Hybrid Ship Pulse Detonation Turbine to DC Electrics

[SeaBirdShip]

In a few days the website will have the details for what's going on but for now the rundown is as follows;

I have hired an engineering team to re-design the entire propulsion and generation for the Sea Bird.

The 2 550hp D379 will be replaced with 2 600hp DC electric motors on direct drive and the 479hp 12v71 will be replace with a 500hp DC electric motor. This gives the ships propulsion a 1700hp top for power budget. At 1700hp take this times 746 for watts and we get 1.268MW of power with power conversion losses and motor losses we have a required power budget of 1.648MW.

So the generation plan requires that at any one time one of the 3 generators may need to be off line for maintenance leaving us with a 850KW per generator requirement. This gives a 1.7MW per pair and a 2.55MW total power budget for the ship. Now the trick will be if this is to tight to increase to 900KW gens instead, we'll see.

I've decided to go with all digital control surfaces both in engineering and on the bridge for complete on demand managed control of all systems.

Question: Do any of you folks know of a good manufacture for large air scrubbers? I want all air brought into engineering and all other cabin space to be around 30%rh and zero particulates especially salt

Thanks,

SeaBird

[Richard Hillsid]

Originally Posted by SeaBirdShip

Well, there is about 800 million gallons of waste oil created in the US alone of which 200 million is not even accounted for.

Sorry for long absence in reply.

Yes i believe it is so.

I just had 60 barrels of waste oil collected from our shop, I thought of using it as fuel for heating but it is illegal in under 5 megawatt facilities, the main reason waste oil is pretty darn dirty, has heavy metals and PAH compounds in it, some of it can be cleaned out by big complexes specialy designed for it like that took our waste oil for free as it was clean enough, any debris in it and we would have had to pay. They clean it up from heavy metals and re sell it to sights with technology to burn it hot enough not to emit the extremely carcinogenic PAH compounds. It’s a environmental thing, they don’t make a big penny from it and its easier to burn new sulphur content zero heating oil, but the waste oil must be disposed in some manner other than everyone firing it up and polluting even more.

Why don’t you try burning rape seed oil or some other bio fuel and get the US finally to ban burning waste oil by privates or small companies due to its extreme hazards.

[SeaBirdShip]

Originally Posted by Richard Hillsid

Why don’t you try burning rape seed oil or some other bio fuel and get the US finally to ban burning waste oil by privates or small companies due to its extreme hazards.

The key is exactly what you said you have to burn it hot enough in order to burn all the nasty stuff including all the less nasty but just as bad NOX, CO, HCO mixtures.

By using pulse detonation in stead of a slow burning deflagration we hope to eliminate 93% of any emissions and and additionional 5% by reusing the exhaust in the next burn.

SeaBird

[kach22i]

What's the latest news Seabird?

[FAST FRED]

"Liquids do not burn -- only vapor or gas phase fuels burn! While carburetors and fuel injectors work to convert liquid fuels to vapor state, the fuel still acts as a quasi-liquid even in a hot cylinder."

This is true , although the problem is surmountable.

Saw a presentation at an EAA Fly in where a fellow had found a simple solution, in order to sell it , so he could get the ca$h to develop a fancy diesel he designed.

The argument was if you spill a pail of water in a garage , and wait overnight the water will still be there.
But if you move the water by sweeping it with a broom the water will evaporate .

Evaporated fuel burns far better than droplets and liquid in the usual intake manifold.

His solution was to machine open the manifold and at about 1/4 inch apart insert wide "vinetian blind" blades the length of the manifold, a huge surface area for the fuel to fully evaporate.

On tests in a TX lab , and at Calloway in CT his engines had the lowest emissions yet seen.

I believe he sold the concept to the small motor folks , Briggs & Stratton etc.
as the air police was wild that a simple lawnmower puts out more pollution than a full sized auto. And was attempting to regulate the small engine out of business.

FF

[SeaBirdShip]

UPDATE : After 5 months of additional research I feel comfortable building two out of 3 of the required pieces of technology with the knowledge that they would work, these being the turbine and fuel delivery, however it became clear that the PDE was the magic part that apparently has met with minimal success from NASA and other govt. contractors.

