Ken
I believe you have a lot of experience with Warp Drive propellers. I am
thinking of making a portable dyno room with a steel square tube frame that
is experimentally 6' high, 6' wide and 8' long. It would be totally
skinned in plywood on the outside for strength, and thin sheet metal on the
inside with fiberglass sound insulation in between with wired safety windows
on both sides. Actually the room splits apart and allows one to pull the
engine mount and frame on wheels on out the back. Imagine the back and
bottom side mounted on a L-shape frame on wheels while the rest of the
'room' remains on four anchor bolted legs and you'll get the idea. Air
intake is through the front duct in front of the prop and exhaust would be
though the back outlets around the peripheral of the engine and firewall.
Obviously the fire wall will need some frame members ( X shape?) to support
it. They should be faired where they enter the air stream. Interior walls
of the chamber would have to be optimized to increase the speed but
The purpose is to size the adjustable outlets to get an airflow of at
least 100 mph through the enclosure. Perhaps I could test cooling duct
design at the same time as I'm running the engine.
Seeing those props on an air boat gave me the idea.
Assume I found a inexpensive way to make a CS electrically driven
Warp drive that is good enough for test purposes only. Would six blades be
enough to absorb the power of a 300+ engine? I heard someone say 50 hp a
blade but their website is not clear to me.
Doug Fir
I like the rad test idea. Makes making the dyno more worth
while. You simultaneously have an unlimited source of heated
water and a significant air flow. If you make a convergent
duct for the prop you could get much more than a 100 MPH
through your cooling tunnel. Very good idea Doug.
Paul Lamar
Paul
I think you meant unlimited source of 'cool' water but then again if you
loop the flow through your floor heating system you can shed a few more BTUs
and heat the building (cockpit) at the same time.
Perhaps a simple cylinder dyno room with the convergent duct and flow
straighter grill is the way to go. How far away from the cowl does the duct
need to be? I am assuming the duct inside is smooth. Perhaps a cardboard
'Sonotube' coated with a fire proofing liquid would be a quick and easy way
to make the middle chamber. 42" or 48" diameter should accommodate all
single engine cowls.
Engine and cowl could still be rolled out of the back, on a stand like yours
if you wish. Of course the prop or fan would have to be connected from the
front.
Here is a stateside tube source.
http://www.valleysupply.cc/SONOTUBES.html
Doug Fir
Cool water is not the problem when testing rads.
Plenty of hot water is.
At 200 net HP out (25% eff.) the engine is generating about
240 HP or 180 KW or 615,000 BTU of hot water if my conversion
and arithmetic are correct in a closed system.
Get yourself an RX8 electric rack and pinion steering gear
from a crashed car. Makes a great prop pitch change mechanism.
Very fast too. Will change the pitch on six blades no problem.
Attach a short section of the rack to a disk with a slot
in its circumference. Pin the disk so it can not rotate.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
OK Doug the hub could look something like this....
less the RX8 rack and pinion. The green collars could be split
and clamped around the warp drive blade hubs with machine
screws and JB Weld. Make the blue parts out of 7075 T6
aluminum and use Torlon plastic ball bearings out of
sailboat blocks.
--
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
Paul,
Thanks for the great drawing. Could the ends of the Warp Drive props be
ground off and the prop shaft slid into the green collars and bonded with JB
Weld? Tons of compact DC gear motors over here to choose from so that is
no problem.
Off to Tokyo for New Energy Exposition for a few days
Doug
IMHO No you are pushing JB-Weld. In theory it would be a shear
force of about 1.5 inch in diameter 3 inches long gives
a bond area of 14 square inches or a shear force of
42,400 pounds so it looks good on paper. I guess if it
throws a blade on the dyno no big deal if you have it way
out there in your ten acre back yard. (The hill side
in the back ground of this picture.) Would indeed simplify the green
parts.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
The Rotary Engine NewsLetter. Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site.
http://www.rotaryeng.net
Copyright 1998-2006 All world wide rights reserved.
