Mike…I remember the turbine cars you speak of and in fact I had the opportunity to be in one of them at a business place in Pennsylvania in the mid 60’s. I believe at the time [if I am remembering correctly], Chrysler had made 50 of them and put them out to selected people to evaluate them for a certian period of time and then the vehicle was moved on to another selected person, etc…I was about to get a ride in that vehicle when the operator of it was called and could not take the time to do it…I remember it was sitting there idling and the tach was reading about 18,000 RPM…but to attempt to answer your question. I believe if there would have been room to install the hyd. retarder someplace between the engine and the drive train it surely would have had to “brake” the vehicle when it was ingaged. The retarder required hyd. pressure and very ample cooling to cool the oil as it exited the retarder and then recirculate back through the system…
Yesterday I mentioned our work developing a hyd. retarder for Truck Automatic Transmissions…and I stated of the impeller being splined to the output shaft. I should have said “splined to the input shaft”], as that way we could take advantage of gear ratio in the transmission if needed.
In my book that makes it yours too. It was a team effort and that team should be listed on the pat.
maybe not practical, still, you deserve to have the recognition.
My father had several inventions that the company he worked for took credit for. He got nothing because that was the way it was done back then.
he should of at least got some credit for the work he did. It changed how a lot of things are done in manufacturing today.
when he retired they gave him a silver pin with the company logo on it. He used to use it to mark his ball on the green lol.
mike
Mike…In the time frame I’m talking about it was a written agreement of employment in such and such departments that creations and such were a company property not the individuals…I’m sure agreements were different many places. The situation I’m talking about, we did a full test cycle on such but it did not make it to production. It surely did work, but that specific transmission and retarder did not go into production. It surely did hold your speed in check decending the mountain grades.
I’ve opperated some motorized equipment that had hydrolic accessories ie. a forklift.
if you are in gear and moving and use the hydrolics it can be like putting on the brakes especialy if a cylinder gets bottomed out.
You would get a great heat build up but if you could keep that in check it would be a great retarder. It would have worked great on steam with the water tender providing cooling.
I know I’ll get laughed at here,but, I think it’s possable that some time in the near future this nation will go back to coal( our greatest fuel reserve ) and water for power. Oil is an endangered animal. It wouldn’t take much to use up all we have access to.
The hyd. retarder did procuce a LOT of heat when in use…but with the size of a truck radiator and of course not being used too much on the downgrade it has lots of capacity to remove heat from the Transmission / Retarder oil. In our application, we had a large heat exchanger connected in series with the bottom of the radiator back into the intake of the water pump on the engine and it removed heat produced in the retarder oil [out], of the retarder.
How much did it raise the temp. of the water cooling the engine?
The reason I ask is that I have always wondered about placing a big heat producer like an air conditioner condenser in front of the cooling radiator. Some times you can’t touch that coil it’s so hot.
You would think that the efficiency of the radiator would be cut.
I don’t think I can remember precise figures for you Mike but with the truck size radiator the engine cooling coolant temp. was never any problem as it stayed within acceptable range. Remember now, the only time one calls on this system to cool is when the engine is NOT working, [Down hill]. The heat exchanger type we used was water to oil…It was connected in series at the water outlet at the botttom of the radiator to the water pump at the engine. Using the retarder did raise the [trans.], oil temp somewhat over 100 degrees, don’t remember exact amount but the cooler did the job of cooling it as it came out of the retarder. Being experimental the oil was changed quite often [for inspection], so don’t know what long term usage the heat would have had on the transmission oil…But can say this…We did testing for thousands of miles on the system with good results.
Mike…I just checked to see if any new comments were posted and found that my reply to your temp. question this morning was not here. I must have neglected to “send” it after I wrote an answer…So I’ll try again.
Overheating engine cooling cooland was not a problem…First because the size of the truck radiator and also the radiator was not called upon to do much engine cooling as the vehicle was running down grade…the time when one would be using the retarder. We used a water to oil heat exchanger connected in series from the bottom radiator hose outlet to the engine water pump. Yes, there was LOTS of heat produced by the retarder, perhaps somewhat over 100 degrees rise in oil temp. as it was being used but the heat exchanger removed the heat without much trouble as it exited the retarder. So, the issue of adding heat to the radiator was not much of an issue because the engine and retarder was not under load at the same time.
Thanks QM,
If we had that retarder system in use today it could be applied to trucks to replace the noisy jake brake. Any hydrolic pump with an electric clutch could be adapted to a manual transmition.
I think it would be much more effective than a jake brake too.
I guess were off the subject though, sorry.
Yes Mike…I guess we better head back to steam. Anyone have any more comments on our original thought of Using steam through the cylinders on a steam engine for down hill braking…? That is, whether it was possible and actually done.
Sorry,no thoughts on using cylinders.But the fact that steam freight trains had to wait after descending a grade for brake shoes to cool helped EMD sell dynamic brake equiped Diesels.I wonder if the Jawn Henry steam-electric had dynamic brakes?This gives me an urge to do a HO kit bashing project.Put diesel trucks under a tender on a steam locomotive.Use the power they generate going down hill to heat water in tender or charge batteries to boost train up hill.I doubt if this theoritical engine would win any NMRA awards though.
…Since you mention of putting diesel trucks under the tender…[wonder if there is enough weight]…Water would weigh about 80 tons, so maybe there would be enough traction on the wheels. Why not just let the traction motors work through a dynamic brake grid…for braking.
Hi,
You know there is a possable solution this brakeing thing.
pop valves with a preset tension (simular to the pop off valves on the boiler).
Steam pressure in the steam chest would hold them closed. Remove the pressure by shuting off the steam and the cylinders turn into BIG air compressers, that would slow the train down.
if you could control the tension in the pop valves you could control the braking effort too.
Mike
Yes, that sounds a little like the Jake Brake system used in modern diesel truck engines…I’m not sure of the details of how that is done, but it sure sounds like they turn the engine into an air compressor.
This is exactly the way how the Ringhoffer system worked here in Europe. Unfortunatelly this brake system was used on cog railways only and only few test were made on normal railroads.
The problem was probably the capacity of the air tanks and the tension management including oiling of the cylinders when no fresh steam with oil was supplied.
You know Eugen, I thought about that oiling problem too.
I suppose you would have to have some kind of injector system like a fuel injector, but when was the fuel injection system invented?
and tallow was too thick to inject anyway.
Than I thought that compressing air would help to slow down the train but how effective would it really be? and what price would you pay for stressing the main rod and bearings if you really put the pressure on?
You might have some answers to these questions since you know something about the Ringhoffer system. How effective was that system?
I thought an adjustable pop valve would work and just vent the air out, but filling a tank to supliment the train air would make much more sense.