Cyclone Power Technologies, Inc. (fka CYPW)

[BuddyWhazhizname]

Another Mark 5 design flaw, no combustion air damper.

The burner on the Mark 5 doesn't appear to be throttleable. In all demonstrations it's either on full, or off.

When it's off, the combustion air is still being blown into steam generator, and out the exhaust. The way the Mark 5 is set up, it's got to keep blowing because it's also the condenser cooling air.

The burner is sized for maximum power output. Let's say 100 hp. But when your GG Mom speedboat is just cruising, using say 20 hp, then the burner will be on for a short time, off for a long time, on for a short time, etc.

That's fine, and was standard procedure on Stanley Steamers and such, but if you're trying to claim diesel engine thermal efficiency, running a continuous powered draft is going to make it a lot tougher.

When the burner shuts off, the hottest tubes will be 1200F or a little more. Even if the combustion air is preheated to 500F, it's still going to be a blast of cold air on the tubes. It will pull the heat out of the tubes and send it out the exhaust.

Harry Schoell, that wily genius, just invented the regenerative heat exchanger. His use of the term "regenerative" is finally technically correct.

Cooling the steam generator coils this way will also drop the steam temperature quite quickly, which will also drop the engine efficiency.

It's rather too bad the Mark 5 can never work. It would be interesting to see Harry's reaction when test data shows how bad the thermal efficiency would be.