Timeline for Would there be any fuel alternatives for an internal combustion engine before the discovery of crude oil/gasoline?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
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| Jul 24, 2021 at 16:53 | comment | added | 魔大农 | @TedWrigley: When you say 15th century, are you limiting that to Europe? I think the Chinese may have been technically capable quite a bit earlier. | |
| Jul 24, 2021 at 16:53 | comment | added | Jan Hudec | @TedWrigley lower pressure means less efficiency, but it allows bootstrapping the industry. The early Newcomen engines worked between atmospheric pressure and partial vacuum only, but it already offered advantages over oxen. | |
| Jul 23, 2021 at 18:54 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @jamesqf: Yes (and I agree with all of these comments so far). The issue, though, is how much pressure can be created, because pressure translates to power. I imagine one could make a working steam engine even with low quality metallurgy, but the pressure would have to be kept so low that it would hardly be effective or efficient. For instance, an espresso maker might produce 5 to 10 bars (70-140 psi), but a locomotive engine will typically need to produce 250-350 psi in a much bigger chamber, and a high pressure stream engine might generate up yo 1500 psi. | |
| Jul 23, 2021 at 18:17 | comment | added | jamesqf | AFAIK most boilers eventually had safety valves, which released pressure before it reached dangerous levels. So you'd only have to worry about flawed seams, just as you'd worry about flaws in seamless plate. | |
| Jul 23, 2021 at 9:16 | comment | added | amay | @arne there is some evidence that Cistercian monks may have been doing something like that prior to 1536 at which point they got shut down by Henry VIII. discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/henrys-big-mistake | |
| Jul 23, 2021 at 8:45 | comment | added | arne | Smelting steel is not hard per se - you just have to build a furnace fired with coke. Technically this would have been entirely possible in the 15th century, but the research just hadn't been done yet. | |
| Jul 23, 2021 at 8:42 | comment | added | arne | Most steam locomotives and ships used riveted boilers made from plate steel without blowing up all the time. If the plates and rivets are thick enough, they can withstand the pressures involved without problems. | |
| Jul 23, 2021 at 7:17 | comment | added | MolbOrg | "extremely high pressures" 2-5-10 bars called extreamly high those days? Do not mix overall robustness and forces involved and pressure alone, mix it with size - "they have to be able to build sufficiently big and sufficiently robust boilers" | |
| Jul 23, 2021 at 6:58 | history | edited | Ted Wrigley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 1 character in body
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| Jul 23, 2021 at 6:12 | history | answered | Ted Wrigley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |