Diesel

In thinking about what kinds of tech might sneak under the radar of the planetary bombardment system and offer a comprehensive improvement I keep coming back (in my head at least) to diesel engines. They can operate on no electricity (or at most DC to heat a resistive glowplug)(and DC is darn near undetectable at any distance so long as it's used for resistive loads only)and pack a great deal of power into a small unit.

While large triple or double expansion engines are great for major warships, small runabouts or smaller land based craft would be far more possible with diesel than with steam. Things like tanks or self propelled guns, even towed artillery become easier, and as for civilian uses ask any farmer how much more useful a tractor is to getting the farm plowed and furrowed than a team of oxen. A good diesel could easily multiply both agricultural yield per acre and number of acres in production.

In addition the distillate products from oil/coal/coke are at the heart of the chemical industrial revolution. New dyes, medicines, etc. all become spin off industries that push the chemical and biological sciences further. Now it's true that Safehold may not have huge repositories of oil, gas, or even coal (on Earth at least these are generally byproducts of millions of years of biological activity and it's still not clear that such periods of evolution existed in Safehold's history.What kind of ecology did it have before being terraformed?) Still there must be some oil as there are coal mines and generally such deposits generally occur when coal and water and bacteria mix. Even Kraken & Doomwhale oil would be sufficient for a small diesel industry and study of oils properties.

The only negative I've come up with so far is that there are two types of sensors that might be triggered by such an advance. Chemical sensors looking for refined hydrocarbons (doable by multi-spectral imaging sensors)or motion detection sensors watching for high rates of movement (I assume an AI or even advanced computer system could detect objects traveling at high rates of speed in opposition to prevailing winds or higher than normal rates of speed in any direction)(i.e. object detected over x kilograms in mass moving at rate over y kilometers per hour thus limiting false triggers for natural phenomena).

Anyway that's my thought. What do you folks think?

Larry

Larry wrote:...While large triple or double expansion engines are great for major warships, small runabouts or smaller land based craft would be far more possible with diesel than with steam. Things like tanks or self propelled guns, even towed artillery become easier, and as for civilian uses ask any farmer how much more useful a tractor is to getting the farm plowed and furrowed than a team of oxen. ...

Google "Steam Trucks." In England at least, steam powered trucks, from VW beetle sized delivery vans to five and six ton heavy trucks remained in common use from the late 1800s through the early 1940s.

Search "Steam Tractor Pull" on Youtube for a bunch of videos of steam tractors going "full pull" with the same type of competition sled that stops over-powered internal combustion tractors at a "half-pull."

Search for "narrow gauge rail" for examples of steam locomotives that are well within Charisian tech levels that would fit in a typical suburban garage.

Steam traction isn't just about the big, glamorous rail giants or massive steamship engines, it's about small wonders like the Stanley Steamer and other steam autos, or narrow gauge railways for logging, mining and mountainous regions.

Steam does have drawbacks like slow starting and generally short range, but it is far from the massive cumbersome technology of popular imagination.

Hi Larry and welcome to the forums!

There has been some posts on this before... but bottom line diesels could be introduced by Wyslyn

Larry wrote:In thinking about what kinds of tech might sneak under the radar of the planetary bombardment system and offer a comprehensive improvement I keep coming back (in my head at least) to diesel engines. They can operate on no electricity (or at most DC to heat a resistive glowplug)(and DC is darn near undetectable at any distance so long as it's used for resistive loads only)and pack a great deal of power into a small unit.

While large triple or double expansion engines are great for major warships, small runabouts or smaller land based craft would be far more possible with diesel than with steam. Things like tanks or self propelled guns, even towed artillery become easier, and as for civilian uses ask any farmer how much more useful a tractor is to getting the farm plowed and furrowed than a team of oxen. A good diesel could easily multiply both agricultural yield per acre and number of acres in production.

In addition the distillate products from oil/coal/coke are at the heart of the chemical industrial revolution. New dyes, medicines, etc. all become spin off industries that push the chemical and biological sciences further. Now it's true that Safehold may not have huge repositories of oil, gas, or even coal (on Earth at least these are generally byproducts of millions of years of biological activity and it's still not clear that such periods of evolution existed in Safehold's history.What kind of ecology did it have before being terraformed?) Still there must be some oil as there are coal mines and generally such deposits generally occur when coal and water and bacteria mix. Even Kraken & Doomwhale oil would be sufficient for a small diesel industry and study of oils properties.

The only negative I've come up with so far is that there are two types of sensors that might be triggered by such an advance. Chemical sensors looking for refined hydrocarbons (doable by multi-spectral imaging sensors)or motion detection sensors watching for high rates of movement (I assume an AI or even advanced computer system could detect objects traveling at high rates of speed in opposition to prevailing winds or higher than normal rates of speed in any direction)(i.e. object detected over x kilograms in mass moving at rate over y kilometers per hour thus limiting false triggers for natural phenomena).

Anyway that's my thought. What do you folks think?

