Steam powered pump?

[justincorhad]

After experimenting with fluidyne Stirling engines, I wondered if something similar could be made to run on steam.

After many failed attempts and a lot of head scratching this is what I came up with.

https://youtube.com/shorts/qBpl3FJP9pA?feature=share


This entire arrangement was filled with water beforehand and bled of any air, so there is absolutely no hot air in this system.

I believe the water at the bottom of the tee is heated to the point in expands to steam, which pushes on the water column above it, sending it out the outlet check valve. Once the steam no longer has the energy to continue pushing the water column, it starts to contract, which closes the outlet check valve. The contractions creates a low pressure area at the tee, which opens the inlet check valve allowing more water into the system.

Here is a drawing of what I’m thinking https://ibb.co/2cSJxhh

Let me know your thoughts! I’d love to here them :)

[justincorhad]

Also I did some modifications so that the TEE pumping section was above the water level in the reservoir, I left the inlet check valve at the base of the reservoir to act as a foot valve. It still worked, I wanted to know if this setup had any suction power or if the water level would have to be above the pump. It worked though, proving this setup does indeed have suction power. Unfortunately I did not take a video with this setup.

In my mind this is very similar to Thomas savery’s steam pump, although it’s automatic in that nobody had to be there to operate the valves. It might be closer to a pulsometer pump, except it only has one chamber instead of two, and it has no external boiler.

[Tom Booth]

I would be VERY interested to know if the outlet would develop pressure at the "head".

That is, if the outlet is restricted, closed off except for a small pinhole perhaps.

If it could build up pressure, then the water squirting out the "nozzle" could power a turbine.

I'm guessing that it would.

I would be careful though, not to close off the end completely. The pressure that develops could potentially be considerable and even explode, like a steam boiler, no joke.

I had been fooling around with a similar set up about a year ago, to test a theory regarding how Bob Neal's "self filling air tank" might have worked.

His patent made reference to a special valve he called an "equalizer" or "double check valve discharge nozzle" that in some way forced low pressure air into a high pressure air tank. Nobody to this day has really ever been able to figure out exactly how it was supposed to work though it appeared to be very simple, essentially just a couple of check valves.

iMarkup_20220218_210837.jpg (242 KiB) Viewed 6463 times

I was speculating a few years ago on another forum that the "equalizer" might have actually been a kind of thermally activated hydraulic pump.

[Tom Booth]

I saw a related setup on YouTube recently.

Water is "boiled" at cold temperature in a vacuum, the steam powers a turbine, after which the steam condenses. Not exactly the same as your setup, but the idea that there is a formation of steam that does work and then condenses back into water disappearing without a trace is probably correct. This seems to only work if all ordinary air is removed as you have done.

[Tom Booth]

What you might have, because of removing all the air, is a "saturated mixture", perhaps, maybe.

In this video, the air is all removed by boiling so there is only water vapor but no air in the canning jar.

Instead of ice cooling and condensing the water vapor, in your setup, the water vapor (steam) is cooled and condensed by loosing energy because of having done the work of pumping water, as well as loosing heat to the atmosphere through the copper tube, but that in general would be why though steam is formed, it doesn't come out because it re-condenses before it can leave the tee.

https://youtu.be/i0Frx_bPsT8


So, I think your description of what is going on is exactly right.

[matt brown]

Montgolfier pump.jpeg (150.61 KiB) Viewed 6455 times

The Montgolfier Brothers had an amusing 'fire pump' back in 1784 which was quite clever for the time. Google it to see how it works

[justincorhad]

I would be VERY interested to know if the outlet would develop pressure at the "head".

Tom I actually closed the outlet off and managed to build around 10 psi on the bigger of the two systems. I never did try to restrict it per say, I think maybe a bit more heat and some way to loose as little as possible to atmosphere may be able to get some useful pressure from a nozzle for sure!

[justincorhad]

I saw a related setup on YouTube recently.

Water is "boiled" at cold temperature in a vacuum, the steam powers a turbine, after which the steam condenses. Not exactly the same as your setup, but the idea that there is a formation of steam that does work and then condenses back into water disappearing without a trace is probably correct. This seems to only work if all ordinary air is removed as you have done.

I believe I’ve seen this video, they were powering a Tesla turbine correct? It was a pretty neat setup for sure.

[justincorhad]

Instead of ice cooling and condensing the water vapor, in your setup, the water vapor (steam) is cooled and condensed by loosing energy because of having done the work of pumping water, as well as loosing heat to the atmosphere through the copper tube, but that in general would be why though steam is formed, it doesn't come out because it re-condenses before it can leave the tee.

There’s a couple of things I’d like to try, for one I believe I need a better heat source, I also do t think making the entire thing out of copper is a very good way to do it, as you said too much heat is lost to the atmosphere. I’m planning on trying to incorporate one into an old rocket stove I built and see how it will perform then.

