well-known exceptions.
High power rocketry is LESS regulated than it used to be, as in early 2009 we won a lawsuit against the BATF that eliminated the classification of Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant as an explosive (it isn't - it simply burns quickly).
Pi'd said...
Interesting, yet again you are making assumptions about what I have planned without me saying a word on how I intend to make it. As one person may have guessed it's related to steam, true. Closed cycle regulated steam pressure to hydraulic power. With my planned design it should have underwater, omni-position and short-term in-fire run time capabilities.
sylvie369 said...
Model rocketry isn't regulated overall any more than it used to be. However, you may find it more difficult to find a field to fly in unless you're flying with a club. Permission of the field owner can be a challenge. I fly dozens of model rockets every year without any difficulty - I'll probably fly a dozen this Saturday. Sometimes model rocket engines do
The problem I've had with clubs is that unless you are competing in an area of competition (scale model, altitude, etc), you can wait all day to have a demo flight and a lot of time they don't have room because they are late do to launch failures, lunch, etc.· They hold meets that are once a year for non members and a few times more for members which isn't that often.
It is increasingly difficult to find a place to fly.· Even though I had insurance back then, no one wants to give permission to let you fly on their field.
I called the local park association and even though people fly their rockets in park, the head won't give permission.· He said someone can get burned or the hook that holds the rocket engine in might poke an eye out.
Back then there were also high powered rocket engines and you would have to fly them somewhere you could get a clearance from the FAA.
The problem I've had with clubs is that unless you are competing in an area of competition (scale model, altitude, etc), you can wait all day to have a demo flight and a lot of time they don't have room because they are late do to launch failures, lunch, etc.· They hold meets that are once a year for non members and a few times more for members which isn't that often.
It is increasingly difficult to find a place to fly.· Even though I had insurance back then, no one wants to give permission to let you fly on their field.
I called the local park association and even though people fly their rockets in park, the head won't give permission.· He said someone can get burned or the hook that holds the rocket engine in might poke an eye out.
Back then there were also high powered rocket engines and you would have to fly them somewhere you could get a clearance from the FAA.
Oh, I'm sorry your local club is like that. Many aren't. Our·section used to be heavily involved in contests, and even won the national championship a few years ago, but now we're all about sport flying. Even in our contest heyday·I was typically able to fly sport flights regularly.
Yeah, your parks guy·probably has a point. We always wind up getting our eyes poked out by engine hooks. I'm on my fifth set of eyeballs, and on top of that, I'm burned over 70% of my body from rocket flames.
FAA clearance is another excellent reason to fly with a club if one is available. I sure wouldn't want to have to get a waiver myself, but the club has that covered.
sylvie369 said...
...I'm on my fifth set of eyeballs, and on top of that, I'm burned over 70% of my body....
Sounds like you've been messing around with one of pi'd's "Closed-cycle Regulated Steam-Pressure-to-Hydraulic-Powered Underwater, Omni-position, Short-term Pre-Adolescent Android Actuators" again. Oh, you poor man! To protect yourself from further injury, you really need to invest in one of my very dependable "Hypobaric ThermoConvertible NanoPreCarbonized Post-Geriatric Anti-Litigation Non-Asbestos Undergarments." In these uncertain times, I don't go anywhere without wearing mine.
Post Edited (ElectricAye) : 8/3/2010 5:27:24 PM GMT
Someone appears to be missing a career opportunity in science-fiction. That is where anything is possible with words.
I've doubts that you've identified anything realistically possible. And even if it were, would it be economic? Sure a steam turbine is possible to drive a highly efficient hydraulic pump to do something. But why put it underwater. Do ypu want to be mobile? If you get back to that good old Carnot cycle, preventing things from cooling down actually may get more work out of the process in terms of heat transfer. So why bother with underwater? A means of cooling the engine? Seems that could be better handled on land, even nuclear reactors are well cooled by water. At the core of it is just a different furnace attached to existing technologies that are already highly developed for ultimate efficiency in electrical generation.
And why that hydraulic pump when you could just connect it to an electrical generation and transmit power where needed? Are you thinking a thermite powered submarine? Nuclear creates far more heat over many years before refueling. Admittedly, it isn't as clean - but there are good reasons the U.S. Navy has gone all nuclear. It not only provides vast amounts of very controllable thermal energy, it is very compact (more room on the ship for other things), it is quieter, and the ship doesn't have to visit frequently 'friendly ports' to refuel.
