Aelopile engine?

[minimoman]

I'm making a small vehicle that has a steam propelled aelopile. THe aelopile spins a propellor. How much steam pressure would be needed to move around a 1kg weight about a meter or two?

[CaptainPanic]

I'm making a small vehicle that has a steam propelled aelopile. THe aelopile spins a propellor. How much steam pressure would be needed to move around a 1kg weight about a meter or two?

It's not just a matter of pressure.

 

The first question is what initial friction you have. What I would advise you to do is to build the underside of the vehicle, and just put some dead weight on it to imitate the engine and propellor. Then get a force meter, and pull on the vehicle from the front it to see the friction it needs to overcome to start moving.

 

Then you know what force you should create with the engine. Then the next step is to realize that pressure equals force/area, or: force equals pressure*area. So, you should design a pressure together with the size of the outlets for the steam (the cross sectional area of the outlets is your area).

 

Good luck.

[Greg H.]

It's also a matter of design. If it has to carry it's own boiler and firebox (or some other method of producing steam as it moves) it's going to be heavier (and a lot more dangerous. Boilers that are built wrong have a tendency to explode, with disastrous results). The railroads, however, had several designs of locomotives primary used for yard switching that were, essentially, giant tanks for storing high pressure steam. When the steam pressure got low, they would pull in and top off from a stationary boiler somewhere in the yard. That kind of design wouldn't require more than a high pressure vessel suitable to hold the required pressure of steam, and would make your design lighter, as it would remove the weight of the boiler, firebox and fuel.

 

As CP said though, good luck.

[michel123456]

I'm making a small vehicle that has a steam propelled aelopile. THe aelopile spins a propellor. How much steam pressure would be needed to move around a 1kg weight about a meter or two?

(bolded mine)

?? why do you intend to use both the aelopile pressure and a propellor? What will be the configuration?

At first sight it looks like a bootstrapping approach, like the sailor that blows into his sail.

Edited May 2, 2012 by michel123456