tools, materials & knowledge for model makers
knowledge is a bit of a “how to” section where we will add pages explaining how we have learnt to do something or a quick method or just something we have learnt
Only needing two parts I thought about forming brass onto MDF, creating brackets to support a fuel tank for the Enjomor Whippet. I needed to make the Enjomor Whippet look more my style and hence have gone to town on the cooling tank and the fuel tank. This mean I needed a bracket to support … Read more
A thermosiphon is a method of passive heat exchange between the heat source and the heat sink. In the case here the engine is the heat source and the water tank is the heat sink. The fundamental issue when running the Whippet engine in this configuration was it was getting hot and the water was … Read more
Having used particle damping in the column of the milling machine and on the workpiece of the cnc it was time to look at it in detail. Particle damping works based on impact and friction, depending on the size of the particles this can be one or millions. Studies show that most of the energy … Read more
In this particular case forming balsawood for an insulation wrap on a steam boiler. In simple terms the process was to soak it in hot water, wrap it into shape and then heat it up. Here though are the steps and some images to show you the finer points. 1. Soaking the Balsawood in Hot … Read more
I thought I should look at the boiler heat loss versus published data. Although my test object is just a short length of copper pipe, it does represent a copper pipe. So, I went searching for some data and there is a table of data on the Engineering Toolbox (Ref 1). This data is really … Read more
The cooling curve and heat output of the Unclad versus Maximum Insulation boiler are compared. Previously we looked at the repeatability of the cooling curves and the known parameters for the boiler test object. Now, using the simple model that we discussed we can estimate the heat output of the test object versus temperature. The … Read more
Before starting the simple modelling I think it is worth looking at the known parameters for the boiler test object. From these there will be some simple assumptions and estimations. Assumptions Lumped point mass. Single temperature measurement represents the temperature of the object. Heat capacity does not change with temperature. Local air temperature represents ambient … Read more
Before going too far with the calculations I needed an initial check on the boiler test object repeatability. All of the data analysis will end up informing the insulation of the Burrell traction engine boiler. This initial look at the data will give me an initial feeling as to whether the data is good. Test … Read more
My original boiler heat loss test object was a round disc of mild steel and copper. However, this doesn’t relate that well to the actual boiler. This is so that I can test different types of boiler insulation and multi-layer insulation. My original idea for measuring the thermal insulation for the boiler was to make a … Read more
Aerodynamic drag is the resistance of a vehicle body to motion through the air. A smooth surface has less drag than a rough one. It may be broken down into three main components: skin friction: this is drag due to the surface texture and area. profile drag: this is drag from the three-dimensional shape of … Read more