In sum, it helps to have a real use in mind to put together a design scheme. Even the more interesting fantasies are the one's that become feasible.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
loopy--a hydraulic pump would be pointless. Just think of it as steam-powered pistons that push on hydraulic oil which is transported to the source where the power is needed.
@ ElectricAye. I can't imagine how you keep coming up with all your crazy pictures, but they all have two things in common: They're incredibly apropos, and they are always rotfl! Your last one was over-the-top funny...and the explanation...well, if you ever get tired of counting photons, you really ought to write professionally.
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"Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
pi'd said...
....a hydraulic pump would be pointless. Just think of it as steam-powered pistons that push on hydraulic oil which is transported to the source where the power is needed.
But have you addressed the problem of transferring the intense heat of your thermite reaction to the water so it will be effectively converted to steam? You know, once the tiny layer of water that is in direct contact with the thermite starts to turn to steam, that thin bubble of steam will greatly reduce the flow of heat from the thermite to the rest of the liquid water. You'll basically get a very bright version of the "fart-in-the-bath-tub-effect". And the amount of useful work you'll be able to derive from your system will probably be approximately the same as that little flashing fart.
You might want to study how hydraulic pumps work - and hydraulic systems in general - before you proceed much further with this. For one thing, hydraulic systems aren't very happy having to deal with shock waves. Hydraulic fluid and pistons have inertia, you know, so acceleration and deceleration are worth working into your analysis of the problem. Otherwise your hydraulic lines end up bursting. If you propose to transfer the power of the steam to the hydraulic fluid rather slowly, then you must consider the thermodynamics of keeping the steam from losing its heat while it's waiting around for your pistons to move.
K2 said...
... Your last one was over-the-top funny.......
K2,
Thanks.
I agree that it's funny, but it's the image that does it, not my writing. I think that's a photo of Sean Connery in a movie called Zardoz. It's got to be one of the worst movies ever made, but it's so bad that it's hysterical to watch. I haven't seen it in decades, but after finding that picture, I'll have to check it again.
Thanks.
I agree that it's funny, but it's the image that does it, not my writing. I think that's a photo of Sean Connery in a movie called Zardoz. It's got to be one of the worst movies ever made, but it's so bad that it's hysterical to watch. I haven't seen it in decades, but after finding that picture, I'll have to check it again.
After seeing that picture, I'm permanently writing Zardoz off of my list.
Loopy Byteloose said...
High pressure steam turbines have pipes with a small inner diameter - say 1"; but the walls can be 9" thick just to contain the pressure.
Umm... was that a typo?
If not, can you give an example of a 19" O.D., 1" I.D. pipe, or anything even close to that?
It has been a very, very, very long time since I had my hands on any plans for a high pressure steam turbine (Bechtel Power Corp in the mid 1970s), but as best I recall a 9" diameter pipe with a 1" I.D in it was possible (okay I am backing down). You aren't going to find such pipe in a plumbing supply. But it is needed by you have a power plant that is supplying super-heated steam into tiered turbines that dump power onto an electric grid. You might have to go to Three Mile Island or a similar and ask to look at the turbine side of their operation to see such. Maybe I am wrong and pipes are merely 6" diameter, but not much for inner diameter. The thing is the heat and high pressure from the superheated steam greatly weakens the tensile strength of the steel and the bulk compensates.
Then again, I do have trouble with sizing fish at times. Has anyone here more recent experience with power plants and super-heated steam turbines?
Think of steam at 250*c and above 700PSI - dangerous stuff.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
Post Edited (Loopy Byteloose) : 8/4/2010 2:54:48 PM GMT
That is why i program computers/ Microcontollers. I don't have to worry about blowing myself up....Pi'd i am only 19 ,and even though i do a few crazy things, i would NOT mess with something as dangerous as thermite. If you want to blow stuff up, you could make smaller "bombs". I know very little about chemistry, but i do know one thing. If your ever in doubt DON'T do it!!! 4500 degrees F is REALLY hot. If you must do it i suggest you do use some form of electronic ignition, preferably from a distance. That stuff also emits UV radiation and that is also dangerous
Ravenkallen said...