My team and I have built and are currently testing a 12 disc x 17.75" Tesla Turbine built around Tesla’s Patent material. We are using a number of the modifications that were posted on Phoenix Navigation for efficiency to the turbine and are currently adding the winglet design changes between the plates. The current turbine is achieving approximately 56% efficiency and with the new changes we are hoping to achieve around 67%. The current tests are being made with a 1550psi steam cleaner that was used on the ship for cleaning the decks, however the condensation causes its own problems so we are now looking at 4x80lbs scuba tanks at 3000psi per test to calculate efficiency. We have on the Seabird two commercial grade scuba compressors and multiple tanks for running these tests for energy in, on the energy out we are using a 280VDC electric motor as a generator being loaded by 4 AC/DC variable amperage digital loads. To calculate efficiency we simply calculate energy in vs. energy out assuming the DC motor has 92% efficiency and get the turbine rating.

The PDE is in design phase now and will be approximately 6" in diameter with a 2.33" detonation chamber and will be milled out of a poly-alloy here in San Diego. We are using a plasma injector as the ignition device and are expecting approximately 35-40K psi from the PDE exhaust to turbine. If this works we are home free, if not then this is where the work will be.

The propulsion of the Seabird has been settled, we will be using 3 x Reliance G50 AC vector less controlled inverters, with 3 x Rockwell AC vector less Driver. You can look the Specs up on the motors here http://www.reliance.com/Products_motors/g30.html, which I have purchased from OH. These motors will in turn be run initially by the 3 x CAT 3608 generators we have on board but will eventually be replaced by the Tesla Turbines.

Finally the current 17.75 Tesla Turbine will be used as the prototype to run shore power. So if everything works well the 1st working proto will be a 70KW 560VAC generator which will later be scaled up to 3 x 850KW 620VAC generators.

SeaBird

[SeaBirdShip]

Originally Posted by FAST FRED

"Liquids do not burn -- only vapor or gas phase fuels burn! While carburetors and fuel injectors work to convert liquid fuels to vapor state, the fuel still acts as a quasi-liquid even in a hot cylinder."

This is true , although the problem is surmountable.

Saw a presentation at an EAA Fly in where a fellow had found a simple solution, in order to sell it , so he could get the ca$h to develop a fancy diesel he designed.

The argument was if you spill a pail of water in a garage , and wait overnight the water will still be there.
But if you move the water by sweeping it with a broom the water will evaporate .

Evaporated fuel burns far better than droplets and liquid in the usual intake manifold.

His solution was to machine open the manifold and at about 1/4 inch apart insert wide "vinetian blind" blades the length of the manifold, a huge surface area for the fuel to fully evaporate.

On tests in a TX lab , and at Calloway in CT his engines had the lowest emissions yet seen.

I believe he sold the concept to the small motor folks , Briggs & Stratton etc.
as the air police was wild that a simple lawnmower puts out more pollution than a full sized auto. And was attempting to regulate the small engine out of business.

FF

Fast Fred,

You are correct on all counts; the burn efficiency is directly related to the amount of fuel / air vapor not fuel. One of the primary areas of design for the PDE is the fuel delivery system; the plan is to get very small particles of fuel surrounded by air to enter the combustion chamber. To do this we are using very high temperature pre-staging in combination with a turbo compressor stage and a vortex mixing chamber. Preliminary tests are showing remarkable aeration of the fuel and should provide what we need.

Sea Bird

[SeaBirdShip]

Hello Folks from Boat Design
This is SeaBird, and it has been along time since I was last here. Ok couple of quick updates;

1) New updated website with tonnes of new data and pictures. please have a look at www.seabirdadventure.com

2) Actually have a working 125KW prototype in test runs now, whew. Will be posting video footage and all kinds of new data very soon.

3) Still using waste oils but using 90% H2O2 as the oxidizer for both pre-fuel heat and detonation oxidation of the waste oil.

4) Due to the combustion temperatures hitting 5900F, sigh, needing to rebuild the turbine elements using poly-alloys.

Well that's all for now, been a long time.

