$25,000 National Geographic Contest - Compressed Air (Ambient Heat) Energy

[madddann]

Hello antijon!

Good logical thinking, thank you.
The vapor (steam) turbines can be as high as 50% efficient (in big applications) so the patent could be feasible.

Now the only thing that is bothering me is part 6 - the transporting means... how can be the fluid moved forward without exerting back pressure and using minimal energy to do it?

...also look at below statement from the patent...


This post was edited because of mistakes.

[Tom Booth]

This dawned on me last night while I was loading a truck, moving furniture.

The drinking bird is essentially a kind of, or similar in operation to an ammonia based refrigerator. Well in actuality, it occurs to me now. It actually LOOKS almost EXACTLY like the old "Icy bulb" ammonia refrigerator. Wow! It's internal structure and mode of operation is also the same. Or almost. The working fluid is different presumably. But, to work or operate, the Icy Bulb needs to be manually turned on its end from time to time. Did the Icy Bulb inspire the Drinking Duck. Or perhaps its just a matter of form follows function.

Anyway my revelation last night while driving the truck moving furniture and such was. In the ammonia system (and "Dipping Duck" and Icy Bulb) the phase where the working fluid is being heated or boiled is equivalent to the compression phase in a vapor compression cycle.

So in the bird its working fluid is being "compresssed" and cooled simultaneously. The boiling fluid increases the internal pressure but the evaporative cooling holds the temperature down.

So there is that corelation between the bird and Trppler and Bob Neal and others who demonstrated some apparent overunity with some form of cyclic heat engine or compressor.

In otherwords It dawned on me that the key to the overunity of the drinking bird is not the evaporative "cooling" but rather, the same as all the others.

[Tom Booth]

http://crosleyautoclub.com/IcyBall/HomeBuilt/HomeBuilt.html

Sorry, that old refrigeration system that looks like a dippy bird is called IcyBall not icy bulb.

Anyway I think the resemblance is more than superficial.

[antijon]

Hey Dan, I think the transporting means is a simple pump. The image shows that the liquid refrigerant is pumped into the heat exchanger where it boils into a hot vapor. This means that the pump must withstand the increased pressure of the vapor down the line. After the vapor works on the turbine, it will lose pressure, and as it condenses in the other heat exchanger ( no. 1 in image) it will further lose pressure.

The pump must be high pressure, but the flow rate doesn't need to be high. A little liquid turns into a lot of steam.

A curious part of the patent is the heat input of 7 and 8 in the diagram. I'm guessing that as steam powers a turbine it loses some kinetic energy, or converts it directly to mechanical energy. The steam is then cooled and condensed at no. 1. 7 and 8 must be the input for excess heat which raises the temperature of the liquid. This should allow the liquid to boil at a higher temperature down the line. In ACs, subcooling is a good thing, as it allows the boiling fluid to take on more heat. But I guess for a heat engine you want the subcooling to be as low as possible.

[madddann]

Hi antijon.

Thanks for explaining, I was wondering why the increased pressure would not just stall or even reverse the flow through the pump...

As I understand, 7 and 8 is the pipe feeding the heat from the environment or external heat input.

I was wondering another thing... a steam turbine can be from 20% (for small aplications) to 50% (for huge applications) efficient at converting heat to mechanical energy, and using water, the water to vapor ratio is 1:1700.
Now what would be the efficiency of a steam turbine when used with refrigerant R134a? What is the liquid to gas ratio of this refrigerant? If i'm looking at the right numbers, the liquid to gas ratio is several times that of water to vapor  .