That is why i program computers/ Microcontollers. I don't have to worry about blowing myself up....Pi'd i am only 19 ,and even though i do a few crazy things, i would NOT mess with something as dangerous as thermite. If you want to blow stuff up, you could make smaller "bombs". I know very little about chemistry, but i do know one thing. If your ever in doubt DON'T do it!!! 4500 degrees F is REALLY hot. If you must do it i suggest you do use some form of electronic ignition, preferably from a distance. That stuff also emits UV radiation and that is also dangerous
UV problem? Yeah right, I get sun burns from welding all the time, it's no problem. Besides, I'm starting to think of other ways to get the heat.
ElectricAye--If you have anything useful to say, spit it out. Otherwise, back away.
Explosives? I wouldn't try it. Don't be a moron. If you make a bomb you have to know there is a chance that you could blow yourself up. And even if you didn't, what if it exploded? I nearly hit myself in the eye with an exploding LED a few days ago, what about intentional explosives??
I know that you think that explosives are cool and all, so do I, but don't be a fool. I'd leave this to the experts if I were you.
@ pi'd: Aluminum and methanol are both fuels. Both require oxygen (or fluorine or some other oxidizer) for combustion. I'm sure an appropriate burner could be devised to burn such a fuel mixture. Whether it's the best choice (or even a practical choice) for your application is difficult to determine given the paucity of information you have provided.
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"Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
Loopy Byteloose said...
Then again, I do have trouble with sizing fish at times. Has anyone here more recent experience with power plants and super-heated steam turbines?
Think of steam at 250*c and above 700PSI - dangerous stuff.
If you visit this steam museum, you will learn more about steam than you ever wanted to know.· You will probably come home dirty because the wind blows and the dust off the field will gradually get in your hair.· The steam locomotives, the steam tractors, stationary engines for large plants, etc., all use coal and some blow out cinders and black smoke.· There is a lot of oil used.· People who use to work on the railroad have an appreciation for that sort of thing.· It would be a challenge to build these machines today because you don't have enough people who can do it.· They also learned a lesson back then.· If you don't put a governor on the stationary steam engines for big plants, they can speed up and centrifical force can actually make the machines come apart or move which is one of the most scary and rude awakening builders may have.
Thes wikipedia entries will give you some idea of the scale. Very, very huge turbines with very, very, very hot and high pressure steam. Too big to be mobile.
Also, I have been mentioning the Carnot cycle, but the Rankine cycle (closely related) may be more of use if there is any application for thermite in all this.
I must admit that if you were to go deep enough underwater, you have extremely high pressures that may offer some unusual design opportunities.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
Post Edited (Loopy Byteloose) : 8/4/2010 3:12:50 PM GMT
Loopy Byteloose said...
I must admit that if you were to go deep enough underwater, you have extremely high pressures that may offer some unusual design opportunities.
If he studies submarines, he may find a compounded·table somewhere of how much water weighs for every foot of depth.· I remember reading one in school.
During WWII, sometimes pilots were told not to shoot at steam trains because the plates in the boilers might explode·up in the air·or other times they didn't want anyone to know they were there.
The water main broke in front of our house and it threw bricks up in the air.
He still has one problem.· One steam tractor can weigh 28,000 pounds and few people can afford a loan on a 3,000 pound car.
I hate to be picky, but you're probably thinking of pressure per foot of depth. Since for ordinary pressures, water is considered to be incompressible, it weighs about the same amount as you go deeper (differences mainly due to water temperature and not depth). My recollection is that a little over 30 feet contributes another atmosphere of pressure, so about 0.5 lb./square inch/foot of depth. While not related to anything in this thread, a factoid that always disturbed me was that 2 atmospheres partial pressure of oxygen is lethal, so those pure oxygen rebreathers that Navy SEALs use would kill you at about 30 feet down. 270 feet for air.
That's why they're not pure oxygen rebreathers. They're heliox rebreathers that use a mixture of helium and oxygen. There's a scrubber for carbon dioxide and oxygen is added to the mix as needed with lower and lower partial pressures as the depth increases.
Comments
Historically we started with the steam engine - external combustion; then someone arrived at the conclusion - that with the right fuel, internal combustion would be superior.
