New member and failed FWE IV "smooth lady"
Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:26 pm
Hi everyone,
I'm an 18 year old Dutch student interested in engines. I own a two-stroke 50cc Yamaha fs-1 "fizzy" and a 4-stroke Yamaha xs-360.
So I decided to build a valveless pulsejet for my profile thesis (a big project at the end of high school that has to take 80hours of your time and shows your capabilities.)
I decided to build the "smooth lady" designed by Larry Cottrill, and i built a special rig for it to measure the amount of thrust it created. However it proved to be not necessary due to the high friction of the sliding mechanism and the fact that I never got the engine to run properly YET
Pic of the engine and rig: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/22 ... 00306.jpg/
short clip of the first test: http://youtu.be/f0GHxmS7mog gets interesting after the 5:00 mark
This test was with the regular pressure regulators we have here, they opperate at a standard 5mBar and ignitded with a normal lighter I also used a compressor for starting air and a 5mm brass fuel tube.
I noticed this is not the normal way to start these engines so i am trying to rebuild it with a sparkplug int the dome of the chamber so i dont need a lighter anymore. And i bought a propane regulator that can be regulated between 0 and 4 bar. Also i would like to add length to the exhaust tube because it turned out the original plans were slightly off.
I would love to hear what you guys think of the build and get some feedback on getting this engine running.
I'm an 18 year old Dutch student interested in engines. I own a two-stroke 50cc Yamaha fs-1 "fizzy" and a 4-stroke Yamaha xs-360.
So I decided to build a valveless pulsejet for my profile thesis (a big project at the end of high school that has to take 80hours of your time and shows your capabilities.)
I decided to build the "smooth lady" designed by Larry Cottrill, and i built a special rig for it to measure the amount of thrust it created. However it proved to be not necessary due to the high friction of the sliding mechanism and the fact that I never got the engine to run properly YET
Pic of the engine and rig: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/22 ... 00306.jpg/
short clip of the first test: http://youtu.be/f0GHxmS7mog gets interesting after the 5:00 mark
This test was with the regular pressure regulators we have here, they opperate at a standard 5mBar and ignitded with a normal lighter I also used a compressor for starting air and a 5mm brass fuel tube.
I noticed this is not the normal way to start these engines so i am trying to rebuild it with a sparkplug int the dome of the chamber so i dont need a lighter anymore. And i bought a propane regulator that can be regulated between 0 and 4 bar. Also i would like to add length to the exhaust tube because it turned out the original plans were slightly off.
I would love to hear what you guys think of the build and get some feedback on getting this engine running.