Diesel

OOPS the British Government did not like steam lorries see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_truck



Poker

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.

pokermind wrote:OOPS the British Government did not like steam lorries see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_truck

Just goes to show how politicians and bureaucrats should NEVER, ever, be trusted anywhere near anything involving technology or engineering.

Just look at the way that legislators have ruined the automotive industry over the last half-century with their ridiculous demands.

Weird Harold wrote:
"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."

Well aware of them. One of the guys I work with is a gearhead and loves to watch the Jay Leno videos, the last few of which were of the Steam Cars Mr. Leno has bought and restored for his expansive collection. While I must say that they are fascinating, the mechanical complexity of them was also amazing.

Weird Harold wrote:
"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."

Oh no need for YouTube videos. The Carroll County Farm Museum, which is right around the corner, so to speak, from my parents home has an annual "Steam Days" event that features tons of the old steamers and even a steam calliope. Fascinating things to see. Best part of them is the little side power take off wheel that many of them have that lets you hook up a long leather belt to power auxiliary equipment such as small sawing equipment, rotary digger systems (for digging wells) and sundry other devices. Their capacity to be portable power plants as well as field tractors is one of their best points.

Weird Harold wrote:
"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."

And about two miles from where I live is the B&O railroad museum which has several pieces on display from the old MA&PA railroad, one of the best examples (at least in its origins and first half of it's operational life) of Narrow gauge railroading around.

Weird Harold wrote:
"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."

And as a fairly avid Model Railroader I quite agree. In fact the current layout design I'm working on will probably include a narrow gauge slate/stone carrying railroad as a feature.

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

In truth you can make some fairly small engines. I remember on such kit from my youth being on sale in many issues of Popular Mechanics. And I absolutely adore Steam Engines for Railroads, In fact both my daughters and wife would testify to the fact that between (Model)Trains. Sci-Fi, and Computers/Electronics it's hard to say what I like to spend money on more.
My point however wasn't that all Steam engines are bulky and cumbersome (although lets be honest that's the only size/style we have textev for) but what can you push the edge on. Steam engines were supplemented/replaced by either diesel or ICE almost everywhere here on Earth in most transportation and small power needs categories and for fairly good reasons.
Diesel is lighter and easier to control while providing more power for kilogram of engine mass than steam. Diesel engines are also easier to maintain and have better durability and less maintenance downtime than steam (This was one of the major factors in why the Railroads switched to Diesel from Steam) While Diesel engines do develop high pressures and temperature they do it only in the working cylinders not in a large boiler or steam generation unit, so they don't tend to blow up quite so dramatically (Google Best Friend of Charleston explosion)(Also Grover Shoe Factory disaster)(And for a list of ways they go wrong try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_explosion)
Again don't misunderstand Steam will play it's part probably for a while, on Safehold. I'm not disparaging it as such but in and of itself I don's see that it allows a large tech expansion. The real question was about pushing the technology base in such a way as to both A> Provide more and better science basis/development and B> Do it in an undetectable manner so as to not trigger off an Orbital Bombardment strike.
The answer can't be Internal Combustion Engines, they generate a lot of electromagnetic noise. Steam (for all it's benefits) doesn't build your >technology< edge. Diesel can and diesel engines don't require magnetos/spark plugs/distributors/alternators/etc.

Possibly I should say technology edge in the long term. I do realize that in the short term it's the best thing since sliced bread on Safehold, at last as compared to wind and animal power, but long term...

Still I'm willing to take another stab at this. So rather than pushing Steam vs. Diesel let me rephrase the question. What technology can you think of that is more or less:
A. Within the grasp of current Charisian bleeding edge understanding.
B. Will expand their scientific base knowledge as they (Safeholdians et al) develop it.
C. Has sufficient utility that it will be worth pursuing.

and

D. Won't get very large rocks with high terminal velocity dropped on poor Charisian inventors labs.

Every time I work over this question in my head I keep coming back to Diesel and the requirements of developing liquid fuel systems as the winning combo answers.

