Liquid fuel vaporizer

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cudabean
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Liquid fuel vaporizer

Post by cudabean » Mon Nov 17, 2003 5:25 am

Vapore http://www.vapore.com/ has developed a little unit that vaporizes liquid fuels. It's the size of an altoid, requires no pressure--just a little bit of heat and Vapore claims it works better than carburation. Vapore sells to other businesses, so if you want to try to get ahold of one, you'll have to talk, plead, beg or pay $5,000 for their kit.

My thought is once you've gotten your experimental pulsejet running on propane or other gaseous fuel, you might be able to switch over to liquid fuel without much changes if you used one of these. Or you might be able to start with this and not have to hassle with gaseous fuels at all.

cudabean

Bruno Ogorelec
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The biggest thing for pulsejets since Schmidt's valves

Post by Bruno Ogorelec » Mon Nov 17, 2003 1:20 pm

Yes! Yes! Yes!
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Post by Mike Everman » Mon Nov 17, 2003 3:36 pm

Faaascinating. Looks good, you'd need a lot of them, wouldn't you? the biggest is 250g/hr. how would you use this?
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Post by Bruno Ogorelec » Mon Nov 17, 2003 4:59 pm

The way to use this is to line the inside of the intake tract with these. That way, they would be heated but not extremely so -- just enough to work. They would spit streams of vaporized fuel into the intake tube. I am certain the company could custom-design a tubular one that would slip inside a stainless steel tubular intake and have a gas jet per square inch or so of internal surface....

Bruno
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Under pressure

Post by Hank » Mon Nov 17, 2003 9:15 pm

Hello- This certainly looks like an advance in available technology.

I'd question the manufacturer regarding the ability of this unit to work in the enviornment in question, i.e., the intake tract of a pulsejet engine.
From what I get from their promotion this unit is geared towards working in the ambient enviornment

Hank

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Post by Bruce » Mon Nov 17, 2003 10:53 pm

You would also need to look at the cost-effectiveness and whether these (undoubtedly expensive) little devices would provide any really worthwhile benefit over the tried and true vaporizing pressure-nozzle approach.

Then there's the issue of throttle response and (in a valveless engine) contamination of the ultrafine capillaries with the combustion byproducts that they would undoubtedly be exposed to.

Virtually all hydrocarbon fuels produce some degree of particulates (carbon that doesn't bind with oxygen to form CO/CO2) and I have a feeling that this would eventually (perhaps sooner than later) block the capillaries.

Hell, a 100psi pump and atomizing nozzle costs just a few 10s of dollars and can deliver gallons of fuel per hour-- to do the same thing with these things would probably cost more than a small turbojet engine complete :-)

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Post by Bruno Ogorelec » Mon Nov 17, 2003 11:52 pm

Bruce wrote:Hell, a 100psi pump and atomizing nozzle costs just a few 10s of dollars and can deliver gallons of fuel per hour-- to do the same thing with these things would probably cost more than a small turbojet engine complete :-)
Um... Bruce, when it first appeared, fuel injection was a very costly thing and was really used only on aircraft engines and then racing machinery. Today it is a dime a dozen. There has been no car _without_ fuel injection on sale in the US for perhaps a decade.

As for particulate pollution -- pulsejets are less bothered than most engines, having curiously clean combustion. But, I grant that the danger exists. I see it as a simple thing to remedy. You pull out one ceramic stack and put it into a cleaning solution. You pop the replacement into its place.

There are other solutions. The Albion Propulsion team in the UK (the guys working on the BCVP engine) have a way to use the vaporizing ceramic without the danger of carbon pollution, having developed a different, original fuel supply system. I hope they give this ceramic sponge a look.

In engineering, everything is some kind of a compromise. Liquid fuel injection looks simple but it will not be that very easy to implement on pulsejets. It will bring its own problems along, just like any other technology.

To me, this vaporization sponge looks like it was born for pulsejet application.

Bruno

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Post by cudabean » Tue Nov 18, 2003 5:26 am

Another thing--aerosol manufacturers are looking at this as a non-disposable aerosol can replacement. Definitely the potential for high-volume cheap consumer-grade stuff here.

cudabean

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Post by Mark » Tue Nov 18, 2003 6:43 pm

[quote="Bruce"]You would also need to look at the cost-effectiveness and whether these (undoubtedly expensive) little devices would provide any really worthwhile benefit over the tried and true vaporizing pressure-nozzle approach.

Then there's the issue of throttle response and (in a valveless engine) contamination of the ultrafine capillaries with the combustion byproducts that they would undoubtedly be exposed to.

Virtually all hydrocarbon fuels produce some degree of particulates (carbon that doesn't bind with oxygen to form CO/CO2) and I have a feeling that this would eventually (perhaps sooner than later) block the capillaries.

