about that hamilton starter....

[Keith LeBlanc]

Well, like all of you, if you can remember far enough back, when you first got involved in the world of turbines, I'm having a mind bending and expanding experience so far, Chris and Richard, like momma birds, patiently regurgitating just enough bits of knowledge so as not to overtax my recip.IC digestive system and the fog is just beginning to clear in spots enough to get a brief, blurry glimpse into the potential of the powerplant. I am excited. We had another good brain-storming session yesterday that left me feeling, well, in the words of Henry Rollins, "Gimme, gimme, gimme, I need some more! Gimme, gimme, gimme, don't ask what for!"
And I scored some bigazz brakes from my current racing sponsor (shameless plug) Donald Shaw Motorcycles in Hephzibah GA, who contributed them gratis to the STAN cause.

[racket]

Hi Keith

LOL..............it never stops expanding , the more we learn , the more we realise we know "nothin'" ...........its an open ended hobby .

After getting our first engine to fire up we think about how to get more more power , then the journey really begins .............Scientific Papers written by PhD guys with alphabet soup after their names, Papers that I can barely read let alone understand until after the third or fourth reading , and then its only a very rudimentary grasp of what they're trying to convey .................but each bit of info helps to get us a little further down the road .

Its a consuming hobby , even after more than 20 years, the sound of firing up a new engine with all its "unknowns" still gives a thrill , .........lotsa questions .....will it work, have I thought of everything, whats that strange sound , why isn't it spooling up , those flames out the exhaust don't look right , bugger ......fire up you bastard , ......then the disappointment when you have to shut it down before something melts ...............only to go through it all again until we work out whats required to coax her into life .

Heh heh , then we have to ride/drive whatever the engine is put in , this brings another set of "concerns?" .............it certainly keeps the brain cells alive as we get older, but doesn't do much for our more developed sense of self preservation, mine gets sorely tested as the engines scare the crap out of me , ..........................if only I was 40 years younger ....26 again, knowing everything , bullet proof and invincible ,....... it'd be much easier :-)

Enjoy the sessions with Chris and Richard , turbines are a whole new world compared to pistons .............I'm looking forward to seeing how the project develops, its a concept that hasn't been explored before by any of us DIY'ers ................but having spent many years operating steam plants of various sizes, I'm certain it'll produce some "usable" horsepower .

Cheers
John

[turbochris]

I hope it goes good, I worry about that.

We started an online whiteboard for this project. We're finding it's really helpful for project management. Richard came up w it. Keith is our least experienced computer guy and he's been running the shit out of the white board. it's more to help us build than to describe the build. Keith broke it into sections and anyone can reference it anywhere.

[turbochris]

here's the link to the project whiteboard- PROJECT STAN link

[Richard OConnell]

STAN update:
Project STAN will be relocated to a top secret undisclosed location within Compucar Nitrous. Thanks Ernie!!

We are talking to our tank guy and finalizing a design.
The current idea is for it to hold 8 gallons of water at 500deg Fahrenheit (260C). Our tank pressure should be ~750psi at temp.



On the electronical front:
I have started on an onboard computer that will make STAN and Keith happy. The idea here is to make something that does all of those things the driver doesnt want to have to think about. Its going to have a small output display screen for reading temp/pressure before the pass and will have a toggle switch that enables throttle/traction control after the burnout. When traction control is on, the vehicle will actively compare output shaft speed to ground speed and will limit the amount of steam going into the turbine accordingly.
I'm thinking something along these lines:


int offsetThreshhold=5;
float mechDiff=7.25;
if(shaftSpeed>(1.02*groundSpeed*mechDiff)+offsetThreshold)
{
 regulateSpeed();
}

//PSUEDO: if outputShaftSpeed greater than (2% more than groundSpeedInput x (shaft To Ground Speed translation difference) plus (allowed slippage factor threshold))



All of those numbers are completely made up, but this is my train of thought for how STAN should detect wheel slippage. Turbine response time will make this a bit funky I think. This is the base, but I'm certain it will become more complex as we get some numbers.

Speaking of numbers, the next function of STAN OS will be to begin recording data over very small increments of time, store them in an array, and write the data to a flatfile on an SD Card when the pass is complete. I have ordered an Arduino compatible SD Card reader/writer for storing data after the run. All I'll need to do is pull the card out and pop it in my laptop to get the numbers from the pass.


Keith and Chris have been heavy on hardware lately. They have laid out a mock frame and have made good progress on getting STAN's power to the rear tire.

[Keith LeBlanc]

I like the driver not thinkin stuff, suits me jus fine. DAAAAUUUUMMMM Richard, you got me drooling over the electron bits and I don't even know what the hell u talkin bout. Must be the delivery.

[turbochris]

I have the sensors/peripherals covered. I will try to use as many popular reliable plentiful junkyard parts as possible. I have some wicked industrial shit but I'll sell that and use the money for the experienced junkyard parts, no little girly jewelry shit.

