[HN Gopher] Twilight of the Steam Age, Part 1: Internal Combustion
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       Twilight of the Steam Age, Part 1: Internal Combustion
        
       Author : cfmcdonald
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2024-03-21 01:46 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (technicshistory.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (technicshistory.com)
        
       | johnea wrote:
       | Kinda sad that we're still in that victorian era tech 8-/
        
       | mjfl wrote:
       | When I joined the physics major at college, I didn't really know
       | what was taught in the physics field. I was disappointed when it
       | wasn't about internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | Not much on Diesel.
       | 
       | Also, not much on steel. It's amazing that the steam-powered
       | industrial revolution was built with iron, not steel. Early
       | engines had very low operating pressures. Some even just
       | condensed steam and ran below atmospheric pressure. Attempts to
       | operate at higher pressures resulted in leaks at best and boiler
       | explosions at worst. The materials were just not good enough.
       | Otto's 1862 engine would run for only a few minutes before
       | breaking itself. Some later engines used the power stroke to lift
       | a heavy weight, and as the weight came back down, it powered the
       | output through a ratchet. Using that big burst of power from the
       | power stroke needed much better materials. Otto finally got a
       | cylinder-crank-flywheel engine working in 1876. Here's a working
       | Otto engine of that original design, cranking out 7
       | horsepower.[1] Note all the shiny machined steel parts. That
       | design would not work in iron.
       | 
       | Today, crankshafts, main bearings, pistons, piston rods, and
       | piston rings are solved problems. It took about half a century to
       | get all those parts to work reliably, and a full century before
       | engines outlasted the rest of the vehicle.
       | 
       | Internal combustion pressures are higher, and Diesels have far
       | higher pressures than gasoline engines. The materials problems
       | are tougher. Without strong steel, Diesels are hopeless.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH3U49n4g2M
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-22 23:00 UTC)