Steam engine

>>1098377
What are you going to be doing for the furnace/fuel? That will play a big role in if the steel drum is good enough.

>>1098384
Most likely finding a second hand wood stove. Maybe a pellet stove as they are more common where I live.

It better be super low pressure. Drums can't handle much pressure.

Don't think that will do it ,don't fuck around with the boiler you don't want it exploding.

>>1098400
>>1098397
Any idea what I could use for a boiler? I want something that could propel a small vessel

>>1098404
You could probably use an old propane tank. Get the propane out first, of course.

Yeah, I don't mean to preach here OP but don't use a drum. Use something built to withstand high pressure, like the gas tank already suggested.

Please.

Steam boilers build up far more pressure than people realise, there is immense power in steam and you don't want all that pressure catastrophically venting. Do you know what would happen? Do you think it would just suddenly start leaking?

It would create a very loud bang and a large pink cloud, a thing which happened commonly in the golden age of steam. Guess what makes the cloud pink.

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>>1098413

If youre planning going above 1.5 bar without trying to kill yourself, don't use a barrel. Get an empty gas canister or.something similar

>>1098410
OP here
I just did a quick search I found some new, 100 lb tanks for sale. Not a bad price either for what they are.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Worthington-Pro-Grade-100-lb-Empty-Steel-Propane-Cylinder-with-Multi-Valve-327701/202936849?cm_mmc=Shopping%7cTHD%7cG%7c0%7cG-BASE-PLA-D28I-Grills%7c&gclid=Cj0KEQiA1b7CBRDjmIPL4u-Zy6gBEiQAsJhTMETnmdxx27x2YjvWjv3CAjaJbt3JTTguRXqKdohhojMaAiiJ8P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

>>1098377
first off, pressure vessels are no fucking joke. the legally defined nature of mechanical engineering came about because people were getting blown up left and right back in the 18th century from shitty boilers people slapped together.

ideally, you want to repurpose something that already was designed to handle pressurized gasses. i would suggest an old air compressor tank because they usually have the safety valves built in. propane tank might work too, but the wall thickness on a propane tank isn't enough for my tastes.

i cannot overstate how dangerous high pressure steam is. it can melt the flesh right off your bones and cut through you like a lightsaber.

i would suggest you build things at a very small scale first. a boiler out of 2 inch copper pipe would be a good idea. John-Tom is a good website to start out with.

Also, do a pressure test first. Fill it 95% with water and then out the other 5% air under pressure, so if it were to explode the pressure would drop instantly since the compressed air volume is small & hydrostatic laws

>I wouldn't know how much pressure they can take.

I read about a boiler failure that happened a few years ago. Poor design installing it and human error resulted in a situation where the boiler didnt have enough water in it and was overheated. When the guy opened a valve to let cold water into the system it came in contact with hot surfaces of the boiler, resulting in explosion where it flew through a brick wall crushing the guy.
Fucking up with these things is often fatal.

>>1098461
That's actually a slightly different issue, adding water to a hot dry boiler is catastrophic no matter what, it blows apart even the strongest boilers.

You wouldn't pour metal into a wet cast, you wouldn't pour water into a hot boiler.

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>>1098377
you're far better of with passing the fumes over tubes filled with water/steam than the other way around.
You can apply far greater pressures, and if something fails it will result in a leak rather than a life endangering explosion, and it's probably also easier to construct.
pic highly related, i couldn't find one in english but you should get the idea.

>>1098520
Thisx1000, OP
Fire tube a shit, water tube flash boiler a best.

>>1098520
>if something fails it will result in a leak rather than a life endangering explosion

unless your combustion isn't dialed in... but yeah i'd agree

>>1098377
That's a fucking huge boiler, just what in fucks name are you trying to power?

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Hope you learn from history OP

>>1098716
What the actual fuck is this?

>>1098377

ASME boiler and pressure vessel code.

read it and have fun killing yourself.

>>1098843
Looks like a steam engine from the mid to late 1800's that blew a boiler, basically peeled the skin off and left the pipes, which then went all squiddy in the kaboom. Just a guess.

