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steam boiler

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don1:
I agree with JW.
  Boilers are very dangerous things. They have killed a lot of people over the years. There is nothing more dangerous than someone messing with steam and not knowing what he is dealing with.   Air tanks are made of as thin as 14 gage sheet. and were never intended to be heated.  Steam  boilers on the other hand are made of heavy  Boiler plate.  Please for your own safety do not fire a boiler that is not certified.  I believe in the US it is against the law to fire a steam boiler that has not been tested and certified.  Even toy ones.
  If you Google steam boilers you will find boilers for sale that are certified. 
 Good luck with your project Greenkarson.

joestue:
replace that dangerous home made boiler with a tubular boiler and run propane through it as the heat fluid, the energy recovered will be at least 3 times what you can get with water at low pressure and temp. there are plenty of ways to do this safely. one of which is to use lead as a heat exchanger for the super heat side of the boiler, standard steel water pipe will suffice for the low temperature side.

don1:
Joestue,
  I don't know if I'm missing something here so sorry if I am.  But Lead melts at about 621.43 degrees F  The super heated steam can even light a match. It does not provide much cooling effect inside the lead exchanger and the hot gases that fire the boiler can reach a temperature of 1300 degrees  on the outside It would seem to me that the lead will melt.
 If one was to cut the temp so as not destroy the exchanger you wouldn't get much power out of it. Please correct me here as I would like to understand you post.  Thanks don.

joestue:
sorry i wasn't clear.
Use a low melting point metal loop to transfer the heat from the fire to the steam. This enables you to use cheap steel for the firebox and heating tubes, and you won't have to worry about corrosion, because a failure will only release lead/tin/antimony/whatever at very low pressure into the firebox. the boiler tubes still have to withstand the pressure, but there is no external corrosion, so you are free to use whatever pipe you want. just make sure you do a burst test on a few samples at the intended operating temperatures and derate as desired.

I'd run sodium heat pipes myself but that's just me, they certainly seem to be the only option for concentrated solar rankine cycle engines, unless you are ok with steam  and 3% of carnot.

bob g:
let me try to relate this as best i can

if you have a pressure vessel that is producing perhaps enough steam at 75 psi to power a half hp motor,
which may not be much steam, and something goes wrong, and you either vent off the tank
or it ruptures...

the remaining water in that tank will now be under zero pressure and will immediately flash to steam,,, all of it!

this is what causes a massive explosion!

there is also something called disassociation, where the steam comes into contact with a very hot fire or coals
which under the right circumstances can rob the oxygen from the steam molecule, leaving the hydrogen behind.

we all know what happens when hydrogen comes into contact with an ignition source.

please don't continue your project with an air tank used as a boiler tank, i don't even want to think about either you
or one of your friends or kids getting seriously injured or killed.

at least i want no part of that.

bob g

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