Friction Steam Boiler

[FuzzyTomCat]

@ Rick

Hi Glen,

It has been a while since we have conversed. Regarding Lloyd Tanner, I have sent a message to him and am awaiting a reply, which I will post when received. The last time I corresponded with him he indicated that per advice from his lawyer he could not go into further detail concerning his newest device (the horizontal friction roller design). I assumed that he was probably either attempting to patent the design, or that he was working on a manufacturing license agreement with some entity. So, I'm not at all certain that we will be able to learn any further details. Still, I think that LLoyd has already provided us with sufficient knowledge to enable replications of either the vertical or horizontal designs.

I have kept looking at my local recycling center for items that I could scavenge to use in building a replication, and have done fairly well at that. I have not started the actual fabrication yet, and this is because of two reasons. First, I wanted to hold off until my home here has sold, and I am resituated. Secondly, I have been tied up with my Pipe Dream magnetic motor project, which for now takes precedence. I know that others who have visited this thread have embarked on replications, or modified replications of Lloyd's friction steamer device, but have not heard reports as to their progress as of yet. You had mentioned, early on, that you would be building a replication. How far have you progressed with that? I'd love to hear from anyone who has built, or is currently building a replication, and it would be great if they would share some drawings, photos and/or video. Let's keep this thread going.

Best regards to all,

Rick

Hi Rick !

I'm glad to see your still in contact with Lloyd and haven't forgotten this project and like me have other alternative energy devices that have taken time away from each other with having a balancing act to try to keep all of them moving forward. I still have some design work to do left prior to a actual replication and got stuck on the wood feeding mechanism giving equal pressure of 6 to 10 pounds to the friction wood when it's in operation and a semi release when the rotor stops for easier motor restarting in a automated on-off running situation.

The items needed some I have acquired already such as yourself but the nations economy being I'm a electrical contractor has limited what I can do at this time but unfortunately this is when our nation and others "need" all these alternative energy devices to ease the financial impact each and every one is feeling today ..... this will rise to the occasion as so many other unique projects do here at Energetic.

Best Wishes,
Glen

[1NRG24Seven]

Hello NRG fans,

I think I like this whole Idea and will pursue a build as soon as another boiler project is completed I am working on. But will do this a lil differently.

I will use a solid 5" steel rod bored for the hollow center shaft supported by 2 pillow blocks at each end with pully for Tesla turbin.

The upper part of the solid rod will be exposed directly inside the boiler box sealed by phenolic fitted for this purpose. This will also create more friction on the solid rod.

I used to have a Joy compressor with a 100hp electric motor. The piston in this machine was aprox 12-14" in dia and was equiped with an expanding phenolic ring. The unit would run 100,000 hrs before the phenolic ring had to be adjusted. It was said this ring would rarely see the day it would ever need to be replaced. This compressor supplied all the air to run a full sized saw mill, and as you can imagine produced enormous amounts of CFM of air at upwards to 175-200 psi. This is how i know that a phenolic seal would work so that the 5" solid rod could be in direct exposure to the inside of the boiler, making for a direct hot surface to squirt preheated water onto.
It could be that the wood might be able to be replaced by this same phenolic material for the main friction surfaces, giving the unit a very long life between friction material changes.

I would use a fuel injection type nozzle system in plurality right above the 5" rod under external water pressure. the nozzles would not even need to be pulsed, just valved so that one to many would be turned on at will to supply any amount of steam that was needed.

This way the whole unit would be greatly simplified.

the water could be preheated through a small heat exchanger utilizing part of the steam.

the upper steam boiler that is in communication with the 5" rod would be of such capacity and strength to again facilitate enough steam to run a 9 inch tesla turbin runner 2" thick and possibly another turbin secondary of 1" thick runner. this way 95% of the available heat in the steam will have been expended so that the exhaust is condenced back to water at atmospheric pressure. This water can then be recycled through the system. I don't see a need for anymore than a few gallons of water as long as a good seal can be maintained in all systems in communication with the boiler

The Turbin will drive a 40hp 3 phase electric motor I already have at 50 rpm over its rated RPM when run off regular 3 phase power. By hotting up two of the legs to grid power with 110 it acts then as a generator that can be used with a properly designed motor controller to drive the electric grids power meter backwards. I have the perfect trailer to mount this whole contraption to so its mobil and could set it up on anyones property for a few days at a time to run there meters backwards and run their house for a few days. Most houses are equipp
ed with a 30KW transformer outside on the power pole, so the max it can push back through the grid is about 30KW

