Talk:Doble steam car
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[edit] Fuel?
What was used to boil the water? The article mentions "mileage per gallon", which suggests that gasoline was used, but then what made the steam car preferable to a gasoline car? What's the big deal about steam? --Keeves 00:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
- You are obviously new to this subject, so I will try to keep things as simple as possible. Steam is not the fuel but the working fluid: so of course fuel has to be burnt in a firebox to make the steam — gasoline, diesel, or cheaper fuels like kerosene and various "green "biofuels also various narural gases; modern steam cars can adapt to just about any liquid or gas fuel with little or no modification. They much are less choosy about what they burn because what drives the pistons is the steam raised by burning fuel to heat water in a small generator that is separate from the engine. An internal combustion engine burns the fuel directly in the cylinder where everything happens in very rapid succession: volatile fuel is mixed with air and burns very fast (explodes if you like) to create instantaneous pressure which acts on the piston and turns the engine. A steam unit on the other hand burns fuel in the steam generator or boiler which delivers the high pressure steam it produces to the engine as required. With many steam cars, including Doble's, once you have built up enough steam pressure, the burner can be made to cut out and the engine continues to work for a time using up the reserve of steam without consuming any fuel at all until the burner has to be autmatically reignited. This brings all the advantages of a modern hybrid car, except that a steam car is not hybrid: it is one integrated system that ought to be be a lot cheaper to manufacture. Other advantages come from the fact that whatever the demand for work the generator's steam production rate is more or less constant which means that it can be adjusted once and for all to burn the chosen fuel very completely, and this of course means that pollution levels are constant and easier to control (emissions from the recent EZEE steam car engine developed in Germany are said to be undetectable). On the other hand how clean internal combustion engine emissions are depends on the demands made on the engine, whether it is cruising, ticking over or suddenly accelerates. Of course the steam car has its own disadvantages such as the fact that you have to use water for the steam and that brings difficulties such as freezing in cold weather, cylinder lubrication etc. but the Doble brothers and others went a very long way towards overcoming these and it is often argued that if a fraction of the research that has gone into other prime movers had been diverted to steam, the problems would have been overcome long ago and we would today have silent cars, trucks, buses, farm tractors and plant machinery (modern steam vehicles are virtually noiseless and don't go "brumm-brumm" or even "choo-choo). For more information I suggest you go to the external combustion engine chapter where there is a short article and a discussion. You can also take a look here - [1] although they are wrong to say that the car "runs on water". I repeat, water is not the fuel, it is the working medium - also don't always swallow glib pronouncements about steam's "low thermal efficiency" - there's a lot more to it than that. Good luck,--John of Paris 15:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC).
[edit] New edits
I have tried to reorganise the logical sequence of the article, corrected some factual errors on the Detroit boiler and added information I have recently acquired on the Model D. Also have started a short description of the Model F. (Abner Doble always speaks of "models" rather than "series"). This can be expanded upon, but I think will do for the time being. --John of Paris 12:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Those are fine additions. Well done. Salmanazar 21:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