Cheers, SeaBird

[SeaBirdShip]

Wanted to update everyone on this thread on the progress of the Sea Bird website and Turbine development for the new engines. The new site is up please have a look and let me know what you think, here at http://www.seabirdadventure.com/

With a direct link for you folks interested only in the prototype 125KW Tesla Turbine generator at http://www.seabirdadventure.com/phot...-tesla-turbine

And for those interested in the testing of the 50% H2O2, here are some pictures for that, however the video will be much more exciting

http://www.seabirdadventure.com/phot...roxide-testing

Pleas let me know What you all think.

Cheers, SeaBird

[cthippo]

What's the pulse frequency on your engine?

[SeaBirdShip]

Originally Posted by cthippo

What's the pulse frequency on your engine?

At this time what you are seeing is the Tesla Turbine part of the project and a 165Hp propulsion unit. The PDE device is not being shown in this picture.

So to answer your question there are to variables, Time On, Time Off;

During ramp up the Time on is longer and the Time off is shorter, as the system reaches the ~7500 Rpm's the Time on lessens while the time of increases.

The computer circuit I built has a tach input and based on a duty cycle to constant RPM steady state the system try's to use the least fuel while maintaining a constant transmission RPM of 1800 to the generator.

Cheers, SeaBird

[cthippo]

Bear with me here, as this branch of physics is not my strong suit, but...

From what you're describing it sounds like you're using a variation on pulse width modulation to vary the apparent power level.

It seems like the combustion chamber would have a certain natural frequency derived from it's physical dimensions, kind of like a resonator. This natural frequency would be determined by how long it takes the detonation front to move through the combustion chamber and then cool enough to produce a vacuum to draw in the next charge. Is the pulse width of the chamber so small that it acts like a de facto continuous burn for the purposes of the PWM?

In the pictures above, are you feeding the output of the H2O2 / oil reactor straight into the turbine without combusting it or is that straight H2O2 over a catalyst?

EDIT:

OK, bear with me, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this. From what you're describing, this is how I think it would work.

* = individual detonation of the engine
_ = engine not firing


So when accelerating it might look something like...


*******___*******___*******___*******___*******

But at "cruise" speed it would look more like...

***_____***_____***_____***_____***_____***____***

Am I close?

[SeaBirdShip]

Actually you are correct in all thoughts, the only difference is what stage I'm at and showing you in the pictures.

In a PDE device the length of the reaction chamber directly corresponds to the natural frequency of the detonation and even though you can alter the frequency by not supplying fuel and/or in my engine design altering the firing of the plasma injectors to artificially detonate early. However once running you cannot lengthen the detonation phase past the natural frequency without withholding fuel.

In my yesterday reply you'll notice I said

At this time what you are seeing is the Tesla Turbine part of the project and a 165Hp propulsion unit. The PDE device is not being shown in this picture.

When I say a propulsion device I mean a thrust engine, i.e. "Rocket Engine" in this case a mono-propellant H2O2 catalyzing rocket engine. So I can vary the thrust component by altering the fuel quantity and the duty cycle in exactly the way you describe in your question,

i.e. OK, bear with me, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this. From what you're describing, this is how I think it would work.

* = individual detonation of the engine
_ = engine not firing


So when accelerating it might look something like...


*******___*******___*******___*******___*******

But at "cruise" speed it would look more like...

***_____***_____***_____***_____***_____***____***

Am I close?

So yes, you are completely correct in the above pulse description, the only difference is that in this stage I'm using the 1st sage of the engine which is the thrust engine not the PDE.

The PDE device is in the works but not available for viewing yet lot's of work yet to do.

Awesome questions and thoughts though, thank you

SeaBird

[SeaBirdShip]

Ok, in this picture the Tesla turbine is packaged in the large round disk behind the square block with the shaft going through the middle.

The thrust engine is the "tiny" silver cylinder on the top left of the disk pack with the pressure gauge to the left of it.

Now by using me as a size reference you can tell that the thrust engine is about the size of two fists put end to end together.

Here's the fun bit of trivia that little engine you are looking at is producing 165HP of thrust, that's over 300lbs of thrust at 1200m/s "faster then the speed of sound by quite allot" exhaust at 975 degrees Fahrenheit into the disk pack.

Pretty cool huh?

To read more on this project check out --->

http://www.seabirdadventure.com/tesl...very-different

Cheers, SeaBird

[cthippo]

Originally Posted by SeaBirdShip

Pretty cool huh?

No, that is not "pretty cool", that is FREAKING INCREDIBLE!