Spin offs from there were the rocket engine and the jet engine. Some dream of traveling deep space with a fusion rocket.
But the real market is for engines right here on earth. The Stirling engine still has a lot of room for improvement with new material science and new manufacturing techniques - plus micro-controllers. And I visited a pig farm in Thailand that is exploiting bio-methane to drive fans to cool the pigs and eventually create electricity for the farm. I left them a little micro-controller set up to explore automated control as they hadn't gotten that far yet.
So I suppose the real question is which is more fun? The dramatic or the productive. If you want a career, the latter is more challenging. Anybody can go for momentary 'WOW' factor, TV is full of that. But substantial innovation takes effort. Even Thomas Edison as a youth tried about 1000 materials for a light bulb filament before he got it right with tungsten. The second best filament is rather amusing and worked for an hour or so - carbonized bamboo.
Steam is still vastly exploited in electrical production. Nuclear reactors use it to convert heat into electrical power as it remains the best 'external combustion' solution. One of the more interesting innovations in recent years has been the addition of small amount of NH4 (ammonia) to squeeze more energy out of the steam. One fellow I know works for a German company that consults in Taiwan's electrical production and generally they are constantly looking for ways to get another 0.1% increase in efficiency. They have plenty of heat, but it is the loss in transfer that is important to limit.
Steam can in some forms be exceedingly dangers. Why so? It is claimed to be able to hold a near infinite amount of heat if held under pressure. High pressure steam turbines have pipes with a small inner diameter - say 1"; but the walls can be 9" thick just to contain the pressure. Looking for a leak can be very dangerous as even a small leak in such a system can cut a person in half. So, one method of searching is to use broomsticks waved in front of you. When the broomstick gets cut in half, you know you are near.
Are you really ready for the kind of dangers that modern industry has to offer? It all starts with 'Safety First', to be even allowed to get near these technologies.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
Post Edited (Loopy Byteloose) : 8/3/2010 7:42:28 AM GMT
High power rocketry is LESS regulated than it used to be, as in early 2009 we won a lawsuit against the BATF that eliminated the classification of Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant as an explosive (it isn't - it simply burns quickly).
I see. So it's a "vapourware" engine.
·
It is increasingly difficult to find a place to fly.· Even though I had insurance back then, no one wants to give permission to let you fly on their field.
I called the local park association and even though people fly their rockets in park, the head won't give permission.· He said someone can get burned or the hook that holds the rocket engine in might poke an eye out.
Back then there were also high powered rocket engines and you would have to fly them somewhere you could get a clearance from the FAA.
·
Yeah, your parks guy·probably has a point. We always wind up getting our eyes poked out by engine hooks. I'm on my fifth set of eyeballs, and on top of that, I'm burned over 70% of my body from rocket flames.
FAA clearance is another excellent reason to fly with a club if one is available. I sure wouldn't want to have to get a waiver myself, but the club has that covered.
Sounds like you've been messing around with one of pi'd's "Closed-cycle Regulated Steam-Pressure-to-Hydraulic-Powered Underwater, Omni-position, Short-term Pre-Adolescent Android Actuators" again. Oh, you poor man! To protect yourself from further injury, you really need to invest in one of my very dependable "Hypobaric ThermoConvertible NanoPreCarbonized Post-Geriatric Anti-Litigation Non-Asbestos Undergarments." In these uncertain times, I don't go anywhere without wearing mine.
Post Edited (ElectricAye) : 8/3/2010 5:27:24 PM GMT
I've doubts that you've identified anything realistically possible. And even if it were, would it be economic? Sure a steam turbine is possible to drive a highly efficient hydraulic pump to do something. But why put it underwater. Do ypu want to be mobile? If you get back to that good old Carnot cycle, preventing things from cooling down actually may get more work out of the process in terms of heat transfer. So why bother with underwater? A means of cooling the engine? Seems that could be better handled on land, even nuclear reactors are well cooled by water. At the core of it is just a different furnace attached to existing technologies that are already highly developed for ultimate efficiency in electrical generation.