If the grid goes down while its running, the 110 is cut off to the field coils and it will not feed electricity back into the grid. So no danger of killing a lineman who may be working on getting the grid back online.
another method for no grid set up is to just run a 12volt auto battery and power inverter to hot up the 110 coils in the 3 phase motor. a one wire automobile alternator run off the turbin will keep that charged up.

the main boiler body will be made out of rectangular steel tubing 5/16" wall thickness. There is much of it I can get down at a local machine shop. Its just off the top of my head from memory aprox. 10"x14" and about 30" long. Some pieces are longer. I asked Cary down there how much pressure he though that tube would handle at boiler temps of above 600 deg F, he thought about 55,000 ppsi. Will stand that tube upright vertical for about a 20-30 gallon high pressure tank. That should be plenty to supply the turbin and water pre-heat exchanger.

Im thinking all I need is about a 2-3" section across the top of the rod exposed inside the boiler box to instantly turn any fine mist spray of water into steam. And being it will be a solid rod it will take a hell of a lot of water to cool it down to rapidly, much more than it will ever see. I might even make that rod out of SS for ever lasting life. As I stated before i will use a hollow shaft for the rod as it will minimize heating up the pillow block bearings. If i make it a lil long on both sides a liquid could be incorporated to flow over it for additional cooling, or through it for the water pre-heat system.

The Turbin will have a long shaft so that I have a shaft at both sides of the turbin to take power off of and turn the rod after its producing steam... This way other devices could utilize the power of the turbin. Maybe an air compressor head would be in order, or a gear reduction transmission or both. Another turbin could be used to pump water also

I'm thinking this could be a very handy lil unit all said and done. I love the simplicity of it

would make a great remote power system to build where no grid power exists.

Any suggestions to the above plan speak now or forever hold your peace, cause I am almost married to it now....hehehe

I have all the welding equipment and lathe to turn the rod and balance it. And have a cousin who works in a place and has access to a laser cutting equipment for the SS turbin disks, these will be cut from SS shim stock very very thin so will have very close tolerances between disks. Steam can get out of a pinhole less than .001" I will have .01 between each disk. As Tesla stated the more surfaces the more torque. the smaller the gap between disks the less CFM needed to run it.

[rickoff]

Hi 1NRG, and welcome to our thead. Glad to hear you are preparing to embark on a build. It will be very interesting to see how your idea of extending the rotor shaft into the steam chamber will work out. The phelolic seal should handle a fairly high pressure well enough, and will also handle temperatures to around 375 F degrees, which should be enough for what you want to do. Thanks for posting your plans, and please keep us informed of your progress. Any diagrams, photos, and video links will be much appreciated.

Good luck, and best wishes to you,

Rick

[1NRG24Seven]

Thank You Rick for the warm welcome,

I thought some more on how to keep the the Rotor 5" Rod against the phenolic seal with a slight pressure advantage pushing the 5" Rod up against the phenolic material.

First let me state that this phenolic flat plate will be 1/2 - 1" thick. A "window" would be cut directly in the center of the phenolic plate leaving at least 1-1/2" all around the outside. So in essence it will look like a picture frame for better visualization here. the flat steel end plate welded at one end of the tube will have a bigger window cut into it than the phenolic window has. this window will be aprx. the same length as the 5" rod rotor, and about 2-3" wide. Now here is where the 5" rotor takes a bit of a change form just a 5" pipe welded solid at each end. The 5" rotor will be machined down to have rounded ends. To better help to visualise this, think of the rounded ends on small CO2 cartridges, only this rod will be rounded at both ends. The reason for this will become apparent as this communicates with the phenolic seal. The window I before mentioned cut into the phenolic plate will have have rounded ends on the narrow sides. Rounded so the 5" rod will press into the window and make the seal. To make the seal conform to the round 5" rod and its rounded ends, I'm thinking that for the first 1 hour run the Rod could be pressed into it with a little more force to wear it into shape and seat it. Or an abrasive Rod could be made to do this more rapidly.

Once seated into the thick phenolic plate, the next step is to regulate the rod pressure against this plate to keep a high pressure seal. This would be done using tank pressure pushing up against the 5" Rod rotor mounting plate. Which in this case would be adjustable so as to keep pressure of the Rotor to the Phenolic seal. Remember that in any hydrolic system the pressure is equal at all points in open communication. So nif the tank pressure is 100psi, there will 100psi pushing the rod rotor into the seal. This way as pressure builds up in the tank its always equal to the pressure pushing up on this rotor. A means to make the up pressure slightly greater will be used also and will explain that in another post.

