3 replies to this topic

[raburgeson]

I'm a little wierd so I thought an intro is in order. I have a great deal of respect for experience and I consider you people that work with thermite and will be the most knowledgable resource avalible. I am working on a project to give away to humanity. I look upon thermite as a good fuel source for firing a boiler. Our developement group made a low tech attempt. We realized a economic draw back in the way of lost equipment. It will be a little while before we can try again. In the meantime our lack of experience and fuel problems need to be addressed. Your administrator was kind and admitted me to the group as I don't specifically fit in. I am hoping you all will be tolerent of me for asking strange questions like, burning under water formulas and so on.

To give a simple list of problems,

Our fuel was falling apart, The fuel burned to fast, Fuel wafers were to hard to feed under pressure.

We are hoping now to slow the burn and burn at a cooler temperature to get the heat source moved outside the boiler to get rid of one problem we see no other way to get rid of. We have been unable to figure out a way to remove the build up of slag from a boiler under pressure. If we can get down to 2200c we can make a great deal of progress in a short time.

[fishy1]

I'm a little wierd so I thought an intro is in order. I have a great deal of respect for experience and I consider you people that work with thermite and will be the most knowledgable resource avalible. I am working on a project to give away to humanity. I look upon thermite as a good fuel source for firing a boiler. Our developement group made a low tech attempt. We realized a economic draw back in the way of lost equipment. It will be a little while before we can try again. In the meantime our lack of experience and fuel problems need to be addressed. Your administrator was kind and admitted me to the group as I don't specifically fit in. I am hoping you all will be tolerent of me for asking strange questions like, burning under water formulas and so on.

To give a simple list of problems,

Our fuel was falling apart, The fuel burned to fast, Fuel wafers were to hard to feed under pressure.

We are hoping now to slow the burn and burn at a cooler temperature to get the heat source moved outside the boiler to get rid of one problem we see no other way to get rid of. We have been unable to figure out a way to remove the build up of slag from a boiler under pressure. If we can get down to 2200c we can make a great deal of progress in a short time.

why use thermite? aluminium powder is expensive, molten iron is given off, etc.

if you have to use thermite, making the particle sizes bigger (bigger bits of aluminium i.e shavings and bigger bits of iron oxide will slow the burnn down.)

but a simpler idea would be to use wood or charcoal to fire it, and by modifying the air intake you can adjust the temp.

and "get it down to 2200c" ? you mean the thermite? this whole idea sounds odd. I Assume you are boiling water with it "boiler" so why not just add more pipes filled with water running through it, and pump the water through faster to keep the boiler cooler. the thermite should burn through whatever your boiler is made through in a short time.

i would recommend a different fuel.

hope this helps.

[ProfHawking]

Goodness what a strange idea, where did that come from??
Again i would say thermite is a poor choice of fuel.

However, i have an idea for slag removal, assuming you can keep the burning location in the same place.

it is reminicient of the powder feed in the passfire maltese driver press.


if you have a small hole in the bottom of the boiler, directly under where the iron drops down. Then have a rotating plate with a hole in it, and another stationary level with a hole at a different location around the rotation of the disc. This way, "hole sized sections" of water/iron can be removed without draining the system.

here is a doodle i did, excuse the crappy artwork, wasnt worth plugging in the tablet.


problems i forsee are:

• keeping the burn location stationary
• leaking around rotating disc
• wearing out of parts
• pile of wet slag under boiler
• a large chunk of slag iron jamming the roation

tbh, not worth it unless its just proof of principle

/edit:
the thermite rod could be fed in from the top, making the positioning of the burn less critical

Edited by ProfHawking, 28 March 2006 - 11:09 PM.

[EnigmaticBiker]

Our developement group made a low tech attempt. We realized a economic draw back in the way of lost equipment. It will be a little while before we can try again. In the meantime our lack of experience and fuel problems need to be addressed. Your administrator was kind and admitted me to the group as I don't specifically fit in. I am hoping you all will be tolerent of me for asking strange questions like, burning under water formulas and so on.

Hello,

An unusual idea, my guess is you're looking for a small self contained heating unit.

What is your design brief, what are you actually aiming for?

It would help if we had more parameters, size, safety, portability, is another fuel an option?