Jonathan Mayer

David Baillie wrote:
Most of those have gone the multiple coil permanent magnet route as the most efficient.

Yup, the amount of copper spent on secondary coils would be better spent on increasing the turns in the primary coil.

The Brayton thermodynamic cycle, used in gas turbines, makes it possible to build an engine where the combustion chamber doubles as a furnace. It is also possible for it to run on solid fuels, such as wood. This is all possible due to the use of a regenerative-cooling air duct around the combustion chamber that recycles the heat, so the engine can burn cleanly and produce more power at a higher (cycle) efficiency. The engine may even be able to achieve temperatures hot enough to recycle scrap metal without melting itself. At those temperatures, it should also be possible to cleanly fuel the engine on non-recyclable plastics, most of which convert to just water and CO2 when burned completely. A filtration system may be required for plastics that contain other elements.

The engine is equipped with a water bath to filter out unwanted substances from the exhaust, such as unburnt hydrocarbons (which would not form under optimal combustion), carbon monoxide, and NOxs, without the need for expensive catalysts. Catalytic converters get clogged with ash, which does not get filtered out like it would in a bath. The filter could also remove halogens and heavy metals from certain plastics. The removed ash and NOxs undergo a chemical reaction in the bath to form powerful oxidizers, which when mixed with fuel, makes combustion cleaner and more efficient. The water bath further improves efficiency converting otherwise wasted heat into steam power.

The furnace should be able to create steam power from various chemical or culinary processes such as boiling or dehydration, which could extend to wet fuels, such as other sources of biomass or biological waste. Where boiling is required, the elevated pressures should serve to reduce cook times at a higher temperature, similar to a pressure cooker. The furnace itself, with some skill by the operator, could control the temperature for more delicate chemical or culinary processes, such as roasting or baking.

With the addition of a condenser after the expander, it is entirely feasible that the engine could also be used to generate clean water from water formed during combustion or evaporated in the bath or furnace. By changing the contents of the bath, it should also be possible to distill liquid fuels such as ethanol, cellulosic butanol, or other hydrocarbons, formed from the destructive distillation of solid fuels within the engine, controlled by the air-fuel ratio. Lastly, the heat released upon recondensing could be used for radiant heating which is more efficient than convective heating and does not expose occupants to cold air sucked in from outside like traditional fireplaces do.

In the worst-case scenario, all of the components of this engine could be forged or fabricated. I have designed a rotary compressor-expander mechanism, similar to turbomachinery used in a gas turbine, with a flexible housing that seals against the rotor along flat edges, thus eliminating the need for machine tools (though a milling machine would greatly improve productivity). This all-in-one engine creates a minimalist manufacturing paradigm where the engine, and tools that can be derived from it (including machine tools), are sufficient for building an identical engine.

Looks cool. I'll shoot you a message later.

Olga Booker wrote:I am also quite partial to it when it is too hot outside to cook!

Sun-baked flatbread is actually not a terrible idea, but some Pita bread can be quite dry and aggravating to Pitta dosha. I'm sure it wouldn't bother those with a more Sanguine temperament (hot and humid).

Stacy Witscher wrote:But all food creates heat/energy, that's what a calorie measures.

Not all calories are created equal. Foods that produce free radicals makes your mitochondria less efficient and generates more heat for the same amount of calories. Clogging the lymphatic system is analagous to dowsing oneself in oil.

Olga Booker wrote:Is your list something that you do or something that you think anyone "should" do?

Both.

Olga Booker wrote:  I am a bit ignorant, could you tell me was is a Pitta balancing diet?

Pitta is a dosha/temperament in Ayurvedic medicine, equivalent to a Choleric temperament in Traditional Greek/Western Medicine. A Pitta-balancing diet means you eat foods that balance Pitta dosha.

Mike Fullerton wrote:Pretty cool concept!
The regenerative jacket-cooling/intake air pre-heating is very reminiscent of the sort of cooling loop you see in actual rocket engines. In fact, if the turbine you mentioned were used to spin a blower that forced more air into the system, you'd have the basic ingredients of the expander cycle - like some sort of wood-fueled steampunk RL10.

Yup, regenerative-cooled jet engines were some of the inspirations for this concept. Since there's no liquid fuel, nor are we concerned with ramming as much air as possible, but rather maximizing internal combustion temperatures, pre-heated air should suffice as the coolant. Regeneration has been used since the industrial revolution, however they were not concerned with weight nor cooling their refractory-lined furnaces, but simply improving the efficiency. Light-weight designs, on the other hand, are a requirement in aerospace engineering.

thomas rubino wrote:Where is the superheated intake air coming from?

The air is being heated in the cyan-colored pre-heating channels along the condenser, barrel, riser, and burn tunnel. The air gets hotter as it moves towards the burn tunnel, so there shouldn't be any excessive cooling along any section.

thomas rubino wrote:I see an anvil/hammer do you have a conventional forge set up?

I do not have a forge at the moment, but I had the opportunity of using a gas forge on a farm, which was just a horizontal tube lined with kaowool. My first thought was to cut a hole in the center and weld on a riser.

thomas rubino wrote:You mention a rotating assembly.  Is running resistance taken into account?

I was thinking the upper pre-heating channels, riser, barrel, boiler, and condenser would be mounted to the burn tunnel on a sealed bearing.

thomas rubino wrote:The layering of condensers seems like another resistance point.

Everything above the burn tunnel would be rotating in one fixed assembly, so the only resistance would be the bearings on the burn tunnel. If you have turbine/compressor blades pitched in opposite directions, the blades can spin together and combine outward flow of steam/water/exhaust with the inward flow of air. You can account for different fluid velocities by varying the blades' pitch relative to one another and to the distance from the riser.

thomas rubino wrote:You appear to still load wood as a J tube. where/how is this exhausting?

The exhaust should come out the far end of the condenser, wherever that may be. With a turbine, the condenser can be shortened so as not to add complexity or interfere with the feed tube. I tried marking parts where the 3D geometry overlaps in 2D with alternating colors.

thomas rubino wrote:Water is certainly one of the best mass heat holders,  what volume of water and where are the storage tanks?

I haven't decided on a size. However, the boiler drawn is just a cross section of a cylindrical shell and acts as the feed water storage.

thomas rubino wrote:I don't see this as easily transported at all.

I think it would depend on the size of the boiler, which is application dependent. The condenser has a drain valve and the boiler could be siphoned off, so water weight isn't an issue. The stove is also lighter, because of the steel construction instead of cob/firebrick.

thomas rubino wrote:Let us know if you or someone takes this to a construction stage, that will be extremely interesting!

I am currently welding the prototype. My first milestone is to achieve forging temperatures with just a pre-heating channel on the burn tunnel and a riser. I'm not going to post photos at the moment due to the tendencies of stick welders to burn holes in stainless steel sheets.

Eat a Summer/Pitta/Choleric balancing diet.

Reduce consumption of hard to digest foods as the body generates heat for that.

Stay hydrated, but don't drink with a meal, as it dilutes stomach acid.

Meditate/do alternative nostril breathing.

Practice fasting in the Spring to burn fat and cleanse the lymphatic system so that body is ready for Summer.

The Role of Atmospheric CO2 and Incident Radiant Energy in Charge Separation at the Air–Water Interface

From the research of Dr. Pollack and others, it should be possible to induce charge separation in water using infrared and agitating the water with CO2 from the exhaust, thus allowing for the distillation of electric charge, and making electrical generation without electronics or moving parts possible. Since we cannot generate something from nothing, the process should also work to accelerate condensation of water and pre-heat the intake air.