The only question I have in my mind that would prevent this from working is that high pressure steam cuts like a knife. Its much more brutal than air pressure by itself. If a slight leak developed in the phenolic it might destroy it in a matter of minutes. This is why i suggested a thicker phenolic plate. This plate also would become the friction plate eliminating any need for wood. The metal plate the phenolic plate would be fastened to has a bigger window allowing for wear tolerances between the two. A very thin stainless steel gasket between the two might also lessen steam exposure directly on the phenolic, or could be totally not needed. It could serve to also be a sound warning to change the phenolic plate, as once it wore down to start rubbing against the rod rotor you would hear a different sound of metal to metal. Im thinking this phenolic rub plate/seal could last 100's of thousands of hours. Remember that hot water is sprayed onto the Rotor or Rod, this could be sprayed to keep that rod at or below the 375* temperature tolerance of the phenolic, and may act as a slight lubricant between the phenolic and the steel 5"rod increasing its life.

the amount of surface area of phenolic that will always be in communication with the spinning rod should be high enough to keep it running very Hot.

I will draw a simple replica of the 5"steel rotor/rod with shaft and post it later.

Get your Rod Hot and make some steam!!!

will call it my Hot Rod Steam Engine

I'm thinking getting "Steamed" in this thread will be welcomed...hehehe

Good Day!

24

[1NRG24Seven]

After more thought on this I am now thinking of using an aluminum plate instead of the phenolic. Reason being I can melt down scrap aluminum and pour it into the plate with window and its basic contour already in place. An Aluminum rub plate/seal might be even better. that is if the 5" solid rod rotor was stainless. I had some 316 SS high pressure tanks here that had about 3/4" thick walls rated at 1700psi...anyway i was trying to grind on one one day to see if i mighty be able to take some scratches out of them and polish them. Let me tell you that the grinder even with my best abrasive wheel on it would hardly phase it. So I know aluminum is much softer and would not phase the SS Rotor. Also the aluminum might last longer than the phenolic, maybe not, even so I can take the worn out aluminum rub plate/seal off and remelt it for more rub plates. and being the rotor is adjustable to the rub plate would be a simple procedure to drop the Rotor down and install a new rub plate/seal. A means to oil the rotor slightly with used motor oil also might be used. Contamination in the steam is no problem for a Tesla turbin motor.

Any comments on this idea will be welcome here.

Thanx, 24

[1NRG24Seven]

I wanted to thank FuzzyTomcat for starting this thread.

This steam boiler concept is capable of producing some serious power, making it possible to easily get off the grid, and charge the batteries for an electric vehicle besides. The cost to build one of this units is fairly low if you are like me and scrap around for component parts. Used 3 phase motors are everywhere. The biggest expense here is the Tesla steam turbin, which I have a design that uses pipe and flat end plates for the rotor casing eliminating the need to cast the casing. The rotor disks could be set up on Cad CD disk ready for any company with laser cutter to utilize. Or we could get them cut in mass if we had several people wanting to make the turbin for this project lowering the per disk costs. If a disk of .100 of an inch are used (about the thickness of a razor blade) you can get 50 disks in a 1" runner thickness with the same space as the thickness of the disk between, which uses another laser cut spacer/washer cut from the same material. On a flat piece of shim stock SS sheet there is areas between the larger disks being cut that would be wasted, this is where the washer/spacer will be cut, thereby lowering the amount of waste per sheet.

This is the type of project I like to pursue as it has everything needed to easily produce any amount of KW of power by scaling it up or down. An average household uses between 3-6kw per hour. I could spend my time and money playing around with electrical circuits to light a few LEDS and maybe a CFL and charge a small battery but to scale that up to do what we are talking here would take many more man hours of labor and much more money in electronic parts to do what this can do much easier. Or i could spend thousands trying to develop a mag motor capable of producing this sort of power. I think this steam boiler is a no brainer and we know already what its capable of doing, and steam principles have long been known and engineered, this is just the next generation of engineering. So for me I will stick with what I know is the path of least resistance to get off the grid NOW, and this i believe is the way to do it.

Another thought here if I may continue...
we are working here together in an open source way to develop this stuff, next logical step is to organize those involved to each manufacture or build parts for our units. This way everyone can be involved in the group "Build" concept and mass produce each part as if we were all working in a factory. One person can duplicate the same part faster than trying to make all the parts. What is needed is a working prototype with each part not available at a reasonable price blue printed for each working member to work off of. Then its just a matter of determining how many parts an hour can be produce so we can determine a value per unit based on a base wage and cost of material and equipment needed to build it. These details can be worked out here as we go for the benefit of all involved. Now those in foreign countries might form their own groups likewise so shipping charges don't eat us alive. It could be shipping charges already might make this concept unusable.

