>What a Beast! Innovative, intriguing, and downright Rube Goldberg.
Er--where's the MV hook? Anyway I checked out yahoo and "deltic" for some
interesting sites. Reminds me of the old Rock&Roll song "Whole Lot of
Shakin' Goin' On!"
>
>>>> Stephen Somers <stephen.somers@virgin.net> 05/17/99 08:06AM >>>
>Andreas Mehlhorn schrieb:
>
>> What is a Deltic locomotive engine? A steam motor? Let me know more!
>
>The Deltic is a two-stroke diesel engine which has three long cylinders
>positioned in a equilateral triangle, and three crankshafts, one at each
>apex. Inside each cylinder are *two* pistons, head-to-head, that move
>back and forth together but with one lagging behind the other. There are
>no valves but one cylinder periodically covers the inlet port and the
>other the exhaust port.
>
>Operation is that one piston uncovers the inlet port when the other
>piston is at top and the fuel/air mixture is blown/drawn into the
>cylinder. The inlet piston is then driven down to compress the mixture
>which ignites, driving the exhaust piston down until it uncovers the
>exhaust port and the cylinder is purged. The inlet piston is then
>withdrawn with the exhaust piston following it back up the cylinder and
>the cycle repeats. Each cylinder is arranged such that it operates one
>third of a cycle away from the other two to give continuity of function
>to its partners.
>
>OK, that is one section through the engine, and there are a total of
>eight similar sections, making a total of 24 cylinders giving
>near-continuous power output.
>
>Impressive, huh?
>
>--
>Steve Somers
>
This sounds a lot like a Fairbanks -Morse OP Engine originally made for
the US Navy Submarine service. It was built in 6-8-10 & 12 cylinder versions
but using 2 crankshafts with a verticle "timing shaft". It was used as a
Railroad Locomotive power plant from 1944 to 1963 when they stopped
producing locomotives. BUT the OP is still to this day in production as a
"Peaking plant" for utitlity companies. Last I knew they arte rated around
7to 8000 H.P. from 24 pistons <12 cylinders>.
James Shanks
n1vbn@bit-net.com
(N1VBN is my Ham Radio callsign)
n1vbn@wb1dsw.nh.usa.noam
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