>>1098716
>elder god manifest

>>1098865
Close. The boiler explosion blew the pipes out the front of the locomotive. Might even have blown the front hatch off too. Its hard to tell from the picture.

>>1098377
don't use a steel drum, make a giant steam engine and use a shipping container

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>>1098418
I'd like to point out that if you drill holes for the tubes the local stress will triple
So only apply a fraction of the design pressure or you'll most likely die

Traction Engine Engineer here, DO NOT MAKE YOUR OWN BOILER.

I have both worked on engines for decades and built them from scratch, boiler building is a fine art, I know some top engineers that still take the process very slowly, plus here in the U.K it is ILLEGAL to fire a boiler that has not beeb tested by a registered boiler tester.

My advice, buy a used boiler with a long services history, have it tested officially. You would not survive firing a weak boiler.

Anyone here know what it costs to just get a proper steam boiler for use in a small (say 10-25') vessel?

OP should begin by studying live steam forums.

Forget everything you think you know. Forget or ignore anything told you by those who speculate and are not live steamers.

You need to be an effective hobby machinist first. It's not a cheap hobby but machining is huge fun and can build many things.

You can run hobby steam engines off compressed air.

>>1099335
Several thousand dollars and it must be inspected in most civilized locations. Unless you are a god tier TIG welder/boilermaker it won't be easily affordable.

See boatbuilding forums for reference then ask. Steam power is a system, not just a boiler. You have to be rich, or very dedicated, or a skilled TIG welder to outfit a vessel.

>>1099324
What could go wrong if I use aluminium for the inner body, then put steel ontop of it and then use insulation, after that put a emergency valve if the pressure gets too high, as well as digital safety mechanism for temp/pressure ?

>>1099324
Go fuck yourself. I am a mechanical engineer, a steam engine fireman, and someone who actually worked as a boilersmith and I can tell you, that if a person with a brain makes a boiler (whether OP qualifies or not is a different matter), and if they know the basics about stresses, designing joints, water level etc, there is no danger. The health and safety paranoia makes life unbearable. Just bear in mind, there is a bit of theory to master.

>>1099352
>>1099344
Can I get answer engi buddy ?
Also I am thinking of remotley fire it/ stop it while it stays away from my house in a underground hole made out of 10 inches concrete walls (its an old thing for some kind of well or something in my property), so even if it blows up it will just blow inside this hole, and the metal roof ontop of it.

I am not OP btw, but I am thinking of making a steam boiler and steam turbine to power small generator.

>>1098899
Wow. The power of that shit. Thanks for the clarification anon. Everything I know I learned from Thomas with my five year old. Oddly, that sort of catastrophe doesn't come up much on a kid's show, so I'm a little proud I was close!

>>1099342
Even if it theoretically has to be inspected, I do not see a reason to bother with that with a small boiler. Not worth the effort. Especially as in many countries the bureaucracy is unbearable.

>>1098377

I have built boilers, and I can tell you, that using the sort of a container you want is a bad idea. The drawing given is oversimplified too. What you need to know first, is:

> Every boiler surface exposed to fire needs to be covered by water. If it is not, it will fail, as metals weaken with temperature. Boiler explosions happen when a boiler runs low on water

>Have a feedwater apparatus that is reliable because of the above

>No 90deg joints as they concentrate stress. Parts joining at an angle need to be forged into round shapes

For a beginner, a watertube, monotube type boiler (or steam generator really) is the best. Make it out of soft copper tubing. For more information - live steam and steamboat forums and actual mechanical engineering literature. Boilers are perfectly normal industrial equipment - there is plenty of literature on them. LITERATURE, not wikipedia. Not even those forums will tell you how to actually design one, because hobby machinists usually work of other peoples designs. But, not be alarmed, the math is basic. Just don't look for "rules of thumb", but actual stress calculations.

Don't listen to the morons who think boilers are inherently unsafe. Just do it properly. Read a book.

