h a l f b a k e r yThe embarrassing drunkard uncle of invention.
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The modern automobile needs a bewildering array of liquids to be poured into it before it is ready to go.
Simplify! Simplify!
In order to bring order to this chaotic situation, I propose an engine - a prime mover - which will use, as for as possible, just one fluid.
A thick oil - so that it
lubricates. It will burn this very same oil. Could be turbine, or the old boiler - piston - condenser type, if the internal combustion thing is hard to get going with a thick fuel. The working fluid will be the same oil, in that case. The cooling system will circulate the very same fluid. Oil has less heat capacity than water, so a larger volume of it will have to be circulated. Could be a vegetable oil, so that you can fry fish n' chips in it.
So just one reservoir of oil serves as the fuel tank, oil sump and radiator. You don't have to wonder whether you are out of radiator fluid, lubricating oil or fuel. When you top up that one tank, you've topped up all three.
At the end of the trip, a touch on the w.washer knob and a fine spray covers the windshield, the wipers gently wave and then the remains of squashed bugs and dust disappear in a flash of flame.
Haven't been away, just lurking.
(??) This could stick up like a hood scoop...
http://www.fsifilte...efinery%20small.gif
[normzone, Sep 13 2005]
prototype refinery engine
http://flatheaddrag...s98kl/98mbrown2.jpg
[normzone, Sep 13 2005]
Baked: naphtha engine
https://en.wikipedi...unch#Naphtha_engine
An external combustion engine that uses naphtha as both the fuel and working fluid [discontinuuity, Jan 12 2019]
[link]
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Sounds like a two-stroke lawnmower. |
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<Presses the button to squirt windshield wiper fluid. Taken directly from the crankcase, it’s a viscous, burnt-black oil.> “God, I can’t see a flipping thing!” <And doesn't see the telephone pole rushing at him.> |
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This sounds much like the first engines. Before they made them work properly. |
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/just lurking/ well, good to see you've ceased lurking for a bit. |
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But the whole point of using multiple liquids is that some are better than others at each job. You said yourself that this oil wouldn't be as effective for combustion or heat capacity. |
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Nope, sorry, go back to lurking if this is the best you can do. (like your profile BTW) |
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This could work, it just needs to be more complex. |
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Have a small refinery under the hood of every automobile, and turn crude into motor oil, transmission fluid, gasoline, brake fluid, coolant, refrigerant, and washer fluid. |
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consider that for many years there have been air cooled engines. |
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manual or pneumatic steering |
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now we haVE 2 options, go with a thin oil that goes thru a heater for thinning like 0w-30 or just go electric and voila (thats french for presto!) |
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I have a weedeater that only takes one fluid, a mixture of gas and oil. |
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why would you want to use the same fluid for lubrication
that you use for combustion? Isn't it intuitive that the fluid
that lubricates the rings is going, by near necesity, to have
different properties from the fuel? Hopelessly
compromised. On the other hand i have heard tell of
truckers who ran out of fuel pouring crankcase oil into the
fuel tank to make a burnable blend. |
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Very well, a fuel oil pump in a hydrodynamic suspension would be nice to function as a bearing too. But you have to simplify the engine first, a likely candidate would be a rotary engine of some sort with bearings at each ends of driveshaft. Also, the fluid is in continous flow such that it can act as heat regenerator before being burned. And so, in some way, a new CVT would be operated by varying the pump pressure. And so it would be the Single Fluid Engine you've dreamed after... Good luck for your quest! |
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(Your idea is very much plausible, just scrap that wiper thing anyways... just wondering why they boned you right away... hmmmmm, must be a controversial idea - imagine scrapping out multibillion industries catering to redundancy just to earn their respective worldly shares?) |
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the multi billion dollar ethylene glycol industry? The real problem here is that we need an engineered hydrocarbon that performs cooling, lubricating, suspension, transmission, and fuel purposes over a wide temperature range. This fluid would need to be close to conventional fuel in cost, meet similar emissions standards, and have competitive performance for all the purposes it is used for. Then you are beholden to the OMNIFLUIDS co. for all your fluid needs. There doesn't need to be a conspiracy against this idea, it goes against common sense. I pay a premium price for my transmission fluid because it has special properties that my fuel does not have. |
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//truckers who ran out of fuel pouring crankcase oil into the fuel tank to make a burnable blend// |
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If anyone saw "Scrappy Races" (a UK spinoff from Scrapheap Challenge) they had a great unintentional demonstration of a diesel engine running on its own sump oil. The engine was destroyed. |