Hell, a 100psi pump and atomizing nozzle costs just a few 10s of dollars and can deliver gallons of fuel per hour-- to do the same thing with these things would probably cost more than a small turbojet engine complete :-)[/quote

The ceramic may be brittle too, and crumble under severe vibration. I have some cylindrical ceramic pellets coated with palladium (palladium on high purity alumina) and they wick up methanol and heat up to a red heat in methanol vapor. But they are a little brittle but I drilled a tiny hole in one pellet and strung a platinum wire through it. In this way the pellet initiates the heat and the wire ignites the methanol vapor. I thought perhaps I could stack the little pellets and make something similar but as things go, it has its challenges.
I wonder how wicky a car catalytic converter ceramic would be? The hex rod channels are very tiny and its interesting how much surface area the car catalytic converter has. Perhaps a good howler tube could be made with such and a fuel feed, and automatic starting as soon as the fuel flows.
Mark
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Post by Mark » Wed Nov 19, 2003 1:01 am

Mike Everman wrote:Faaascinating. Looks good, you'd need a lot of them, wouldn't you? the biggest is 250g/hr. how would you use this?
The raw material, aluminum oxide isn't all that expensive, it's used as a pigment in white paint and for spark plugs and on and on. I would wonder how Al2O3 would hold up under a Maxim of vibration. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWmaximgun.htm
Mark

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Re: Liquid fuel vaporizer

Post by Mark » Wed Nov 19, 2003 9:06 am

cudabean wrote:Vapore http://www.vapore.com/ has developed a little unit that vaporizes liquid fuels. It's the size of an altoid, requires no pressure--just a little bit of heat and Vapore claims it works better than carburation. Vapore sells to other businesses, so if you want to try to get ahold of one, you'll have to talk, plead, beg or pay $5,000 for their kit.

My thought is once you've gotten your experimental pulsejet running on propane or other gaseous fuel, you might be able to switch over to liquid fuel without much changes if you used one of these. Or you might be able to start with this and not have to hassle with gaseous fuels at all.

cudabean
I wonder if these Vapore products would work with metal instead of ceramics? Here's a site where ceramic is improved upon by using metal foils instead. http://www.eldib.com/PressReleases/use_ ... eycomb.htm
The metal seems less prone to vibrational destruction.

Like the little copper-tubed putt-putt engine, I can envision the Vapore products being emulated with tiny tubings of metal that draw and pressurize the fuel into a steaming micro torch as well, similar to the tiny butaine torch lighters in performance, using a resonant vapor lock in narrow tubing. (Details to be worked out painstakingly).

Could the little Vapore torch have any resonance to it at all, the fuel hissing out and producing some back pressure on the capillary action? I have a little ceramic wick inside a twist/loop of copper tubing alcohol lamp that has 2 pin holes in it where the alcohol gases emerge. It works in principle the same as the Vapore products I should think. Granted they have patented little structures and improved wicky wickyness, which come at a high cost, when propane or butaine torches work pretty well as is. I have taken to using a small piezo lighting butaine refillable torch for many of my jam jar ignitions. I think Harbor Freight sells them for peanuts. Now that I am use to it, I like it better than the gas grill butaine lighters, the sparker seems to last and work with every click.
Mark

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Post by Bruno Ogorelec » Wed Nov 19, 2003 9:19 am

Mark,

Thanks for the story. Steel honeycomb does look like a better candidte for pulsejet uses. The question is really whether it can be brought to the fineness of the structure necessary for the capilary wicking that the Vapore ceramic sponge does.

I guess it's all academic before someone actually talks to the manufacturers.

Bruno

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Post by Mike Everman » Wed Nov 19, 2003 3:26 pm

you know, you can buy porous stainless steel... it looks fairly normal, but fluid can be pushed through it. I'll ask my buddy for a sample, it's a "sintered powder metallurgy" part used as filtering material and my friend uses it to make air-bearing pucks for very precision flat bearings. I think this is the ticket!!!!!
I've got to see fluid forced through a blazing hot piece of this stuff!!
Actually, I have one of the pucks, but it is porous carbon... waitaminnit...maybe carbon is better?
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Post by Viv » Wed Nov 19, 2003 3:37 pm

Mike Everman wrote:you know, you can buy porous stainless steel... it looks fairly normal, but fluid can be pushed through it. I'll ask my buddy for a sample, it's a "sintered powder metallurgy" part used as filtering material and my friend uses it to make air-bearing pucks for very precision flat bearings. I think this is the ticket!!!!!
I've got to see fluid forced through a blazing hot piece of this stuff!!
Actually, I have one of the pucks, but it is porous carbon... waitaminnit...maybe carbon is better?
Now that gives me an idea!

Viv:-)
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Post by Mark » Wed Nov 19, 2003 5:14 pm

Mike Everman wrote:you know, you can buy porous stainless steel... it looks fairly normal, but fluid can be pushed through it. I'll ask my buddy for a sample, it's a "sintered powder metallurgy" part used as filtering material and my friend uses it to make air-bearing pucks for very precision flat bearings. I think this is the ticket!!!!!
I've got to see fluid forced through a blazing hot piece of this stuff!!
Actually, I have one of the pucks, but it is porous carbon... waitaminnit...maybe carbon is better?
Materials science is such an interesting field. So many characteristics just waiting for a new application. I have a jar of high surface area carbon rod bits, coated with platinum, I bought them on Ebay and haven't found any use for them except spraying methanol on them. Carbon has the highest melting point of any element, too bad it reacts with air and is somewhat brittle. I saw some odd "alloy" rod/bar stock for sale on ebay, it was made of sintered copper with carbon, (graphite).
I'd like to try a piece of sintered leaky steel tubing, perhaps a valveless pulsjet intake could be the entire circumference of the combustion chamber! That would be sweet.
Mark

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