kbus888 wrote:=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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Duly noted, but I've also noted that many of those discussions seemed to center around it's use in ships design or for applicability to tanks and weapons. Now that's certainly important if you view the series as being about the war, but that's not really what it's about now is it? Merlin/Nimue's purpose isn't really to start/fight/win a war with the Church. Her<His?> purpose is actually to kick start technological development on Safehold and get human advancement going in the direction that the "Archangels" attempted to stymie. The church is simply a big pain-in-the-derriere roadblock to that purpose that's going to have to be pulled down or reformed in order to meet the actual goal. As the motto has it "Don't get so busy shooting alligators that you forget the real job is draining the swamp!"
It's from this perspective that I'm approaching it. I look at it as a design puzzle with at least one big parameter being don't encourage a rock rain to fall. How far up the tech tree can Safeholdians climb without electricity (or at least AC style electricity. DC style is nowhere near as detectible, but DC is only so if you use it only in resistive circuits. Any thing else tends to produce RF and RF is detectable) and what tech gets them there?
I submit that Liquid Fuel development needed for something like the diesel engine produces the biggest set of advancements (did here on Earth anyway) as well as an immediately useful device to give a reason for developing said liquid fuels. And developing said engine will require/force you to develop advanced metallurgy techniques and machining techniques that feed their own tech trees.

Larry

Larry wrote:...the Jay Leno videos, the last few of which were of the Steam Cars Mr. Leno has bought and restored for his expansive collection. While I must say that they are fascinating, the mechanical complexity of them was also amazing.

I haven't seen all of the Leno steam cars, but the ones I have seen run to very late in the steam age and are far more complicated than Charis is going to be capable of in the near future. Specifically, cars like his 1925 Doble can't be duplicated on Charis because it uses an electric ignition and 2000 PSI steam.

Larry wrote:Best part of them is the little side power take off wheel that many of them have that lets you hook up a long leather belt to power auxiliary equipment such as small sawing equipment, rotary digger systems (for digging wells) and sundry other devices. Their capacity to be portable power plants as well as field tractors is one of their best points.

Well, to be fair to Diesels, a lot of the ICE farm tractors that replaced steam also had PTO in either drum or shaft drive styles. Most modern farm tractors still have shaft drive PTO connections to various attachments.

Larry wrote:(at least in its origins and first half of it's operational life) of Narrow gauge railroading around.

I've noticed that American narrow gauge locomotives seem to be larger than British locomotives -- at least WWI military narrow gauge. Engines used near the front in WWI were only 6-10 ft tall and not much longer -- blocky little tank-engines at first glance.

Larry wrote:Diesel is lighter and easier to control while providing more power for kilogram of engine mass than steam. Diesel engines are also easier to maintain and have better durability and less maintenance downtime than steam (This was one of the major factors in why the Railroads switched to Diesel from Steam)

Are you including the boiler as part of the engine? From what I've seen, the actual engine is comparable to ICE engines in size and torque.

The size of the boiler/steam source is variable. Most smaller steam engines will run fine on compressed air, and Charisian factories are already making far more extensive use of compressed air/pneumatic tools than historical examples.

Larry wrote:Again don't misunderstand Steam will play it's part probably for a while, on Safehold. I'm not disparaging it as such but in and of itself I don's see that it allows a large tech expansion. The real question was about pushing the technology base in such a way as to both A> Provide more and better science basis/development and B> Do it in an undetectable manner so as to not trigger off an Orbital Bombardment strike....

I don't expect steam to be the long term answer to Safehold's technological advancement, but there is more than a fear of Rakuri to be considered.

The existing Steam power in ships and factories was passed as "using water in another form," Diesel can't pass muster in that regard and the Church of Charis is no more ready to completely abandon the Proscriptions than the CoGA or Go4.

Larry wrote:Duly noted, but I've also noted that many of those discussions seemed to center around it's use in ships design or for applicability to tanks and weapons. Now that's certainly important if you view the series as being about the war, but that's not really what it's about now is it? Merlin/Nimue's purpose isn't really to start/fight/win a war with the Church. Her<His?> purpose is actually to kick start technological development on Safehold and get human advancement going in the direction that the "Archangels" attempted to stymie.

The series IS about the war, at least for now. Until the war is won, even the Church of Charis honors the proscriptions -- even if they interpret them a good bit looser than the Go4.

Until the war is won, and the Proscriptions overturned, advancements in Steam Power are possible but I can't see any way that ICE -- Diesel or spark -- can be weasel worded past the inquisition of even the Church of Charis.

