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Water-cooled Examples
To All,
In another thread regarding the growing shortage of air-cooled automobile engine that can be easily converted to serve as a power- plant for a home-built, I mentioned liquid-cooled engines as an alternative. This lead to an interesting exchange about various options but it also made clear that many home-builders are not familiar with industrial engines. If you will go to the URL below... http://www.gm.com/experience/technol...al_engines.jsp ....you will see the industrial engines offered by General Motors. Examine the two smallest engines. These are four-inline, water-cooled engines which may be had with a variety of cams making them suitable for a number of applications from pumping water (typically the cam most suitable for fitting a propeller), to powering a light truck (mid- range, multi-speed cam) or marine applications (usually using a cam that produces the highest rpm). Every automobile manufacturer of any size has an industrial engine division. This SHOULD be true for TATA ( in India) as well as China. Ideally, we want the engine that weighs the least and can produce at least 40hp @ 2800 rpm. To keep things simple, if the engine uses fuel injection, we would discard that in favor of an up-draft carburetor. If the ignition is part of a combustion controller computer system, it would be replaced with a simple electronic ignition system, allowing the engine to be manually started. These changes would reduce the engine's weight and may reduce its cost, depending upon how it is acquired. When examining the graphs showing torque, rpm and horsepower, keep in mind that we are driving a PROPELLER with the further assumptions that it is made of wood. Unlike a metal prop, which may be a hollow forging (!) that optimizes L/D, a home-made prop is typically made of wood, which means it must have a thicker cross-section to achieve the required strength. Not only is the wooden prop thicker, it will not be as accurate, increasing its drag. Since aerodynamic drag increases by the SQUARE of velocity, we want to use the lowest possible rpm. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: It's possible that the economic difficulties that presently plague American auto makers may be to our advantage in that they are liable to produce smaller vehicles powered by smaller, more fuel- efficient engines that MAY be more suitable for conversion for use in light aircraft. -R.S.Hoover |
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