nerdydad

Wow, you really did a lot of work! I really need to get in touch with my high school math teacher. I remember 20 years ago (give or take a few), saying dumb things like "when am I ever gonna use this in the real world?". Well, apparently every day. I was just explaining to my kids who were learning how to find volumes of containers that I was just doing the same thing, designing a pump, finding the area of the piston times stroke times rpm for flow. Anyway, I've spent the last 3 years in my shed working out the details of an ambient air engine that was so simple on paper! A scroll compressor (running as expander), a 30 plate heat exchanger, yards of misc copper tubing, fittings, valves, etc. Even home built thermoelectric generator/ heaters/ coolers, pulse tube cryocoolers (performance to be determined) and a tesla turbine/ pump thingy (large diameter turbine with small dia pump on same shaft). I guess you could say I'm working on a cold (cryogenic?) Rankine cycle. The basic idea being pump a cold liquid (ln2 if ambitious, propane if u don't want to spend 3 years in the shed) through heat exchangers cooling the returning nitrogen, picking up additional ambient heat, spinning turbine, returning to liquid container via heat exchanger. At least that would be the "on paper" version. The real thing involves Joule Thomson valves, many heat exchangers, 2 cycle motors converted to air motors, etc. Because the tesla turbine pump can't get the liquid to high enough pressure, I wanted to design a air powered hydraulic plunger pump to use the piston ratios to step up the pressure. That's when Irremembered the oscillator, thought I'd Google it to see how those "valves" worked, and found your post. My design is also inspired by Tesla's PWIHE (long title!). I noticed he came up with his theory for the ambient engine after seeing air liquefaction (was it Claude, Linde, Kelvin?). He also used the water flowing in a cup analogy that really made sense. If you pump out water (heat), more water (heat) can flow in, which at best leaves us breaking even. However, if some of the water (heat) is converted to hydrogen and oxygen (work), then you don't have to pump as much out as comes in (a gain!). Since the best way to get compressed gas to lose heat is to make it do work, this is pretty convenient! Of course its never quite that easy, but using latent heat properly and using good materials (stress, thermal conductivity, etc) it can be done. The cold fluid absorbs ambient heat, expands to high pressure, does work, losing heat, then gives remaining heat to the warming liquid being pumped via heat exchanger, then JT valve for final liquefaction. This a slight simplification, there are other details such as how to recirculate unliquefied gas , volume and pressure flows, etc. Search ORC cycles, and its already being done with propane using waste or solar heat, but the holy grail is ambient! I like your thinking and will probably use the oscillator/ hydraulic pump design you show, although putting it inside the tank would evaporate the LN2 supply. I just like knowing I'm not the only insane person trying to save the world (its a tough job but someone's gotta do it). Its also interesting to see other ideas. You came up with a totally different idea from the same inspiration. Actually reminds of a compressed air forum I've seen. The injectors are a totally different approach from anything I've seen. After making the nozzle for the tesla turbine I think I'd purchase an injector instead of my usual "maybe I can make one!) attitude. If I had $, I'd buy a cryogenic liquid pump but I'm guessing a HP one would cost more than my car. I'd love to work with you and test some ideas. I've been reading old books online about steam engine valves, etc. Why are there such things as valves? Tesla made them obsolete 100 years ago! The system in the oscillator is nothing short of genius, and his valvular conduit solves other valve issues. Just wish it was easy to make like most of his other inventions! Thanks for sharing! Andy