Once the proscriptions are overturned in such a way that the common man accepts the change, Diesel and other ICE can quickly take over from Steam.

In the meantime, Steam can be transitioned from Coal-fired to Oil-fired to Refined-Fuel-Oil-fired to make a start on liquid-fuel infrastructure.

Make the first diesel engines run on fire vine oil. From the descriptions of how it burns it appears to be an analogue for modern day heating oil which will burn quite readily in modern diesel engines since the only difference are fuel additives that do things like reduce engine knock and such but cause health issues when burned in furnaces.

The fire vine oil is produced by the plant using sunshine and then collected and processed using human and animal labor. As a native plant it will grow on unconsecrated soil. It will be relatively easy to expand the production of fire vine oil until the technology is accepted. At that time the possibilities of distilling diesel fuel from crude oil can be discovered. It's a much harder argument to make that it's Ok to use fire vine oil but not diesel distilled from crude oil when they have exactly the same uses and next to impossible if not impossible to distinguish between the two.

Easternmystic wrote:Make the first diesel engines run on fire vine oil. From the descriptions of how it burns it appears to be an analogue for modern day heating oil which will burn quite readily in modern diesel engines since the only difference are fuel additives that do things like reduce engine knock and such but cause health issues when burned in furnaces.

The fire vine oil is produced by the plant using sunshine and then collected and processed using human and animal labor. As a native plant it will grow on unconsecrated soil. It will be relatively easy to expand the production of fire vine oil until the technology is accepted. At that time the possibilities of distilling diesel fuel from crude oil can be discovered. It's a much harder argument to make that it's Ok to use fire vine oil but not diesel distilled from crude oil when they have exactly the same uses and next to impossible if not impossible to distinguish between the two.

Two issues - fire vine oil sounds more like naphtha than kerosene and is likely to predetonate in a diesel engine, heavier oils work better (this called cetane rating and is the diesel equivalent of octane rating) and more importantly the lubricating oils for the engine and gear box need to be created (steam engines are a lot more forgiving (and don't need gearboxes) so this is another step. Firing a boiler on liquid fuels at this stage is easier and lets you build infrastructure for the next stage.
Technology is a ladder that it is hard to skip steps on even with the required documentation. From steam to diesel you need the metallurgy for high pressure engines and fasteners, fuel of the required quality, suitable high speed bearing designs (diesels HAVE to run faster than similar sized steam engines) and lubricants. The fuel and lubricants require a combination of moderately advanced chemistry and development industrial scale refining - which in the middle of a war are going to be a low priority. Its not just knowledge, its hand skills and tools to make tools.

Easternmystic wrote:Make the first diesel engines run on fire vine oil.

The problem with the Proscriptions isn't the fuel for ICEs, although as Airtech says, fuel and lubricants are an infrastructure problem to be solved before ICEs can spread.

The problem with the Proscriptions is that there is no logical progression from an acceptable technology to ICEs.

The closest technology operating principle on Safehold is artillery/firearms and that is a very remote connection at the moment -- there's no obvious link between gunpowder/nitrocellulose and Fuel-Air explosions.

AirTech wrote:Two issues - fire vine oil sounds more like naphtha than kerosene

Diesel/Heating Fuel is neither Naptha or Kerosene and judging by the description of it's flame characteristics it burns the way Diesel/Heating fuel does in air.

Where was your second point?

Weird Harold wrote:

Easternmystic wrote:Make the first diesel engines run on fire vine oil.

The problem with the Proscriptions isn't the fuel for ICEs, although as Airtech says, fuel and lubricants are an infrastructure problem to be solved before ICEs can spread.

The problem with the Proscriptions is that there is no logical progression from an acceptable technology to ICEs.

The closest technology operating principle on Safehold is artillery/firearms and that is a very remote connection at the moment -- there's no obvious link between gunpowder/nitrocellulose and Fuel-Air explosions.

Steam Engines use water heated to steam to drive the pistons. A diesel engine uses the hot exhaust from the combustion to drive the pistons. Seems pretty simple and straight forward to me.

Using fire vine oil as the fuel for the first compression combustion engines does away with the it;s not sun, wind, water or physical labor argument. The fire Vine uses sunlight to produce the oil and human and animal labor is used to gather it and extract it from the plant.

The logic is far less contrived than the on used to justify pteam in the first place.