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death in the desert vs. running a 50/50 fuel oil bend and ruining my engine. I think i know what i would choose. |
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WcW, I agree. The engine mentioned did indeed produce a lot of power before its demise. The reason it was running on its own sump oil was because they had accidentally removed the governor and then killed the normal fuel supply in an attempt to stop it. If it had been in gear, it might have got a fair few miles before the lack of lubrication seized it. |
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There are many SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) rules
against doing this including the possibility of the engine
catching fire. Engine oil used for cooling is not a new idea,
but worthy of consideration only on small industrial
combustion engines with adequate ventilation and air
cooling considerations like out door oil field engines. FYI:
those chuga chuga oil field pumping engines are cooled by
the oil being pumped. |
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//Engine oil used for cooling is not a new idea, but
worthy of consideration only on small industrial
combustion engines with adequate ventilation and air
cooling considerations like out door oil field engines.// |
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It's more prevalent than that. Any "air cooled" engine is
really oil>air. My motorcycle has an oil cooler that is
functionally equivalent to a water radiator, that's not so
common in 4cyl road bikes like mine but is very common
on single cylinder enduro/dirt bikes. The oil is doing
double duty as coolant/lubricant or often triple duty as
the working fluid in the clutch. In some cars, an old
Renault turbo diesel I had for example, had an oil cooler
inside the radiator, mainly for the extra heating load
caused by the oil-fed turbocharger. So that was
oil>water>air. |
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The advantage of water is that it's very cheap, non-flammable, non-toxic*, ubiquitous, and has a very high specific heat - probably the most desirable property in a coolant. |
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If you use oil, you need wider coolant channels and higher flow rates, a larger radiator, and a supply of expensive oil. If your coolant system leaks, do you lose your lubricant too ? Double whammy ... |
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*Geographical restrictions may apply. |
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A waterwheel? Given the rainfall in the UK, you'd
hardly ever need to top up the tank. |
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You couldn't run a tank off a waterwheel - tanks have to go across country, and up and down hills. You'd need extraordinary amounts of hose ... |
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//If you use oil, you need wider coolant channels and
higher flow rates, a larger radiator, and a supply of
expensive oil. If your coolant system leaks, do you lose
your lubricant too ?// |
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There's no disputing the capacity/utility of water. It's
great at keeping the temperature in a narrow window,
water cooled engines can then run tighter tolerances and
high compression. Conversely, an oil-cooled engine runs
looser tolerances allowing component expansion. You
burn a little oil/lose compression when cold but the
engine can heat up beyond the temps that water would
allow, at say 135C you reject heat much more quickly
than 95C, and you gain efficiency although that's offset
against running lower compression ratio to avoid
detonation. Running oil alone suits applications like big
dirt bikes, it's considered less vulnerable since most of
the oil is inside galleries within the block/crank/gear case
with hard lines to the oil-cooler. Losing the oil is pretty
catastrophic, but since that's also true with a water-
cooled engine it's no more vulnerable. Oil alone gets you
a lot of simplicity, resilience and lower weight at the
expense of a little fuel efficiency, a reasonable tradeoff
in many cases. |
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But is that both air cooling fins and oil circulation cooling, or pure oil circulation ? |
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Water-cooled engines rarely have any special provision for radiative or convective cooling direct from the block, which makes them more compact. |
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I note you've wisely refrained from using a single
fluid containing both the fuel and oxidiser, i.e. an
explosive. |
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A substance containing both fuel and oxidiser may well be unstable, indeed hypergolic, but is not necessarily explosive, or explosive only under certain conditions. |
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All propellants have that characteristic, and although the rate of reaction is high, it is not a detonation (a true "explosion"). It is only deflagration, or very rapid combustion. To the untrained observer, however, it is not easy to make a fine discrimination, particularly if you're doing the sensible thing of diving for the nearest solid cover to avoid any shrapnel. |
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Sorry, I have been away. What did I miss? |
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What's the last thing you remember ? |
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Basically, the Doctor has regenerated as a female, the U.S. Government went into receivership and they're inviting bids from potential buyers, David Blaine's doing some really weird stunt that so far has (unfortunately) failed to kill him, Mars Bars have got smaller, and it turns out that the Moon landings really were faked, on a Universal Studios sound stage built on Mars. |
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