basaltd

Hero's steam engine comes up over and over. Most still say it was a
"toy." But, I have read of university students building
approximations of Hero's engine, and the results were surprising--a
surpiring amount of power. This result begs the question, to what
extent can Hero's engine be improved by means and methods of the
ancient Medeiterean?

During Hero's time, I can imagine that experimenting with variations
would have been dangerous, but not impossible. I'm not a mechanical
engineer, but here is suggestion list to kick things off:

1) Contain the steam jets by a surrounding cylindar. The steam-water
then can be recylced as hot water to be put back into the reaction
vessel.

2) Translate the power upward and out by shafts.

3) Keep a keen eye out for safety.

John Freck

double-a

I have found references that it was put to use for opening temple doors.

Can you imagine, way back then, self-opening doors?

Double-A

nicholas smid

With Hero's engine probably the best thing it could have done was give
someone the idea that you can get useful work out of steam. I don't have the
book anymore but there are infact several ways of getting work out of steam,
without needing high tech. Granted all demand a rather better understanding
of physics than the Romans had. Still if you get a school of practical
mechanics to paralell the Universities of the day, say in one of the big
eastern cities which already had plenty of good craftsmen, you might be able
to get somewhere. That however would call for some pretty major socal
changes. Maybe early printing so people can shear ideas relitivly cheaply.
That would pretty much demand paper but well it wouldn't be cheap, it
wouldn't need to be as cheap relitivly as modern paper ether. You can make
it out of rags and well cloth was costly then it still has a finite life and
when it gets to the point where even the street beggers can't get any more
use out of it I'm shore they'd be happy to sell it to a paper maker for a
small amount per bail, probably create a minor industry mugging beggers for
their cloths.

bobby d. bryant

If the familiar reconstruction is even approximately accurate, keeping it
supplied with water might be the biggest engineering challenge.

--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas

matt giwer

No one, repeat NO ONE, knows what it looked like. And therefore no
one had duplicated it for testing.

Look into the concept of stalling power. If you know how to drive a
stick shift that is what I am talking about.

--
In 1992, after decades of effort, the US managed to force
the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the world did not
end. How could dissolving Israel matter?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3010

bernardz

In article <e72fbe1e.0402061852.1516f776@posting.google.com>,
basaltd@comcast.net says...


The big problem you need a cheap fuel to power it. What could the Romans
use?

--
In a perfect world, would people weed the garden?

Observations of Bernard - No 41

basaltd

I know that we have only artists' conceptions from descriptions. You
are correct. We are having a speculative discussion and that should
be noted in the lead-off, in development, and in the close-out.


John Freck

dave j

a reciprocating piston connected to a positive displacement syringe
injection type of system, driven off of whatever PTO system you are using
from ball.

glhansen

The most obvious thing is to put little rocket nozzles on the exhaust.
Supersonic flow is achieved with a converging-diverging nozzle, that's why
the nozzles on the Space Shuttle don't look like the one on your garden
hose. I don't know if you could get supersonic flow with a Hero engine,
but it's something to think about.

There's a type of turbine engine where steem from a nozzle is directed at
an angle to the flat side of a disk, which has little vanes going around
the circle. The steam catches on the vanes and pushes on the disk.
Arrange something like that facing inward in a circle for the Hero nozzles
to be directed against. If it's fixed, since angular momentum is
conserved, it will supply an extra torque to the rotating part.

Refilling a Hero engine while it's operating would require both a pump and
a rotating seal. A good enough seal might have been made with a dense
fabric, I don't know how long it would last. But I think Archimedes'
screw was about the state of the art in Roman pumping technology.

--
"Are those morons getting dumber or just louder?" -- Mayor Quimby

jacklinthicum

I keep reading these Roman and Chinese industrialization threads and
they all seem to think that for Rome, anyway, the industry has to be
in Rome itself. Wouldn't the smell and noise make location to Helvetia
or one of the Gauls more likely? You have cheap water power in
Helvetia and trees all over the place in each of the three parts of
Gaul. Spain, even Illryia look better than Italy. After all if all
roads lead to wherever the transport is obvious, the market is in Rome
the labor is in China, er Gaul.