Internal Combustion

6L6 wrote:In my Navy days we would start to raise steam at midnight in order to set sail at 8:00 AM.

Peter2 wrote:

6L6 wrote:In my Navy days we would start to raise steam at midnight in order to set sail at 8:00 AM.

How right you are! My wife's grandfather was an engine-driver in the days of steam locomotives. I remember him commenting that one of the blessings about diesel-electric engines was that if the train needed to be moving at 6:00 a.m., it was OK to arrive at 5:30 a.m. You didn't need to get there at 3:00 a.m. (or thereabouts – I can't remember the actual time he quoted) to start raising steam.
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WeberFan wrote:Every now and again, I get a thought in my head and can't let go of it. This one noodled around for most of the weekend, and I just got around to searching through the various threads until I found the most appropriate one.

For some reason, I was under the mistaken impression that a Diesel REQUIRED a glow plug to operate.

Not so.

In fact, in watching a Science Channel program this evening, I watched a guy put a small wad of cotton into a clear plexiglass tube, fit a hand-operated piston in the top, and rapidly force the piston downward. The compression he induced was sufficient to heat the air enough to ignite the cotton wad.

Fascinating!

So I did some more digging and learned that a glow plug was only needed when starting the Diesel in cold weather (exactly as other posters on this forum stated). Obviously an electrically-powered glow plug would violate the Proscriptions. But if you put a "jacket" around the cylinder, and if you forced hot steam through the jacket, you'd get the cylinder / piston plenty warm and would eliminate the need for a glow plug. This wouldn't be necessary in a warm engine room aboard ship or when operating in warm climates.

Louis R wrote:2-3 hours sounds about right, from a long-ago discussion with the engine crew on the Prairie Dog Central.

A real pity they couldn't keep it going, but that was 2 or even 3 recessions ago. TTBOMK, it was the last steam locomotive running on live track in North America. Which made the amateurs who drove it the 3 or 4 most highly qualified locomotive engineers on the continent: because it was live track, they had to have full current licenses. Because it was steam, they also had to have full steam licenses, and apparently there wasn't a heck of a lot of overlap.

WeberFan wrote:Every now and again, I get a thought in my head and can't let go of it. This one noodled around for most of the weekend, and I just got around to searching through the various threads until I found the most appropriate one.

For some reason, I was under the mistaken impression that a Diesel REQUIRED a glow plug to operate.

Not so.

In fact, in watching a Science Channel program this evening, I watched a guy put a small wad of cotton into a clear plexiglass tube, fit a hand-operated piston in the top, and rapidly force the piston downward. The compression he induced was sufficient to heat the air enough to ignite the cotton wad.

Fascinating!

So I did some more digging and learned that a glow plug was only needed when starting the Diesel in cold weather (exactly as other posters on this forum stated). Obviously an electrically-powered glow plug would violate the Proscriptions. But if you put a "jacket" around the cylinder, and if you forced hot steam through the jacket, you'd get the cylinder / piston plenty warm and would eliminate the need for a glow plug. This wouldn't be necessary in a warm engine room aboard ship or when operating in warm climates.

So I envision low-RPM, high-torque diesels being used for maritime operations in place of steam engines, and used to power land vehicles (trains, heavy-wheeled off-road vehicles).

There's nothing inherently bad with steam-powered vessels, but you either need an oil-powered furnace to generate the steam or you need a lot of man to shovel coal around. IIRC we haven't heard anything about oil-powered furnaces yet. Diesel (or any other heavy liquid hydrocarbon) is easier to store and easier to move around. Also, no matter how you cut it, coal being stored in a coal bunker still has a lot of air space between the chunks of coal - wasted volume. Not a factor with oil, which can easily be pumped where it's required.

I'm not sure which engine is more efficient - steam or diesel. Probably depends on a lot of factors and is probably application-specific.

Diesels can probably be started faster than steam engines, so going from a cold start to full operations is going to be faster than it would be with a comparable steam plant.

Just some thoughts added to what is already a mature forum.

PeterZ wrote:Spoiler!

That's right. Stefyny Mahlahrd's middle name is Ahgythah and her mother's maiden name was Hyterodaihn.

n7axw wrote:Diesels produce torque more efficiently than steam given the same fuel expenditure. Your post is right on.

Don
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chrisd wrote:

n7axw wrote:Diesels produce torque more efficiently than steam given the same fuel expenditure. Your post is right on.

Don
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I saw a video once of a demonstration run with the UP Challenger pulling a double-deck container train and one conclusion was that the steamer had used less fuel than the three diesel units which would have been rostered to the consist.

In terms of "starting" a steam locomotive: for a large one, by British standards you should allow 24 hours from cold, if still hot from the previous day's running then 4 to 5 hours is best.
In an "emergency" I managed to get sufficient pressure "on the clock" of a small locomotive (39 tons AUW and 11ft²
grate area)for it to move and ruin down to its train in just over one hour, but I DO NOT RECCOMEND this

n7axw wrote:
Diesels produce torque more efficiently than steam given the same fuel expenditure. Your post is right on.

Don

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Jonathan_S wrote:

WeberFan wrote:Every now and again, I get a thought in my head and can't let go of it. This one noodled around for most of the weekend, and I just got around to searching through the various threads until I found the most appropriate one.

For some reason, I was under the mistaken impression that a Diesel REQUIRED a glow plug to operate.

Not so.

In fact, in watching a Science Channel program this evening, I watched a guy put a small wad of cotton into a clear plexiglass tube, fit a hand-operated piston in the top, and rapidly force the piston downward. The compression he induced was sufficient to heat the air enough to ignite the cotton wad.

Fascinating!

So I did some more digging and learned that a glow plug was only needed when starting the Diesel in cold weather (exactly as other posters on this forum stated). Obviously an electrically-powered glow plug would violate the Proscriptions. But if you put a "jacket" around the cylinder, and if you forced hot steam through the jacket, you'd get the cylinder / piston plenty warm and would eliminate the need for a glow plug. This wouldn't be necessary in a warm engine room aboard ship or when operating in warm climates.

Also if you've got a robust enough starter "motor" you can sufficiently heat the diesel cylinder (especially a big one) simply by repeated compression strokes before you start trying to feed it fuel.

Not fun if you're trying to hand crank it, at least not unless you've got a honking big flywheel to slowly spin up before kicking in the compression.

And heck, if you've got an aux steam boiler that you can use to drive a starter motor you might as dump some steam through the diesel's cooling jacket to pre-warm things. But if you just had mechanical power in the form of say compressed air, or a power-takeoff driven by a stationary waterwheel, you could use that mechanical power to warm the cylinder by compression.