>>1099354
No. No aluminium. You can actually melt it in an ordinary fire. So let me repeat. No. The whole idea of making it of layers is naive. You need a strong, but ductile material, like low-carbon steel or copper. Just calculate how thick the tube needs to be to withstand the pressure, using a safety factor of around 5, and get a steel or copper tube. Also bear in mind this:
>>1099365

And turbines are not very efficient at small sizes, a steam engine would be better. How do you want to design that turbine? What sort of a boiler do you want exactly anyway?

Gear pump or injector for water feed?

>>1099375
>Gear pump or injector for water feed?

Homework. Not here. Is this a comprehensive live steam forum?

Stop wanting shortcuts. If you won't study comprehensively you don't need a boiler. You don't know what you should want UNTIL you've done proper study.

As the other Anon wisely said, LITERATURE, not wikipedia. Not here either. If you aren't willing to devote OCD-level study to the project do something else.

/diy/ is for quick answers to simple problems and for redirection to authoritative answers to complex problems.

Study water tube boilers as recommended and you will see why. Anon pointed you in the right direction, so fucking go there. Not here. There.

Don't try to invent anything new until you've mastered the old, established, proven ways of making, controlling and applying steam. You'll have more fun and get your desired result more quickly.

>>1099379

Agree fully, but allow me to indulge the other anon, because I have time.

Therefore:

>>1099375
Do you have access to both? Then both. Most regulatory bodies demand two independent feedwater systems. But, if you have a flash boiler a pump, working continuously will of course be more efficient.

>>1098520
energietechniek broeder

>>1099408
Mijn neger

>>1099379
Jeez man, you mad

>>1098716
I didn't expect that many pipes. Then again I don't know jack shit about making steam efficiently.

>>1099827
No, I'm emphatic. Do not confuse the two.

If OP wants success he/she/it must ruthlessly identify and avoid stupidity and ignorance lest he get bogged down in silly AVOIDABLE noobish thrashing.

People who get shit done do it by fierce, focused study and systematic planning. First step is shitcan what you think you know then learn what you need to know.

>>1098413
>blowdown valve

profit

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>>1098377
Don't do steam. If you want to mess with heat engines, make a Sterling engine. They were actually invented because the guy knew too many people that killed themselves from steam engine explosions.

>>1100119
Enjoy your zero power output
There's a reason no one uses them

>>1098420
Mech/Power Eng here - worked with PV's for 14 years. Please don't fuck with makeshift 'boilers'. Not an old air receiver, not a propane tank.
If you can't do the calculations to prove you're not going to blow something up, then just don't.

>>1098421
also don't do this (unless you know how to calculate stored energy). there is a reason that pressure testing with gas has a lot of rules around it.

>>1100223
50% efficiency is pretty good.
They are not all desktop toys. There are big boy stirling engines.

Can a steam engine be made into a closed loop with two one-way valves and a cooling stack or something to turn the steam back into water?

>>1100291
Complex, not remotely worth the effort, but possible. Water isn't precious and when steam evaporates nature will condense it somewhere else.

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>>1100288
>50% efficiency is pretty good.
Let me guess you watched that video from Lindybeige. Slapping efficiencies to certain things and calling it a day is not how thermodynamics work anon.

>They are not all desktop toys. There are big boy stirling engines.
Yes, still with shitty power output. The fact remains that you're limiting yourself to convective heat transfer inside the pistons, instead of using a proper heat exchanger like any other sane person would.

>>1100291
>turn the steam back into water
That's what pretty much every power plant does.

>>1100291

Usually not worth the effort - water is cheap, copper isn't

>>1100317
I thought we were talking about theoretical shit, so I gave the theoretical answer.

Diy solar stirling gives me a hardon.
>10kW
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-powered_Stirling_engine

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>>1100423
that's cute

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>>1100466
Wtf is wrong with you man.

>>1100466
Towers are cooler

Propane tanks are only rated for ~400 psi. Get yourself an oxygen/argon/co2/helium bottle. They're used all over; medical, welding, suba, aeronautical, restaurants, etc. Those would all be rated in the 2000 - 3500 psi range.