Larry

Of course refined oil is not required for diesel engines, the original diesels ran quite happily on straight vegetable oil and crude oil engines were quite common (if a little inefficient, hard to start in low temperatures (due to low vapor pressure) and having a smokey exhaust).
(Refining removes the elements that foul the engine like sulfur and salts).

Harold to support the coal industry, and decrease the import of foreign oil the British government using taxes supported the continuance of this technology through the 1940s. This is why they continued in production. No liquid fueled flash boilers but, locomotive style boilers that need a while to rise steam. Now when the enemy attacks you Don't want to wait a while to raise steam in you tank's cold boiler!

Poker

Weird Harold wrote:

Larry wrote:...While large triple or double expansion engines are great for major warships, small runabouts or smaller land based craft would be far more possible with diesel than with steam. Things like tanks or self propelled guns, even towed artillery become easier, and as for civilian uses ask any farmer how much more useful a tractor is to getting the farm plowed and furrowed than a team of oxen. ...

Google "Steam Trucks." In England at least, steam powered trucks, from VW beetle sized delivery vans to five and six ton heavy trucks remained in common use from the late 1800s through the early 1940s.

Search "Steam Tractor Pull" on Youtube for a bunch of videos of steam tractors going "full pull" with the same type of competition sled that stops over-powered internal combustion tractors at a "half-pull."

Search for "narrow gauge rail" for examples of steam locomotives that are well within Charisian tech levels that would fit in a typical suburban garage.

Steam traction isn't just about the big, glamorous rail giants or massive steamship engines, it's about small wonders like the Stanley Steamer and other steam autos, or narrow gauge railways for logging, mining and mountainous regions.

Steam does have drawbacks like slow starting and generally short range, but it is far from the massive cumbersome technology of popular imagination.

I'm with Larry. Diesel is the next obvious step. It seems like it is probably within Housmyn's capability to do the machine work. The most serious issue is dealing with the political one with the proscriptions.

Don

pokermind wrote:Harold to support the coal industry, and decrease the import of foreign oil the British government using taxes supported the continuance of this technology through the 1940s. This is why they continued in production.

That doesn't match one of the "Channel4"/"Discovery channel" documentaries account citing increasing taxes and restrictions on steam trucks as the cause of steam trucks' demise.

Getting caught in a cantonment without having steam up is no worse than getting caught in harbor with cold boilers. If either happens, your scouts and coast-watchers have failed and it wouldn't matter if your forces were fueled by handwavium.

Weird Harold wrote:

pokermind wrote:Harold to support the coal industry, and decrease the import of foreign oil the British government using taxes supported the continuance of this technology through the 1940s. This is why they continued in production.

That doesn't match one of the "Channel4"/"Discovery channel" documentaries account citing increasing taxes and restrictions on steam trucks as the cause of steam trucks' demise.

Getting caught in a cantonment without having steam up is no worse than getting caught in harbor with cold boilers. If either happens, your scouts and coast-watchers have failed and it wouldn't matter if your forces were fueled by handwavium.

If you are worried about having a cold boiler then you either just keep a banked fire or connect the boiler to another running boiler to maintain the pressure in the boiler on standby (used to be common practice with locomotive boilers). Water tube boilers can also be used to speed the start-up (particularly with oil or gas firing) as an intermediate step to a flash boiler.
The advantage of a water tube boiler is a greater heating surface area per unit weight (but having to replace a significant structural element (the boiler tube) with a chassis to carry the road loads) and a lower water inventory giving a better load swing characteristic (ability to go from idle to full power in minimum time). The lower water inventory makes level control in the boiler much harder (and twitchy) but is still practical as shown by the large number of marine boilers with a similar configuration. (Flash boilers are generally structurally heavier than a similar capacity water tube boiler as the tubes need to be structurally stronger due to the need to be safely operated with no water in the boiler tubes and the boiler being fired, (water inventory makes up the difference and then some)). Another tweak I would add would be an air cooled condenser on the engine exhaust to permit operation independent of local water supplies.
Another advantage of steam powered vehicles that is often missed is the ready availability of hot water for tea and coffee (o.k., if you must, hot chocolate). This also makes cooked lunches easy and steam sterilization a tap away. All this is a little questionable in the tropics (i.e. Charis) but in winter round Zion a steam powered snow tractor / snow cat would be a really desirable ride.
A group of steam powered armored personnel carriers (or a road train) ripping up the High Road at 30mph would really throw the cat (lizard?) amongst the pigeons.

AirTech wrote:If you are worried about having a cold boiler then ...

I'm not worried about cold boilers, Pokermind is.

My main point is that, based on historical examples as shown on youtube, steam trucks with engines not as big as modern Diesels are well within Charisian tech capabilities -- as of LaMA. I'm not sure small Diesels are, just yet.

FWIW, some of the steamers on youtube feature flash boilers and/or "paraffin jets" (like a coleman camp stove, I think.)

=2014/05/16=

Hi Guys

This is not the first time deisel engines were mentioned.

Here's only one of the other links to the topic
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=554&start=228

R
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