Hello from Florida

[SteveSteamShovel]

Hello everyone I'm Steven, I've been using the steamboating forum from time to time to learn more about steamboats and steam engines in general and I figured that I should make an account. I have a very keen interest in anything steam powered. And I hope to one day build my own steamer and be able to work on steam engines as a profession I'm only 18 at the moment so hopefully time will tell.

[fredrosse]

Good to have you join here, with much practical knowledge about small reciprocating steam plants. Did you know that steam power production is presently the largest source of power generation in the world? Steam engines, in the form of steam turbines, generate about 70% of all the electricity in the USA, as well as the world. This is far more power than all the ships on the oceans, trucks and cars in all countries, all the hydroelectric power stations in the world, and all other engine powered equipment, combined. Steam-on.

[SteveSteamShovel]

Yes I did, steam power has been my passion ever since I was young enough to understand what it was. Although I do wish we'd see steam (especially reciprocating steam) in other applications that isn't in a power plant. As of late I've been doing some research on semi uniflow steam engines and have been envisioning a quadruple expansion semi uniflow engine arranged in a v4 configuration and placed beneath a Brotan watertube locomotive style boiler with a water jacketed firebox in a similar arrangement that has been used on Steam Yacht Gondola. I plan to put the engine in a small 18ft boat that I'm also working on. Although I still have much to do in terms of design and I still have some things to decide on, like wether I'd like it to be a displacement, semi displacement, or even a hydrofoil. I intend to use it as a testbed of sorts in terms of getting the maximum thermal efficiency out of different boilers with the first test boiler being the previously mentioned Brotan watertube. I'd also like to experiment with mechanical vapor recompression something I'm very much keen on, different types of fuels coal slurry, regular old coal, and various liquid fuels, and some other things I find interesting.

[TahoeSteam]

Welcome to the forum Steve. It sounds like you have a lot of exciting ideas to sus out!

[RNoe]

Steve:
Interesting ideas, and I hope we see you make some of them.
Thoughts on a quad-expansion V4 engine. In a small boat you would end up with an engine of small volume and large cooling surface area. Not conducive to multi-expansion, or even double expansion.

My steeple-compound engine in my 17' boat only solves some of that issue due to the combined vertical cylinders with its better volume-to-surface ratio than a for-aft configuration provides. Operating at around 100 psi still makes a pretty wet system, until a temperature equilibrium is reached, after at least 5 minutes of steady operation.
See additional information in the reference below.

All considerations.
RussN

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