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I accidentally stumbled across a video that had me captivated in a way that most things on YouTube are completely incapable of. It was the startup procedure for a WWI U-Boat diesel engine, and somehow it’s captivating. I honestly wish I could have a chance to sit there and watch the whole process. Needs an "ACME" label… I got into a conversation on Facebook last night about the various projects we’ve wanted to undertake, but haven’t thus far been able to find either the required parts, or the other resources — ie., time — to make them happen. I realized that I had a unique situation [...]
This is Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer. It made news last week when Amtrak announced that they had run it on its route from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth for a year on B20 with no appreciable change in engine performance or degradation. In other words, this thing runs on 20% biodiesel just fine.
So let’s say you just built a supertanker, or maybe a giant cruise ship. You need to power it somehow. You start doing the calculations on how much power you need and you think to yourself, “Crap. I would need 15367 LS1 engines to make the torque I need to move this through the water. What am I to do?!” Well, you start off by ripping everything off the hull so you can drop one of these bad boys in. Behold, the Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C.  It's not normally made of plexiglas... Ever since I did an article last year about the Ten Craziest Old Engines over on Hooniverse, this particular one has stuck in my head. It’s called the “Commer Knocker”. It’s a three-cylinder, two-stroke, six piston, horizontally opposed, direct-injected, high-revolution diesel engine. Yeah, I know.
In a small building in a sprawling factory in Augsburg, Germany a little man toils away. Even though he was primarily trained in refrigeration his heart was in engines. He would toy with steam engines, even suffering a near fatal accident with an ammonia vapor steam engine he was building. But the thermal efficiency of steam was barely in the double digits. There must be a better way. Continue reading MAN That’s a Noisy Engine |
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