|
PNEUMATIC OPTIONS PICTURE
GALLERY
(click picture for full size
view)
page 2
 This photo of an air-powered shop
truck was used to illustrate an article about pneumatic vehicles by
Charles B. Hodges, the owner of several patents on what became the most
efficient and most successful commercial air engine ever built.
Hundreds of his engines were sold by the H. K. Porter Co., which still
exists in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
 Another photo from the article by
C. B. Hodges, showing an air-powered locomotive being refueled.
Unlike electric cars which take hours to recharge, air cars can be
refueled in a minute or two from central stations, or at a gas station if
they are hybrid, or continuously if they are self-fueling (solar).
 Another photo from the Hodges
article. This one shows the ribbed cylinders on an air powered
locomotive's engine cylinders. The ribs or fins were for the purpose
of absorbing heat from the engine's surroundings to warm the engine
cylinders and thereby lessen the energy loss due to the cold of expansion.
Hodges expanded on this principle in his design and patents for compound
air engines using large interheaters between expansion stages.
 An illustration from one of
Charles Hodges' patents for compound air engines. The interheater is
shown on the right. The engine's exhaust air was used to drive an
ejector (jet pump with no moving parts) that pulled warm atmosphere
through heat exchanger tubes surrounded by partially expanded compressed
air between engine pistons/expansion stages in the compound engine.
In one coal field in Germany, there were 624 three-stage air powered
locomotives being used.
 This is one type of
rack-and-pinion (straight and round gear) crankshaft substitute.
Also known as mangle racks, because they were used in the mangle, the
early pedal-powered rotary ironing machines, to convert reciprocating
motion to the rotary motion of an ironing drum. We've renamed this
device the Torquerack. See the next illustration for more
information; a videotape of the torquerack engine we built is
available from the Research Library catalog.
 The crankshaft is a lever being
used through a 360 degree motion, and is ideally unsuited for engines
because it transmits torque completely at only a few positions in its
cycle. The torquerack (see above) uses gears to transmit torque
evenly throughout the piston's stroke. The unit I built uses two
ratchets, two round gears (pinions) and two straight gears (racks) to
convert the back-and-forth (reciprocating) motion of an air cylinder to
continuous rotary motion of a shaft in one direction. Because of the
low speeds required for effective absorption of ambient heat, the
reciprocating mass would not be a problem. There are commercial
manufacturers of rotary pneumatic actuators that use rack-and-pinion gears
to transmit torque through part of a circle. These manufacturers
would be ideally suited to design full-size torquerack engines for cars or
stationary air engines. If I can do it, anyone can.
 This is an end view of the compound engines used in French
coal mines, which were inspired by Charles Hodges' U. S. patents.
The article these illustrations are from is the most detailed exposition
of air engine design ever published in a technical journal, and the engine
it discusses is the most efficient air engine ever built commercially.
I translated the article from the French using software and a good
dictionary. If there is someone out there who speaks French and
knows something about steam engines, I would like to have someone like
that check my translation.
 
Above: the Hoadley-Knight air powered locomotive,
which was developed during and after the Hardie air locomotive in New
York.
Below: four patent illustrations by Charles B. Hodges.
 
 
 
The two illustrations above are from an article by General
Herman Haupt on air powered locomotives. General Haupt was a civil
engineer and was in charge of half the Union's railroads during the Civil
War. He was discussed in the recent PBS series on the Civil War,
where Lincoln called him "That Man Haupt," which is also the name of
Haupt's biography.
GO TO PICTURE GALLERY PAGE
ONE
|