Everyone feel free to interject your ideas and comments

Good Day!!!...24

[1NRG24Seven]

Hey Fuzzy...I read you mentioned you were in Oregon, I also am in Oregon, Eastern part of the State.

Good Day!!...24

[rickoff]

If a disk of .100 of an inch are used (about the thickness of a razor blade) you can get 50 disks in a 1" runner thickness with the same space as the thickness of the disk between

I think you meant a disk of .01 inch (1/100"), right?

An average household uses between 3-6kw per hour.

I consider my household to be average in terms of electric usage, but I only use an average of 3/4 kw per hour (based on 24 hours x 30 days, with 540 kw used). I have a fully applianced kitchen, washer and dryer, TV, stereo, Hammond organ, electric blanket, humidifier, and the blower motor on my oil burner runs a lot this time of year. My computer system runs probably 18 hours a day. I think we could all get by with a 2 kw system capacity if we planned our use wisely so as not to run a lot of items at the same time. We get used to doing that with a on-grid sytem because the power is available to meet such demand, but we can greatly lessen that peak demand if we plan our use wisely.

Rick

[1NRG24Seven]

Rick you might be right, will check a razor blade again with my calipers tomorrow. The thickness of a common household single sided razor blade is what I am trying to communicate here.

I had the "Boundary Layer Breakthrough" book years ago and read it many times. I think it was the inventor Possel that made a 6" tesla 2 stage turbine with inlet temps reaching 2050 deg F and it produced 600 fp of thrust. This using very thin stainless disks. He mentioned if inconel was used or hot pressed silicon Nitride for the disk runners they might be able to sustain another 250 degres above that temperature. I don't remember now how much more thrust it would develop but seems as I recall it would over double it.

The point of bringing this up is that with these lower temp steam inputs using stainless disks, warping of the disks should not be a problem. Now even if it did warp a little, the higher speeds of 20,000 rpms will straighten them out real quick. Tesla turbines were designed for high speeds, Tesla ran one up to over 80,000 rpms. At around 85,000 rpm they heard a change in the turbine and its rpms dropped a tad. So they took the unit apart and found one of the disks had completely been destroyed. Wondering where the pieces went they looked in the exhaust and followed it outside to find small little fragments in the parking lot. No damage was seen in the turbine casing or other disks. Stainless Steel because of it Nickle and Chromium content is tough stuff. I think the turbine story mentioned above with the disk that failed only had a high grade steel used for the disk, nothing like Stainless. The fastest Tesla turbine I have heard of to date was made into a dental drill running at 500,000 rpms. It was said that it ran so fast no pain could be felt in the tooth as it removed material so fast that it did not have time to heat the tooth up. The dentist who created it started carving with it and found he made more money as an artist then a dentist so gave up his practice.

Good Day!!...24

[1NRG24Seven]

Rick....Here we use about 6kw on this ranch. Not including my trailer and shop. Down at the main house they run 4 refrigerators and 2 full sized freezers. The house is 5,500 Sq F with an apartment built in for my elderly grandmother. The house is heated and all hot water using waste motor oil burned through a special designed burner into a boiler. The house also has a woodstove to suppliment the main living room because of its very high open ceiling exposing an upstairs loft. Before the waste oil boiler system was installed it was costing on average $450.00 per month for propane central heat furnace and hot water tank which is also propane. The waste oil system ties into the hot water tank and furnace through heat exchangers. Other rooms in the house were equiped with low profile baseboard hot water heat exchangers and digital thermostates to control valves when heat was needed. Waste Motor Oil is free except the cost to drive to pick it up. I make biodiesel and also have over 30 restaurant accounts i pick up waste veggie oil from. The last thing to conquor here is the electric bill, which runs another 250-300 a month at the main house and about 60 a month that I use for my shop and trailer. The waste oil boiler also heats the chicken coop and a greenhouse, howbeit small greenhouse.

So when I said "average" I should have qualified that statement as folks like us here being wasteful energy sucking pigs.

Good Day!!!....24

[rickoff]

Rick you might be right, will check a razor blade again with my calipers tomorrow. The thickness of a common household single sided razor blade is what I am trying to communicate here.

Yes, you had said .1 for the thickness, which is 1/10 inch. I wouldn't want to shave with that!

The dentist who created it started carving with it and found he made more money as an artist then a dentist so gave up his practice.