>>1100529
the point i'm trying to make:
stirling engines are for homos and quiters. Real men use steam turbines

>>1099352
Fuck are you dumb. No one here is building their own boiler. Fuck me

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>>1100119
Stirlings are great, but they have a low power density. And steam engines will not actually kill you.

>>1100291
>>1100315
>>1100327

It makes sense to run a closed cycle for two reasons.

One, is that in a closed container, steam turning to water (condensing) will form a vacuum. Of course, you need a pump to pump the water out of the condenser, much like you need to feed it into the boiler. This only consumes a small fraction of the engine output. You will also need to either use this pump, or a separate ejector to remove air, as air inhibits condensation. One atmosphere of pressure may not seem like much, but if you examine it closely you will see that 0-1 bar is where the largest enthalpy drops occur (if you don't know what this means, and want to play with engines, consider it your first homework). It's a crucial part of the cycle. First engines, Newcomen and Watt relied on cylinder (and condenser) vacuum instead of boiler pressure. Locomotive engines exhausted to the atmosphere for practical reasons.An efficient plant relies on both high pressures and low vacuums to generate power efficiently.

Two, if you say that:
>water is cheap
Then you have no idea what you are talking about. For high pressure boilers you need pure water, no mineral content, or you will have scale forming on the tubes. Water preparation is hardly cheap.

>>1100574

Damn, I forgot. Pic related:
>>1100951

Is a watertube, two drum boiler made using oxygen tanks as drums. Two drums, copper risers, two outside downcomer tubes of a large diameter. Natural circulation happens freely, the boiler makes steam quickly and at a high rate. It also got an economiser and superheater some time ago.

>>1099342
Why the focus on tig

>>1099352
t.someone trying to kill OP

>>1100953
did you also managed to nig rig a turbine and generator?

>>1101336
>nig rig

Do you know what a nig rig (or redneck for that matte) boiler looks like? Somewhat like what me, and some other steam nut tried to dissuade people from doing, if you follow the thread. This is a high output and safe design. Efficiency still leaves a bit to be desired though.

I have several small steam engines. Engines have a better internal efficiency at small sizes, I have went into detail over it here: >>1091076 which is in the hydro thread. I am working on building a larger one, also detailed in that thread

>>1099342
>>1101270

Especially, as boilers are usually electrode welded. You need soft steel and special electrodes for it. Welding boilers is an art in itself, but preparing the joints is the difficult part - no 90deg joints except for the tubesheets, which have the benefit of being held by the actual tubes, and so on. So if you are a beginner, and you pay other people to do certain things for you, it is beneficial to keep the design simple, to avoid the manufacturing complications, because you just cannot take shortcuts.

>>1101362
>Engines have a better internal efficiency at small sizes
why?
Also, what do you power with it?

>>1099827
>turning a fluid into a gas inside a sealed container
Madness should be given.

>>1101524
Inverse square law Id assume . I dont actually know. Also I not the one you responded to.

>>1101524
Because of how turbines work. What happens in a turbine, is an expansion of steam in a nozzle, acting on a rotor (which itself can facilitate expansion), and so on for several stages. The shafts and rotors are sealed by labyrinths, which throttle the steam enough so that little of it escapes. When you have a small unit you usually cannot facilitate multiple stages of expansion, and if you can, sealing becomes an issue and a lot of fresh steam goes into the condenser or the outside. With a single stage you get incomplete expansion (and also a lot of waste). Not to mention you start running into practical problems. I won't go into detail, but essentially, if you were to calculate the optimum rotor rotational speed for a single stage de Laval turbine, you get values around 100000 rpm for a 1,5 kW unit. At least that's what I recall from once trying to calculate this for my boiler parameters. An engine on the other hand works "volumetrically". It does not really care what size it is (it still has a preference for being slightly bigger though). It can work as slow as you want it to, with decent torque. Another issue is regulation. The demanded output on small units, because of where they can be employed, has a tendency to vary drastically in relation to the power output. For an engine with a cut-off regulator this is not an issue, and it's efficiency will go up at partial load because of a more complete expansion. For a small turbine, you are go down with efficiency drastically due to throttling. Turbines are wonderful for large stable loads as in power plants.

