<VV> Cylinder pressures Re: steamer

[FrankCB]

Dan and OIP (other interested parties),
     The MOST important point that Sir Harry Ricardo derived from his seminal work with water injection was that it INCREASED the AVERAGE cylinder pressure which makes torque (engineers call it BMEP) WITHOUT increasing the PEAK cylinder pressure that breaks things.  This is the crucial point in using water injection to SAFELY produce more power.  Take a look at Hugh MacInnes' chapter on Water Injection in his Turbochargers book for Ricardo's actual numbers and his graph that displays his results.
     Frank Burkhard  

In a message dated 06/21/09 09:11:26 Eastern Daylight Time, djtcz at comcast.net writes:
re: steam - I think the conversion to steam is a losing situation, energy and pressure wise, which is exactly why it is so effective as an anti-detonant. It takes a batch of BTUs to convert water to steam. Applying the same BTUs to the combustion gases without water present would result in higher temp and pressure. The pressure would be good for torque an thus HP, but the high temp is what gets us into the detonation ( and Nitrous oxide pollution) in the first place. 

Dan T