Hot-Water Engine

By surrounding two cylinders with high pressure boilers, by filling the boiler coils with water and then sealing them hermetically, Engineer J. F. J. Malone of Newcastle-on-Tyne, England has made an effective heat engine. Last week he demonstrated it.

A furnace heats the base of one boiler-cylinder to 900DEG F. (688DEG above water's boiling point). The superheated water expands (but cannot change to steam because it is too closely confined) and pushes a piston at the far end of this cylinder. Cold water or air, applied against the piston end of the boiler, cools the confined water sufficiently to make it contract and suck the piston back to its original position. The external cold water or air is shut off, the cooled water in the boiler coils passes into the second cylinder, and newly heated water comes from the furnace to push the piston of the first cylinder again. Thus heat energy carried by the water changes to mechanical energy in that piston.

The cooled water which left the first cylinder for the second is still much above the boiling point. It carries a certain amount of heat energy which it transfers to the second piston upon its being cooled and contracted a second time.

After the second cooling the confined water returns to the furnace for reheating to 900DEG. The circulation of the water through the coils of the two cylinders is on the same principle as the circulation of water through the radiators of a residential hot-water heating system. Heated water rises from the furnace; cold water drops to the furnace.

Claimed thermal efficiency of the Malone engine is 27%. Superheated steam locomotives are 8% efficient; steam marine engines 14.7%; gasoline engines 26%,; Diesels 47%. Once filled the Malone engine needs no more water for long periods of time.

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