>>1101631
thanks for the reply senpai, the more you know. But what and how do you power stuff with it?
And how do you match the pump flow rate with the power output? Did you implement some sort of feedback system?

>>1101631
Do you have any opinion on modern steam trains in places where diesel electrics might be too complicated (third world)?

>>1101669
Belt, hand control. The best feedback system would be a centrifugal governor changing the cut-off. I have one engine with a throttle governor. The one I want to build I designed with a cut-off governor.

>>1101672
Reasonable. Many of the so-called modern steam ideas are just applying basic thermodynamics to those locomotives - something that is long overdue. But the cult surrounding it is a bit worrying to me, as cults have a tendency to breed pseudoscience. So lets just say, I think that steam locos designed by good engineers have potential. I have visited places that still employ steam and it is absolutely true that they are better there for the spare parts reason - they can make all the parts for a steam engine on a lathe, mill and a forge.

>>1101739
Do you have any short list of the promising improvements that weren't present on historical locomotives?

>>1101987
In my opinion as an engineer, the problems lay in several things. One, is the boiler design. Locomotive boilers have no economisers (water preheaters), so that needs to be done. A proper boiler would be closer to a counter-current heat exchanger, with the coldest water entering at the front where the gasses are colder, and only then going into the boiler barrel, where the temperature is of course constant and equal due to saturation. A superheater would need to be closer to the firebox, and possibly designed as a counter current exchanger.

Second, there is a lot of writings about ejectors. Indeed, locomotive exhaust was often designed based on rules of thumb, an that is no proper thermodynamics/fluid mechanics. But, I have seen erronous assumptions in the modern locomotive exhaust theory, so I would just opt to design it like one would a proper ejector. Or, better yet, I believe a condensing cycle could be employed in locomotives, meaning that the forced draft would have to be done by different apparatus anyway. Condensing would imply a closed cycle for the working water, which would be clean, therefore higher pressures could be feasible (no scale on the boiler tubes), but for it to actually induce a vacuum in the condenser, the cooling water would need to be cooled evaporatively, meaning it would have to be replenished - yet this can be done with any water, as scale is not an issue.

Third, engines themselves - this is of lesser importance, but the internal efficiency of engines could be improved by using separate inlet and exhaust valves, and borrowing some things from diesel engine practice.

>>1098377
>can a heat exchanger be used as a heat exchanger
yes
did you have a real question?

>>1101666

Is this a troll thread? I'm not an expert and just graduating at chemE. Any old teacher who played around with steam tells who dangerous it is.

>building your own boiler

Even a professional boiler designed by a team of professional turns into a a bomb whithout proper use and maintenance. A home made boiler would cost a fuckton of money and is very similar to a home made nuclear bomb. Good to kill yourself and the neghboors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

Also spend a week with any termodynamics book. You will never ever want to do anything with steam again.

>>1102306
>chemE
And it shows. OP is retarded to use such a boiler, but watertube boilers like >>1098520 aren't that dangerous.
This >>110095 anon knows what he's doing and i think he's quite alive and well

>>1102381
woops >>1100951

>>1101362
>Engines have a better internal efficiency at small sizes

steam engines do. aeroderivative combustion turbines get less efficient as they get smaller due to size ratio of the housing clearance/blade length.

>>1102310
Thermodynamics is really quite easy to master if you are not a blithering idiot. The "thermo is an enemy of men" meme is frankly a self fulfilling prophecy among many students I see in my institution. Don't fall for it.

I personally devoted myself to studying thermo in its various forms because I was interested in steam, and well, I am still very enthusiastic about steam. I just know how it works now.

>>1102391
You misunderstood I think. My bad, what I meant to say that when you are confined to small sizes, piston engines are more efficient than turbines. Their efficiency still actually goes down with size, just less than with turbines, so when you go down with power they overtake at a certain point.

