The Steamboating Forum

"artificial intelligence", I've been employing it for years, it's nothing to fear...

Note that the concept of artifical intellegence is far different than automatic controls, be they electronic or not. Many of the newer "smart" automatic controls can actually "learn" to change various parameters in a control system based on the recorded history within a system. For example, if the burner controls on a fired boiler respond too quickly, and steam pressure overshoots the desired control pressure, the "smart" controller will observe this, and adjust the rate of firing increase to make system response better behaved. The controller constantly observes the response, and adjusts its functions as needed, however this is not artifical intelligence.

Artifical intelligence refers to the ability to actually think things out, and come up with solutions to problems that had not previously been developed, that were not "programmed into" the computer. The issue here is when a machine starts thinking independently, and makes decisions by itself, and figures out how to implement whatever the machine decides is the proper action, we may be in trouble. Programmed interlocks to prevent this are always stated to make things safe and foolproof, however if you look at all the safety programming that has failed miserably, such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and many other machines, one can imagine a fast intellegent computer figuring out how to circumvent the rules as mere "child's play". The movie "2001" is a good example, where "HAL" (IBM minus one letter) decided the mission was more important than the humans.

"the concept of artifical intellegence is far different than automatic controls"

That was a crude attempt at a joke on my part, referring to my own personal "artificial intelligence"

-Ron

Well,I've bought the plans, now to get it built! I will make a few changes, to better match my boilermaker's production capabilities, and to align with a design standard used locally, (eg not having nozzles penetrating through a circumferential weld). The plans seem relatively simple and the design looks robust, although I suspect it will take me a few hours practice to achieve safe and efficient operating.

Thanks for the advice and comments. I'll post photos etc as things progress.

Regards to all,

Now have the boat, building the engines, starting on the boiler!

The Ofeldt is an excellent boiler and design. The only thing I'd change about those plans is the center drum itself. It shows welded on caps butt-welded to the top and bottom. I would simply make the center drum the entire height and then use welded heads inset in to the center drum. Those caps are expensive too, two of those at 6# sch 80 are $150. It is cheaper and much stronger. The center drum is 10" diameter, so I would add about 3 5/8" mild steel stays in it and use 1/2" thick material for the heads. One of the few instances where we can have all three in regards to "Cheaper, better , faster". Usually only two of those can be applied. The one I built uses a 6" center drum and it's plenty of steam and water reserve - wouldn't need stays, and it would drop the overall diameter.





-Ron