[justincorhad]

https://ibb.co/qdwnj4q

Here is the neswest version, a 1/2” model. The “steam tube” for lack of a better description is now made from copper, my previous 1/2” version the entire thing was made from black pipe. My plan is that the entire copper tube should be surrounded by heat, the length of tube can be changed if required, maybe if some steam starts to escape out the outlet pipe then shortening the tube should help that.

Right above the steam tube you can see two 1-1/4” reducers, that’s actually my attempt at a “regenerator”. That section is stuffed loosely with stainless steel wool, maybe it will help it a little, maybe not. I’m thinking it should, if the steam tube doesn’t have to heat ice cold water every time then I figure it’s a win.

I’m going to try to incorporate this into an old rocket stove I built, with the copper tube fully submerged in the burn chamber. We shall see what happens.

[justincorhad]

https://youtube.com/shorts/S6Cc2NEAZaU?feature=share

Here it is plugged into my rocket stove. The flow has increased substantially. Obviously this set up is still very inefficient as most of the heat is going to bypass the steam tube in the wide open chamber.

The pinging you hear the the valves opening and closing.

[Tom Booth]

https://youtube.com/shorts/S6Cc2NEAZaU?feature=share

Here it is plugged into my rocket stove. The flow has increased substantially. Obviously this set up is still very inefficient as most of the heat is going to bypass the steam tube in the wide open chamber.

The pinging you hear the the valves opening and closing.

Wow, that's a good steady flow, though IMO, steel is still going to result in much heat loss all along the way No harm done AFTER the hot water exits the check valve (probably, it might actually help to have a condensing coil to cool the water before it is returned to the reservoir.

I think I would try a short section of copper, shrouded and insulated to retain heat from a torch in the copper, instead of being lost to the air, then use a copper to PVC adapter, and make the rest out of PVC, up to the condensing coil, or once past the check valve.

The rocket stove might be too hot for that though.

The rationale is by using PVC more heat will go towards pumping action, less escaping through the metal pipes.

You might be able to get as good or better flow with less heat input.

The cooling condensing coil should increase the pressure difference, by, well, maybe not, now that I think about it.

Forget the condensing coil, that might be counter productive.

It would depend, maybe, on if there is any pumping action due to the expansion of the incoming cooler water itself, or is steam doing all the work?

I'd just try the PVC and insulation to begin with. The idea being that with less heat loss the steam can expand more and so do more work/pump more water faster.

PVC will, in theory, waste less heat to atmosphere so more energy can be used to pump water, but a short section of copper is needed for heat input. But not more than is needed for applying the propane torch to.

[Tom Booth]

I saw a related setup on YouTube recently.

Water is "boiled" at cold temperature in a vacuum, the steam powers a turbine, after which the steam condenses. Not exactly the same as your setup, but the idea that there is a formation of steam that does work and then condenses back into water disappearing without a trace is probably correct. This seems to only work if all ordinary air is removed as you have done.

I believe I’ve seen this video, they were powering a Tesla turbine correct? It was a pretty neat setup for sure.

Yes, Probably something similar is going on in your heated pipe, I imagine, but on a smaller or more localized scale, but cyclical. Boiling, pumping some water, cooling and condensing, then boiling again, pumping more water and cooling, etc. Each time pulling in some water through one.valve and pushing it out through the other.

I tried to do something simar with air alone, but couldn't get it to work.


https://youtu.be/W1K2CMRyDrw


There are additional videos on that channel, as you said, with a turbine in the line between the hot and cold bottles.

I think it is very very cool that you managed to get this to work, and work so well.

[justincorhad]

I definitely feel like the small 1/4” one I built has better performance in terms of heat input to work (water pumping) output. Most likely because such a small volume takes seconds or fractions of seconds to boil and then condense, vs the 1/2” diameter, yes it does work but it’s such a larger volume to try and boil. I think the reason the performance isn’t as good as it could be is because much of the heated water in the 1/2” pipe will begin heating but then transfer its heat to the water above it before it has a chance to boil.

To try and combat this I’m thinking of replacing the single 1/2” copper tube with four 1/4” tubes. It would be the same volume of water but greater surface area for heat exchange, should make the boiling happen faster, which in turn should make the water pump at a higher rate. I’m not sure yet if the better approach would be to have four separate tubes with the ends capped off at the bottom, or have two tube that make a U with either end of that U plumbed into the TEE between the check valve.

I suppose another option would be to have four 1/4” separate pumping sections all sandwiched together, although that would also mean I would need a total of 8 check valves, adding cost and complexity.

[Tom Booth]

Maybe just solder a bundle of these into the end of your 1/2" pipe & put a cap on the end of the whole bundle.

Resize_20220220_193111_1568.jpg (248.21 KiB) Viewed 6410 times

Kind of like they do on the big Stirling engines:

Resize_20220220_194643_3238.jpg (98.43 KiB) Viewed 6409 times