>>1098843
A disaster

>>1098377
Additional life insurance seems having not a clue is a bad start

>>1098865
looks newer than mid to late 1800s

>>1102594
1940's or 30's by the looks of it. This is what happens when the firebox crownsheet is exposed (running low on water). Remember kids, keep the water level above minimum.

Why are we enabling this clown? He is going to kill himself.

>>1098404
>Any idea what I could use for a boiler? I want something that could propel a small vessel

Go to live steam forums and study functioning examples. Remember asking in /diy/ means you failed at research and are too lazy to have done it right or you would not be asking here.

Also completely ignore anyone who hasn't worked with high pressure pipe, boilers, or similar. Ignore all amateur advice. Noobs have nothing to contribute or think of when it comes to competing with hundreds of years of steam power engineering. Nothing, and if they are butthurt about me pointing that out they should get a live steam urethral cleanse.

http://www.spiretech.net/~artemis/SLAprimer.htm is a start.

Don't improvise because you know nothing. Acquire skill by copying success, THEN see what you might wisely change or incorporate.

>>1103371
he hasn't responded in a while, maybe he's dead already

>>1103383
Live steam people might often be good machinists, but they are not engineers. They very rarely actually design anything on their own for this reason. If OP wants to design a boiler of his own, and not just build another Stuart engine with a PM research boiler, its better he looks at the source - which is actual boiler design literature. Simple calculations for heating area and wall thickness is what he should do.

>Copying success

Give me a break, those "old and tried ways" are not that great. If someone decides to be a bit unconventional, then if that person has a brain (whether or not the people asking those stupid questions on DIY qualify is a different issue), they can make something interesting. Of course you are right that they should at least know of the old designs, to learn from them.

>>1103708
OP is dead.

>>1102130
Alright, so here is where I am so far, tell me if I've got it right.

Watertube boilers are more efficient (only due to higher pressure?) but have problems with scaling. Scaling can be solved with a closed loop, but unless you can get at least down to atmospheric you are losing efficiency. And since there is no dense heat removal medium like seawater, it would take a shitload of surface area to manage the same thing with air, although some of it could be used as the economizer heat. Also, watertube boilers would let you get more counter flow.
Is the only advantage of a double acting cylinder more power density? Why is it that uniflow and multiple expansion are (afaik) considered mutually exclusive?

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>>1104021
They can be made more efficient, but they are not automatically more efficient. Something to keep in mind. You are over all right.

Double acting cylinders have an advantage when working condensing, that there is less air leakage into the condenser. Other than that, if you want to build a single acting engine, go ahead.

Uniflows were invented as an alternative to compounding. One of the major inefficiencies of the engine itself (as an expander, internal efficiency) is called wall losses. What this entails, is that in a normal engine, when steam enters the cylinder and then expands, it cools down. During a part of the return stroke, when exhaust is done, this expanded steam cools down the cylinder. So when fresh steam enters again, it meets the cold walls, cools down and can partially condense, goes down in volume 1600 times - so it might as well disappear. To illustrate, exhaust steam in power plants, at sub-atmospheric pressure, has the temperature of around 40 deg C. One of the ways of dealing with this problem is superheat. Superheating actually is beneficial even if you had no wall losses - as it increases the overall (Rankine) cycle efficiency. Decreasing the wall losses is a mere side effect, and works in two ways - first superheated steam will not condense immediately (it has to cool down before it becomes saturated), second, it has a much lower convective heat transfer coefficient. Second, is dividing the expansion into stages - compounding. So the differences of inlet and outlet temperature in each stage are smaller. Uniflows solve the problem by putting the exhaust valve on the other end of the stroke, effectively preventing cooling. One thing to bear in mind is the return stroke compression in those. You need compression in all engines, and contrary to popular belief this compression is not "lost work" (that steam will expand again). When designing a uniflow, you have watch for the pressure after recompression not being higher than the inlet.

>>1104078
Cont

As compression starts from the outlet pressure, you need for the given outlet and inlet pressures design a minimum clearance space. Use simple formulas for politropic compression.

