Hi Gary

Try looking at http://www.flashsteam.com this is a site dedicated to The Flash Steam Engine Experimenter and contains some very useful information.

The Kingsbury Park model boat club also have a page dedicated to flash steam this can be found on  http://www.kwpmbc.co.uk/tetheredhydro.php

And there is a very informative page at http://www.onthewire.co.uk/hhistory.htm giving the history of flash steam over the past 100 years.

I am very intrested in steam but have never used a flash steam engine and would be very glad to see some photos of your late fathers boat.

All the best

Paul

Sounds just like my shed only mine is 15 x 6 and full of power tool and boats, so much so that I have had to buy another shed to keep the completed boats in….and I still can’t get to my bench.

Cheers

Paul

No worries Gary

We all have busy lives and posting photos will come a long way down on anybodies list, it will be nice to see them when you have the time.

Take care

Paul

Gary

The following should fully explain what Flash Steam engines are and how they work, sorry that is so long winded but it is very accurate.

The phenomenon of ‘flash-steam‘ is well known to engineers and its application to the steam engine offers a route to significant improvements in steam generating efficiency.

Water if pressurized remains in the liquid phase at higher temperatures and does not boil and vaporize. If such pressurized and heated water is released through an orifice to a lower pressure, part of the water immediately and explosively turns to steam – a process known as ‘flashing’. Flash steam is currently exploited in applications such as geothermal power plants. In these, water is drawn from deep underground where it is at high temperature and pressure. Piped to the surface, this water is ‘flashed’ in a chamber to produce steam under pressure which is then expanded in a more or less conventional turbine coupled to an alternator to produce electricity.

Flash steam, therefore, offers one novel way of making a modern steam engine. In Section – 3 the mono-tube steam generator was described. This was the type of steam generator favored in the last production steam cars and was often found in stationary or ship steam plants. This type is almost always employed in current experimental steam vehicles. In the flash-steam generator, however, the idea of the mono-tube steam generator is taken one step further.

The crucial difference between these two types of steam generator is that, as previously explained, the mono-tube generator raises steam within a coiled tube which contains water of increasing temperature in the first section, saturated steam in the next section and superheated steam in the final section. Steam is admitted to the engine cylinder by means of a valve. In the flash steam generator, however, the coiled tube contains water only. The coil is heated in a similar way to that in the mono-tube generator, the difference being that the water is pressurized to a level above its saturation temperature and is injected into the engine cylinder as water.

cont:

Therefore under the above conditions 60 percent of the injected mass of water is immediately converted to steam in the cylinder but 40% remains as water which is atomized into very tiny droplets by a double mechanism. The first mechanism is a result of the depressurization of the liquid water through the nozzle in much the same way as can be found in industrial liquid- spraying systems. The second mechanism results from the explosion of the flash process itself. The two mechanisms occur simultaneously and support each other during the time that injection of the water takes place. This very effective atomization is crucial to the next phase of the expansion process in the cylinder.

If the water were to be injected into a cold engine cylinder, the flash steam would immediately condense and there would be no pressure rise. To overcome this problem, the cylinder head and walls are heated and supply additional heat to the wet steam entering the cylinder. The atomized water droplets experience extremely high collision rates with the cylinder walls because of the explosive effect of the flash process. The tiny size of the droplets, coupled with high collision rates ensure rapid absorption of heat allowing them to be quickly converted to steam which is then heated further to superheat.

A flash steam generator permits the construction of a steam generating unit which is much more compact and has fewer thermal losses than a traditional steam boiler.

N.B. Monotube steam generators are sometimes confusingly referred to as flash-boilers or flash- steam generators. However the key difference between the monotube generator and the flash generator is that in the former water and steam exist within the heating tube, in the latter only water exists there until it is ‘flashed’ to a lower pressure through a valve or injector.

cont:

Gary, A close up photographic reproduction or even a picture of your engine or remains may clear matters up….

Paul I am printing that reply to read in bed tonight !!! but was I wrong (ish) or not ? Pop-Pop engines are the closest i want to get to steam.    Ashley

thats why I made a rubber band boat….. hmmm  85 mph on a destroyer……where`s me drawing paper.    Ashley

Oy!  Gary, stop trying to post pictures so big.  It won’t work and I have to delete them.  Use the tool bar!

What are you using to reduce their size Gary?

Vinnie