Steam locomotive and diesel hybrid engine Kitson Still ... of 20 years!

Tips, advice and tips to lower your consumption, processes or inventions as unconventional engines: the Stirling engine, for example. Patents improving combustion: water injection plasma treatment, ionization of the fuel or oxidizer.
Christophe
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 79001
Registration: 10/02/03, 14:06
Location: Greenhouse planet
x 10933

Steam locomotive and diesel hybrid engine Kitson Still ... of 20 years!




by Christophe » 11/03/16, 19:59

History not to believe that the hybrid engine (diesel more ...) is recent ...

The Kitson-Still Diesel-Steam Locomotive from the 1920!

By Alain Lovato

At a time when a barrel of oil is trading at 54 $, and where our leaders are again considering energy savings, it is to be regretted that various promising experiments carried out a long time ago has not been prosecuted, or taken back since then.

kitson-still-locomotive diesel vapor-pic67.jpg
kitson-still-locomotive-diesel-steam-pic67.jpg (10.38 KIO) Viewed 8244 times


One of these promising experiences, occurred in the field of railway traction, in 1924, ie, there is just 80 years. At that time, we were already trying to save ... coal, a fuel for steam locomotives. The steam locomotives, had a yield of about 10% (when it was not for 7 or 8), and above all, required a very heavy maintenance. The rising cost of labor in these post-World War I years led the railways to try to use more economical traction machines. Where electric traction was not possible, diesel traction was very early thought; The problem was at the time in the transmission; We did not know how to transmit the great powers needed to pull trains from diesel engines to the wheels of the locomotive. In this context, the Kitson company, Leeds developed a very extraordinary machine, to meet the requirements mentioned above; Have a diesel traction machine with reliable and proven transmission. To do this, this company gave this locomotive a quite amazing engine: The Still engine, which knew its hours of glories on fixed and marine machines.

kitson-still-locomotive diesel vapor-pic70.jpg.png
kitson-still-locomotive-diesel-steam-pic70.jpg.png (9.35 KIO) Viewed 8244 times



In a conventional diesel engine, maximum 35% of the thermal energy supplied by the combustion of diesel or fuel oil is converted into mechanical energy. In other words, it is almost 65% of the energy of the engine, which is lost as heat, in the exhaust. Still's idea was to recover a large portion of those calories, to heat a boiler, and produce steam, which was used in the diesel / steam engine.

kitson-still-locomotive diesel vapor-pic72.jpg.png
kitson-still-locomotive-diesel-steam-pic72.jpg.png (36.91 KIO) Viewed 8244 times
hybrid train

The company Kitson, therefore, built a locomotive, equipped with 3 Still engines. The engines were double-acting; Diesel on one side and steam on the other, and could be driven only by steam. An oil burner allowed the rise in pressure, when starting the machine; at 10 km / h, the fuel was injected on the diesel side. The full power being reached after 2 turns, the steam supply, was then cut, until the next stop, except need to supplement the power, in a strong ramp for example.

kitson-still-locomotive diesel vapor-pic68.jpg.png
kitson-still-locomotive-diesel-steam-pic68.jpg.png (39.96 KIO) Viewed 8244 times


It may seem surprising to cut the steam supply but this is due to the particularity of rail traction; The maximum effort is required at startup, then, it takes only a lower power to maintain the speed. In the Still engine, the fact of soliciting the diesel part of the engines, made it possible to maintain them in temperature, and to recover the calories in the boiler which played the role of accumulator of energy. Traction with steam would have caused a drop in the temperature of the diesel, which, aggravated by the consumption of steam, would have lowered the pressure in the boiler.

The Still engines had an efficiency of almost 40% more than the internal combustion engines of the time, and the Kitson-Still locomotive consumed about a fifth of an equivalent steam engine. But it would have required heavy investments to optimize it, increase its power, and allow the marketing of this very promising prototype. The Kitson company could not afford it, and despite the great success of the demonstrations, it went bankrupt, and the Kitson-Still fell into oblivion.

kitson-still-locomotive diesel vapor-pic69.jpg
kitson-still-locomotive-diesel-steam-pic69.jpg (37.22 KIO) Viewed 8244 times


Alain Lovato
0 x
User avatar
chatelot16
Econologue expert
Econologue expert
posts: 6960
Registration: 11/11/07, 17:33
Location: Angouleme
x 264

Re: Steam and diesel engine of the Kitson Still locomotive ... from the 20s!




by chatelot16 » 11/03/16, 20:29

a simple diesel engine heats up and it can run a steam engine with the waste heat ... but this is not the optimum solution

a diesel engine heats up a lot because it's a simple thermal cycle with the same compression and the same relaxation

the solution is rather in the miller cycle: a large part of the isothermal compression, and just a small part of the adiabatic compression to go up a little in temperature before combustion ... then the relaxation to produce energy is much more longer than a normal engine, and the temperature at the end of the relaxation is room temperature!

the miller cycle does not need a heat exchanger on the exhaust, where it is dirty and poses problems: it solves the problem with a compression exchanger which is much easier because it is clean

this principle is used in the schnell generator that knows did for its methanization, but with a yield limited by the turbo which is far from perfection ... with a miller cycle entirely piston is afraid to do even better than turbo

when we do a part of the compression close to the isotherm thanks to several stages and intermediate cooling the relaxation must also be done with several stages of piston ... we see on the net of the 5-stroke engine ... barbaric and inaccurate term with sites that do not explain the main ... but yet the solution is to make more yield
0 x

 


  • Similar topics
    Replies
    views
    Last message

Back to "Special motors, patents, fuel consumption reduction"

Who is online ?

Users browsing this forum : No registered users and 52 guests