Compounding can be coupled with uniflows, such as in pic related - the Skinner compound unaflow. Those engines were designed like that not for the internal efficiency, but to accept higher superheat without carbonizing the lubricant. You can find them at work still, on the SS Badger ferry for example.

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>>1100223
They are used in solar electric generation now more than anything. These are 33 kW each.

>>1104095
That hardly looks like 33 square meters though.

>>1104381
>It's 100
Well shit

>>1104095
that's a cute little toy

>>1098520
>easier to construct
Not OP, but a former spud gunner here. I would EVERY SINGLE TIME run pressure pipes full of water through a furnace than running heat pipes through a boiler. The fabrication effort saved is several orders of magnitude. You could even get away with making it piss-poorly, with leaks in the joins and whatnot, and still get something that will spin a flywheel and impress... whoever you end up showing, I guess. If this is just for OPs personal satisfaction this will be fine. In fact I may take a whack at it myself. Sure won't be able to power anything with it though. Maybe spin a dynamo and power an LED.

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>>1098377
Flash tube boiler mush safer is it trys to kaboom

>>1104385
>33kW
>100m^2

33% overall efficiency? hot damn

>>1104095
It would be better if you used the suns energy to flash boil water and power a steam engine!

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>>1098377
How about a Steam Powered Dildo for your grandma

>>1104657
You even bother to do the math on that?

>>1104854
not that guy, but every solar powered plant that powers more than a washing machine uses a turbine

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>>1104657
Looks like this

>>1098377
It's " OP wants to blow himself up" episode

>>1099344
Get bloweD up

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I was a Boiler Technician in the Navy for six years and have run both saturated and super heated steam boilers in industrial plants and power plants since 1995.

I would not recommend anyone build a boiler without doing some serious research. Boilers require a large amount of safety devices to prevent them from basically blowing up. The very least would be an overpressure device like a safety relief valve.

If you want to see what can happen if you fuck up, just type exploding water heater into YouTube or Google. A water heater is low pressure device that is designed to just heat, not boil water. Watching them explode will give you an idea of how much power you are messing with.

>>1105119
any experience with watertube boiler safety issues?

>>1105127
I've worked primarily with water tube boilers and have limited experience with fire tubes.

What exactly do you want to know? We don't tend to have too many issues since we perform annual prevent maintenance tasks on all the safety devices and the equipment itself.

The biggest issue I ever encountered was water chemistry related. We had been feeding too much caustic into a heat recovery steam boiler which caused caustic corrosion. This caused some major tube damage. We had to chemically clean the boiler with acid and patch a ton of tubes.

There are so many things that can go wrong with a boiler. You really have to keep up with maintenance, use high quality water, and maintain everything within parameters. One small thing can cause a lot of damage.

>>1105140
Would you pressure test the vessels? How frequently and to what proportion of working pressure?

>>1105257
Pressure testing or what we call hydrostatic testing, is typically only done after repairs are made. You will test to 150% of working pressure with cold water. It has to hold the pressure for a specific amount of time after achieving the target pressure. If pressure falls more than a certain percentage over time, you have to find what is leaking, make the repair, and then do the test again.

We would do a hydro after routine maintenance such as opening the drums for inspection. Typically we would test at 110% of working pressure for these activities. I dont believe this a requirement. We saw it as good practice.

The National Board has all the requirements listed for pressure testing.

and for the love of god, do not test it with air. Test with water (that's why it's called a hydro test). Bad shit happens with air because it's compressible.

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>>1104655
Depending where they are placed..

>>1104655
Not bad at all, given how they're self contained.

Strange no one posted this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnL8SipXT8

What you described in the OP was basically to build a really shitty, unsafe version of that water heater.
Boiler Makers have extremely stringent standards they have to comply to for a reason; they fuck up and people die.

>>1107539
Boilers for making warm water and steam generators are two completely different things

>>1098377
OP even a pinhole leak in a steam line is powerful enough to cut through flesh and bone.

>>1107567
When its superheated steam at 600 C and high pressure... What you can get from a hobby boiler will burn you at best.