Vaporizing oil spray experiment.

As I remember it yes, but bare in mind I was around 7-8 years old! When I catch up with him I'll find out more, he probably still has the furnace, it was quite large (then again I was quite small back then!)

 

Yeah it's funny how things shrink with time, my old high school did that last time I visited it. It would be interesting to see how your Dad's furnace had the gas flow internally as it would be difficult to get an even 50-50 split in the flow on it's way to the exhaust hole. I'll lightly bake the liner on Thursday to dry it out and then try for an open air run to see if it'll sustain combustion. I think the nozzle should provide enough shielding to hold a flame front and it'll be interesting to see if I can some Nobox7 style hot combustion happening outside the furnace.

 

He's 81 and his hearing is shot so a phone conversation is out and I'm reluctant to drop by with all this other stuff going on. I do know he was talking about breaking the foundry out again when someone asked for some pedal steel end case castings so I'll try to locate it when I next visit. (Could be fun to find!!)

 

Maybe you could write him a letter and drop it in the (gasp) post!

Pete

 

Tri...trib....trib-OL-ogy. Ok Google.

the study of friction, wear, lubrication, and the design of bearings; the science of interacting surfaces in relative motion.

Your welcome.

Pete

 

Tribology is the scientific study of sports team supporters.......that said, I like my bushes hydrostatic.

 

He's email capable, even if he doesn't pick it up that often, I am concerned that if I light the casting bug again he'll be out there trying to fling metal around. Mum is a good translator (she shouts) I'll see what I can do, for the sake of my own memories as much as anything.

F1 gets around 800hp out of 1.4l it's never going to be your daily driver though! My last motorcycle was around 96hp (crank) from 0.6l and was far too much fun! I digress as usuall

 

I have the nozzle/refractory tuyere assembled for a test tomorrow if the weather is good. It's difficult to put an even radius on the hole with an angle grinder, I may need to lap it with a cone later on if it's a problem. The tube is centered with a sheet stainless flower thingy that wedges tight in the tube but allows movement of the copper fuel tube/nozzle up and down the tuyere to tune it.

 

The furnace needed some maintenance after the last run where I had water contaminated fuel: even running full throttle it was just hot enough to spray iron slag all over the interior but barely melt any iron. I had to use a diamond wheel to knock off the lumps and smooth it all down and remove all the crap from under the lid and the exhaust hole. Once that was done I fitted the tuyere liner and took a few shots with a mirror on the plinth to get a decent view. Now the tuyere is lined with refractory from the flange outside all the way to the furnace chamber. This should eliminate the fuel leak between the stainless body and the refractory. At certain times I could get a sooty flame out the top of the furnace between the steel body and the refractory while getting fuel on the ground too. The nozzle has enough travel to protrude into the chamber and withdraw way back into the tuyere, I'll fit some brass clamps as travel stops to limit travel into the chamber.

 

Even if it works like ass, it's the coolest looking burner here that's for sure!

 

If only stuff worked great by looking cool!....oh wait isn't that how Ferraris get designed? .

 

That's the truth... I had to screw with a battery on a 458spyder last week..... HOLY F, they built the car around that thing. This is at the feet of the passenger on the WALL. WTF were thinking?
Battery had enough juice to start the car many times easily, but would not let it shift out of park until we got it over 85% capacity. Dumbest thing I've seen in awhile. My boss almost had to ship his car back to dallas for a charge! I'm glad we got it working for him again. List price for this is $1700. Total rip off, the battery is 280bucks on the street.

 

Some of the more mundane euorpean makers do the same, they chuck a big terminal under the hood for the positive so you can hook up and jump it/charge it. If the battery is toast you have to take half the footwell apart.

Looking forward to the burn results, that multi-burner head does look badass

 

Source of design cues:

 

What was the nature of the contamination? Pockets of water?, emulsified? I have some old deisel sitting in a tank to separate but there may be some emulsification going on as well. Other than cooling your furnace what was the effect? I see the slag so there was evidently some "chugging" going on.

Pete

 

It looked cloudy but not milky-emulsifed a bit like salad dressing vinaigrette and the heat was reduced probably from steam removing heat and maybe slowing combustion. I'll see if I can frame grab some images but the flame looked different too. The slag was due to the excessive air and fuel settings barely melting the iron well after it should have happened. It's hard to show the flame difference with still photos but normal operation has an even orange flame where the wet fuel had bright yellow streaks in the flame and the refractory was orange instead of yellow-white.

Normal operation with dry fuel at about 20 litres per hour with white hot refractory below the yellow seen in the exhaust hole.


Damp fuel at +26 litres per hour and airflow high enough to blow slag out of the crucible all over the inside of the lid and exhaust throat. Sound is a bit like an old Boeing 727 on take off with crackle sound.



Another shot of the wet fuel showing yellow streaks instead of pale orange.

 

That may be a little overkill without a seriously good refractory but I admire the motivation!

 

Well it works after a fashion: The furnace runs almost identically to before except the combustion tuning seems more tolerant to before and now there's a much narrower sweet spot range of nozzle movement up and down the tuyere. It does seem to run quieter and smoother and the annoying fuel leak is gone. Fuel consumption is about half: in 90 minutes it had used 26 litres: the amount it used to burn for under 45-60 minutes use. While I could run more air and fuel, there was a point where it would make a two inch tall column of molten iron slag swirling on top of the crucible in the middle and shedding chunks into the exhaust flow to land at random spots on the grass around the furnace. The crucible was almost full but about 60% was oxides and crap that had to be skimmed off. This is the aftermath of the failed run last time leaving so much half melted crap in the crucible. The furnace is just barely getting hot enough to melt iron and not as good as it used to perform say three runs ago. I'm starting to suspect coking in the fuel nozzles or a partially blocked fuel filter as fuel pressure went to 70 PSI instead of the usual 50PSI.

I was able to make an iron spindle tube casting for my sand mixer machine instead of the original aluminium version, this should give a harder surface for the stacked rubber shaft seals to run on that keep dirt out of the spindle bearings.

So in short:

1. Fuel consumption per hour is about half: no more fuel leak too (the leak didn't use half the fuel).
   
2. Easier to tune.
3. Sounds smoother when running.
   
4. Doesn't quite get as hot as it once did.
5. Needs to be run twice as long for a comparable amount melted, so litres per kilogram melted is the same.
   
6. Can't currently run it harder due to burning slag rain.

 

Mark,

It looks like your furnace and mine are roughly similar in size. Yours is somewhat heavier than mine, so, it may warm a bit slower but not that much. Being 7000 miles away, I hesitate to make operational suggestions for your furnace. However, could it be that reducing your fuel flow and air flow could actually raise your furnace temperature? For me, .18L/min is very close to the ideal compromise. I burn about 10.8 liters in an hour vs your consumption of 17 liters. I know for sure that if pushed that much fuel through my furnace it would take me forever to melt iron. As it is, I can melt 50 pounds to 2550F a little over an hour. Just running at 12.5 L per hour really slows things down. Forgive me, if you have already tried slower fuel flow rates and have been disappointed.

I think your "Saturn 5" nozzle is very cool and I admire the thought and execution. But to get into orbit and not overshoot, Houston may need to throttle it back a bit. ;-)

Denis