Math Question

[Robert J. Harris]

Remember the Reichstag

----------
> From: RABBITT_Andrew at mv8.orbeng.com.au
> To: diy_efi at coulomb.eng.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: re: Math Question
> Date: Monday, September 16, 1996 7:06 AM
> 
> 
> >The point was, is, and always will be to try to combine the sheer  
> >power of a steam engine with the simplicity of an IC engine.
> 
> You can't get something for nothing.  If you have 'sheer power' then 
> you're also burning a lot of fuel too.  Bear in mind that most 
> stationary steam plants are working at about 35% thermal efficiency 
> (unless they're combined cycle plants), which a good IC engine can 
> approach too!  Therefore just adding water to fuel in an IC engine is 
> not going to give you vast increases of power.  What it might allow is 
> to extend the characteristic limits of an engine by a small amount. 
> (ie the knock limit)
> 
> >
Let me see if I get this thermodynamic thing right.  I burn fuel, convert 
between 20 and 30 percent to mechanical energy, heat up cooling 
water and oil to 200 plus degrees, and throw away 50 per cent or 
more of the energy as heat at 1300 plus degrees exhaust temperature 
- enuff to send water boiling at 3600 psi - and there is only a little
teeny 
tiny amount of excess heat to convert water to steam in the chamber - 
as an antidetontant?  I'm convinced.

I guess I just don't get the big picture.  Maybe water knows that it is 
about to be injected into an engine and presto magic changes 
characteristics and doesn't boil at 212 degrees or expand 1800 times 
when it turns to steam when that happens in a combustion chamber.
It just stops making 600 psi at 440 degrees so that heaven forbid any
of that wasted heat might get converted to power.

Thank you for the thermodynamic and magic lesson.