Hey guys, just rambling thoughts on the Mark V. It seems the design is a compromise between power, weight, simplicity, cost, functionality, and thermal efficiency. A steam engine can be more efficient than Diesels, but such a system would be heavier, more costly, and more complicated.
Also, you guys who are interested in sustainability should check out biomass gasification if you haven't already. I'll provide some source material if you're interested. While it would take some add-ons to the Mark V design (nothing complicated or costly), there's no reason why a Mark V cannot be fueled directly by unrefined biomass such as wood through gasification. Indeed, those who are not aware would be very surprised to learn than literally hundreds of thousands of vehicles were fueled directly by wood gasifiers in Europe during WWII. Of course, this required complicated gasifiers with very high temperature tar-cracking nozzles, plus bulky and labor intensive gas filtration and gas cooling systems. The ICE's lost a lot of power and efficiency as well, and their longevity and reliabily suffered. But it worked. Also... Sweden maintains a fleet of wood fueled trucks and has retained the means to deploy thousands of gasifiers within months should the need arise. They learned the lesson well during WWII to not rely so heavily on petroleum. I wish we would do the same.
This is one of the main reasons that the Cyclones interest me as they can be far more easily adapted for direct fueling using biomass. No need to crack tars before the gas enters the engine as the tars are burned in the Cyclone combustion chamber. No need to filter the gas. No need to cool it.
AI