And why that hydraulic pump when you could just connect it to an electrical generation and transmit power where needed? Are you thinking a thermite powered submarine? Nuclear creates far more heat over many years before refueling. Admittedly, it isn't as clean - but there are good reasons the U.S. Navy has gone all nuclear. It not only provides vast amounts of very controllable thermal energy, it is very compact (more room on the ship for other things), it is quieter, and the ship doesn't have to visit frequently 'friendly ports' to refuel.
In sum, it helps to have a real use in mind to put together a design scheme. Even the more interesting fantasies are the one's that become feasible.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
loopy--a hydraulic pump would be pointless. Just think of it as steam-powered pistons that push on hydraulic oil which is transported to the source where the power is needed.
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"Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
But have you addressed the problem of transferring the intense heat of your thermite reaction to the water so it will be effectively converted to steam? You know, once the tiny layer of water that is in direct contact with the thermite starts to turn to steam, that thin bubble of steam will greatly reduce the flow of heat from the thermite to the rest of the liquid water. You'll basically get a very bright version of the "fart-in-the-bath-tub-effect". And the amount of useful work you'll be able to derive from your system will probably be approximately the same as that little flashing fart.
You might want to study how hydraulic pumps work - and hydraulic systems in general - before you proceed much further with this. For one thing, hydraulic systems aren't very happy having to deal with shock waves. Hydraulic fluid and pistons have inertia, you know, so acceleration and deceleration are worth working into your analysis of the problem. Otherwise your hydraulic lines end up bursting. If you propose to transfer the power of the steam to the hydraulic fluid rather slowly, then you must consider the thermodynamics of keeping the steam from losing its heat while it's waiting around for your pistons to move.
K2,
Thanks.
I agree that it's funny, but it's the image that does it, not my writing. I think that's a photo of Sean Connery in a movie called Zardoz. It's got to be one of the worst movies ever made, but it's so bad that it's hysterical to watch. I haven't seen it in decades, but after finding that picture, I'll have to check it again.
Are we having fun yet?
I wish I could "unsee" the photograph as well.
Where would the oxygen come from?
Umm... was that a typo?
If not, can you give an example of a 19" O.D., 1" I.D. pipe, or anything even close to that?
Rich H
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The Simple Servo Tester, a kit from Gadget Gangster.
Where do you think.
Then again, I do have trouble with sizing fish at times. Has anyone here more recent experience with power plants and super-heated steam turbines?
Think of steam at 250*c and above 700PSI - dangerous stuff.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
Post Edited (Loopy Byteloose) : 8/4/2010 2:54:48 PM GMT
According to your plans? ....I'm guessing the Oxygen Fairy.
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Propeller + Picaxe = Romeo & Juliet
UV problem? Yeah right, I get sun burns from welding all the time, it's no problem. Besides, I'm starting to think of other ways to get the heat.
ElectricAye--If you have anything useful to say, spit it out. Otherwise, back away.
I know that you think that explosives are cool and all, so do I, but don't be a fool. I'd leave this to the experts if I were you.
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Check out my new website!!
Use the Propeller icon!!
The most dangerous thing on the planet: ignorance + arrogance
Figure out a way to harness the power of that, and you will want for nothing.
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"Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
Post Edited (K2) : 8/5/2010 1:27:20 AM GMT
You're right...aluminum is a great fuel. Quick-swap aluminum batteries is the approach to electric automobiles I wish we were pursuing.
Post Edited (K2) : 8/5/2010 1:39:43 AM GMT
http://www.roughandtumble.org/
Here is the photo page to see some of what I'm talking about:
http://www.roughandtumble.org/rt_photos.asp
They have a parade and tug of war between tractors.· They have a tractor pull and people actually study the gear ratio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_plant
Also, I have been mentioning the Carnot cycle, but the Rankine cycle (closely related) may be more of use if there is any application for thermite in all this.
I must admit that if you were to go deep enough underwater, you have extremely high pressures that may offer some unusual design opportunities.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
Post Edited (Loopy Byteloose) : 8/4/2010 3:12:50 PM GMT
During WWII, sometimes pilots were told not to shoot at steam trains because the plates in the boilers might explode·up in the air·or other times they didn't want anyone to know they were there.
The water main broke in front of our house and it threw bricks up in the air.
He still has one problem.· One steam tractor can weigh 28,000 pounds and few people can afford a loan on a 3,000 pound car.
-phar