[Keith LeBlanc]

No shiny jewel-like baubles? I'll stare at the swirlies.

[racket]

Hi Chris

With your tank outlet , a nice bellmouthed inlet to the supply line would be advantageous , but I don't think you need to go to anything larger than 1" bore plumbing , that'd flow a gallon a second at ~30ft/sec fluid velocity , it should be 100% water in the line as the pressure won't drop until it reaches the nozzles , I'm imagining you'll have the tank outlet very close to the "engine" to minimise any line losses ............large diameter flanges and fittings will be harder to seal .............though a large flanged opening would allow you to fit line inlet plumbing onto the bottom of the tank if its horizontally mounted , so as to drain every last drop of water out of it ...............LOL, but hopefully the acceleration will be good enough to force all the water to the rear of the tank anyway and cover a "higher" centrally mounted outlet.

Where will your "throttle" valve be situated ?

Beware of "water hammer" effects that can burst lines if a slug of water being propelled by steam at high speeds suddenly comes to a stop , I'd have the "throttle" mounted on the "engine" inlet as close to those nozzles as possible , ..............with full pressure up to that point prior to "putting the pedal to the metal" .

Can't wait to see/hear this beast roar :-)

Cheers
John

[Richard OConnell]

Good to hear it Chris, I bought some sensors and modules as well. Even a few we dont need. Numbers are fun!

[rexhunt]

Hi Richard,

Might be worth looking at PID algorithms for the control programming. There may be some code you can copy online.

Cheers,
Rex

[rythmnbls]

There's a PID library for the Arduino here.. playground.arduino.cc/Code/PIDLibrary

Steve.

[turbochris]

Hi John, we were talking about water hammer today. You're right on the money about putting the throttle right near the nozzles. Ernie volunteered to set up a test rig for us. We're going to build an ANDERS CLASS standardized ice vehicle motor and test it. What we're going to do is put a valve on a tank and after the valve, we'll have a pipe with a restrictor at the end smaller than the ID of the throttle valve.

we want to see how the flashing of the steam moves from the throttle valve to the restrictor and what the hammering/vibration is like. We also want to see the pressure spike when we slam the throttle shut.

I have a 35 bar piezo pressure transducer, going to hook it up to my ultra high speed 2 channel data logger (the audio input of my laptop ha ha ha)

[racket]

Hi Chris

Doing a test rig is a great idea , can't have too much data before attempting to "ride it" .

Water hammer can be deadly, play it safe :-)

I was working at a wool processing plant about 35 years ago , operating the boilers , one Sunday night I came in to fire them up and get the plant heated up for the Monday morning start , unbeknownst to me someone in the plant had left the wrong valve open on the Friday night and as the steam condensed in the steam pipes over the weekend it sucked water back into them , ...........when I started to feed steam into the pipes there was hell to play , those 8 inch steam mains full of water were bouncing around all over the place as the steam tried to force the water out..............did I have water hammer ..........it took most of the night to coax the water out of the pipes and finally get them pressurised with just steam.............one scary nights work :-(

When is the first test firings planned for ?

How are you heating the water ?

Cheers
John

[turbochris]

Hi John,
We're putting a plate over the flange with a blended feed opening.
Check out our latest plan-

1. right after the tank we want a spring loaded ball valve that has to be cocked and is latched by the driver and also our electrical safety loop, something happens, it slams shit and has to be reset manually. smooth bore ball valve

2. the throttle will be mounted right on the chamber that has the 4 nozzles- smooth bore ball valve, maybe w the seals loosened up if it hisses after the main valve is cocked no big deal. still thinking about this specific valve

3. We're playing traction control so we want to modulate the power. For so may reasons a valve that can be pulse modulated and emulate a smooth bore is not practical. We're thinking of venting the cavity between the throttle and 4 nozzles instead and just wasting the pressure. I think we could use a smaller solenoid and it doesn't have to be smooth bore. I want to keep the chamber full of water at WFO.

I pulled a Racket move and gave the project to Keith and Richard. I'm 100% committed it's just I can't run point on this anymore. I'll make sure they have whatever they need, and they can steer this project any way they want to. The future of this projects in in their hands. They're doing a great job and I'm proud of them. Ernie gave them some shop space closer to their homes. We should have the bodies folded soon, one for them to build, one for me to mock up the drive so it's a bolt in when I bring it down there.

I realized I have too much shit going on and started to pull people into my projects, I learned something from working on the pro mod crew- a tight team can shift the planet!

This worked out really well, after we got this project rolling, I got a call from a TV producer! It's a major network and an major up and coming production company. I can't say much about it right now, but at this point they're getting me, the owner/driver of the pro mod team Ric Fleck, and 2 of our pit crew. Some crazy ideas came up, everyone is stoked, there's money, the sponsor is auto related.

All I can say is the do some other car shows- the execs went "apeshit" over my proposal and th e producers say they never did anything like what we're going to do. You guys are gonna love this. It will be brutal.