It's about time a dentist did something to make an honest living. Dentists are some of the biggest crooks out there. Most dentists now charge about $1200 for a crown, plus $350 or more to prepare the tooth for the crown. Typically, they pay a dental lab $120 or less for the crown to be made up, so the dentist is charging you 10 times what he is paying. And that's only if they are using a US lab. Many are outsourcing the work to labs in China at half that cost, like this one:
China Dental Outsourcing, Inc.

What a rip-off! I'd love to strap a dentist into his chair, stick him several times with one of those huge Novacain needles (without injecting anything), and then bore a few holes into some root canals.

Rick

[1NRG24Seven]

Hi all,

There is some wood that could possibly be used as a great substitute that could last a lot longer and has been used for decades in the marine industry for bearings, called "Ironwood" very dense and will sink in water its so heavy and is available. The best that I have used when I had a sailboat w/ Atomic 4-cly ICE engine is from Brazil "Caesalpinia ferrea" almost black hard as rocks. The nice thing is there are 15 varieties of Ironwood that could be used. I'll be trying some when I get to that point to see if it works or feel free to try it yourself.


Regards,
Glen

Glen, I used to live in Portland Oregon and picked up a bunch of Iron wood from a recycling yard down off Columbia Blvd somewhere. Well I burned up 3 brand new belt sanders and several skill saw blades trying to work with that stuff. I weighed one 2 x 4 8 feet long, it was 80 pounds. I burned it with a propane torch and could only get it to smolder for a bit, stuff really stinks. I agree Iron wood would be the stuff to use here. I would be willing to bet you could not wear 2 24" 4 x 4 sections of it out, might take several years if it was possible. Its still softer then steel so should not wear the steel rotor out. Also since it resisted burning, might be the thing to use here. Now I wish i could remember where the junkyard was I picked it up at. The iron wood I got my hands on was from a shipping crate they dismantled from South America. Thanx for reminding me of Ironwood, good stuff.

Good Day!!!...24

[1NRG24Seven]

Yes, you had said .1 for the thickness, which is 1/10 inch. I wouldn't want to shave with that!

your right Rick thanx for the correction.

What a rip-off! I'd love to strap a dentist into his chair, stick him several times with one of those huge Novacain needles (without injecting anything), and then bore a few holes into some root canals.

Just strap em into their chair and give em the laughing gas, then you can sit back and do the laughing...

Good Day!!!...24

[kentman21]

Heat exchange problem

Hi Rickoff,
I have been observing this thread for some time , and I am astonished at the post you make and the great depth of knowledge you have shown. I fully appreciate the time and effort you are making. and I feel it's e great priviledge to be able to share that knowledge and experience. I sincerly thank-you for this great effort.
I have been thinking about the heat exchange problem, between the rotor and the flash steam boiler. I would suggest that the bottom plate of the boiler be replaced by a copper sheet , say 3/16 or a 1/4" thick, a steel flange could be welded on to the bottom of the boiler and the copper plate gasketted and bolted thereto.On the inside of the copper plate could be brazed 3 ribs to re-inforce the flat copper plate,these ribs could be extended up into the boiler to increase the radiating surface. On the outside of the copper around it's outer diameter could be brazed a skirt extending down 1"
also 2 extensions covering that part of the rotor not covered by the wood, these would be approx 1" wide by some 5" long , this assy could be fabricated from 16 gauge copper. With this addition no part of the rotor would be uncovered.
There has also been some discusion about the controle of the water into the boiler here I would suggest we take a method used on the old steam locomotives,bringing it up-to-date with modern sensors. The system could be made to be completely automatic, requiring no action on the part of the operator. Here a sketch would illustrate the proposed system, but being a newbie to computers I will have to study how these "thumbnails" are made, when the the study is complete I will make another post.
Incidently, again thanks are due to your posts on how to post photos or diagrams.
I have started cutting metal for this project, which I think it's most realisable of all I've seen on the 'net.
Regards kentman21

[rickoff]

Hi kentman,

Welcome to the thread. In my own drawing of the friction steamer, I was attempting to show one way that the device could be built so as to be pretty close to what Lloyd had described. There are numerous possible modifications that one could make, and some may result in even better performance than Lloyd achieved with his original device. Lloyd, of course, went on to an improved design himself with the horizontal roller build. Wise use of copper in a build can certainly enhance operation. Nothing much heats up more quickly or more evenly than copper, and of course that is why copper clad cookware is so popular. By all means feel free to experiment with your ideas, and to share your ideas, diagrams, and photos with us as you move forward with your build.

Good luck to you,

Rick