Hi back TerryG
IF you are able to also drop your grate down enough to re-establish a similar char reduction zone VOLUMN pile below your NOW then low down restriction shelf it would work siimilar to what you had previously. You may then need a grate edge fence to keep the grate stacked char pile from spilling off to remain active. Gets trcicky here depending on your actual fuel wood ashing content to keep this reduction zone char stack gasses flowable.
The evoled modern Europeans even with thier natural forming slope walls do very little reduction above the restriction plate. Mostly HOT oxidization going on there. Thier less hot now temerature falling reduction convertsion is done below the restiction plate.
Many (not all) âAmerican Methodâ gasifiers have now split the active reduction zone action at the restirction with some done above the restriction and some done below the restiction. This moves the highest temperature oxidization zone edge up off off and away from the metals and actually this zone trasitioning edge IS a gasifer drawn floating edge transition much like in a charcoaled fueled gasifier.
With all respect - most EU gasifier guys expect for DJ now have not yet grasped or accepted this difference.
They cannot accept as of yet the change from thier decades evolved relitivly small internal volumn demanding high gases velosity systems to a much larger flexibly active internal volumns with quasi-floating zones operating at much lower internal gases velocities.
Well the speeds, power and fuel consumptions are very telling now as more in North America convert to this evolved newer, frankly hated FEMA based concept with air jets now and on huge char bed steroids.
Other features of what will be labled the âAmericam Methodâ I predict will be very LONG path ash settlement separation, LONG path cooling and SOOTS collection passage systems. HUGE condensated removal capabilities. An an attitude to just let the engines eat soots as a fuel. Engine that canât do this last?? Woosieâs!!. Get a better soot eating engine system.
Ha! maybe we should instead of letting it evolve quickly into a generalized lumped togather âAmerican Methodâ strike out and call ourseved the Sooteaters.
Once you read thoer book you will see the WK will be a distinctly separate system with its internal thermal regulation and heat recycling within this overall American Method that folds in the modern MENS fellows here, MikeLâs double rotors, The Florida boys and few others I cannot name due to proprietory knowledge.
The NA âSooteatersâ.
âPush, Pull, or Get the Hell Out of the Wayâ The Future is that-a-way - > -> -> ^ ^ ^
You could do this in your envelope packge also I think.
You will not have the time to make ot, and tune it on this go-around though.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Ah! Post edit add. Esasiest way to handle an ash âproblemâ on a narrow restictive design is to just use a very low ashing wood fuel like most pines and my Doug Fir wood. Fludiynes and GEKâs relly hum on these. Origninal Imberts this was the spec factory fuel.
THIS is what will get you there and back on this go-around.
YES FOLKS I AM SAYING THAT A GASIFIER MUST BE SPECIFICALLY DESIGED TO WORK BEST WITH THE VOLATILES VERSUS CHAR VERSUS ASHING OF YOUR PREDOMINENT TO BE USED FUEL WOODS. #1 reason why most designs and advice does NOT seem to trasfer well. The WK is proving to one of the most flexible for these primary gasification factors. S.U.
Steve U. Yes, I always thought the restriction was where oxidation ended. Maybe at idle cfmâs.
I believe Imberts were designed for idling without being too restrictive for hp requirements.
With warping along 3/4âs of my reduction tube, you canât say there hasnât been any oxidation in there. I believe the oxidation zone moves up and down according to cfmâs .
So I took what you and Chris recommended and came up with some middle ground. By cutting my cone down to 5" restriction I am increasing my âoxidation zoneâ while keeping 3/4 of the reduction the same.
With more of a vertical drop to the restriction(+2"), I may get more of a funnel shape hearth instead of a bowl shape I have now.
Grate is also dropped 1.5"
CFMâs at the restriction will be 56% of what I had.
I am confident that it will burn clean while driving. Idling though? Weâll find out.
Hi Terry, Steve and All, This is a good informative post. Terry what would the nozzle hearth separation be after cutting down the cone? 5" seems to be a large restriction for a 4 cy engine , that is what my 300 has but I think I may be able to open it up a little also. My truck gets about 12 mpg, but it tops out at 55-62 mph.
I think my 300 is a soot eater I took the air cleaner off and there was about a cup of soot sitting on the back two barrels but it still runs good on wood.
Steve I wish you could make it to the WG meeting in Argos it would be great to meet you.
Thanks Ron L
Ron, looking forward to seeing you again.
Yes, 5" restriction is crazy if you go to the old school methods.
My nozzle circle hasnât changed and I think this is what matters. The oxygen intensity is the same at the circle.
I now have a 5" drop to the restriction.
Iâm trying to reduce my diet of soot. I now have twice the surface area in my filter.
Sound great TerryG
You got the point to do whatever you must timely inside your existing envelope to get to Argoâs able to run on wood. Ha! After your wheelie tratcor stuff you now have Rep to maintain man. Be sure and take your cut off damage as a boast piece that you do run good 'n hot and hard. Real Hotrodders aways have a separated piston, broken rod, or holed clutch scatter shield saved back for Iâm a DOer cred. Woodgasing it is heat destoyed metal damage.
Yes you are correct in the European design thinking the restiction IS THE Rigid demarkation between the oxidization zone and the reduction zone on wood fueled gasifers. But . . . review the Kalle paper and even they conceed that in charcoal gasifer these zones edges float around with system gas demanded draws. FEMA/Stratified/evolved WK acknowledges and uses this floating in a raw fuel wood gasifier. MENS gasifer 40âs Baltic marine Eurpean based is Rigid zone thinking based.
Charcoal man Gary Gillmore is doing/has done a lot of woodsaw dust, used motor oil into his air nozzle fuel suppleemening into his two different Gillmore and Simlifier charcoal gasifiers IN ADDITION to his base engine exhaust feed in to force more H and H2 and CH4 fuel gas production for a more balnced, powerfull IC engine frindly composite fuel gasses mix. The two approches are now evoling closer to closer to each other. Look here at Francios Palâs excellant illistrations and pictures of his now made up Brandt gasifier and you can see the Brandt developement team also accept and used floating zone edges With Control. Eg: the air nozzles in the WK system.
What I visualize you are doing now âseemsâ to almost be approching what StephenA. ans ArvidO are doing with the double row downward air jet nozzle hearth. You might start up some direct correspondences there.
Hey RonL.
Now is old retired man buisest time of the year with 4-5 acres of weeds, grasses to keep mowed continuos tight at least through the July 4th burn-down-the-Town exuberance passes through. Only place in the County allowing any more personal aerial rocket displays. The Town actually sells these and as a Revenue generating souce and people come from miles around buying and using. Only way my insurance complany woulds ever payoff for our adjacent 15 acre timber lot or my cedar shingle sided house and the old wooden farm outbuildings is if I show the âDue Dilligenceâ in active âfire hazard mangementâ. I keep harvesting trees back from ever edge falling accross our property lines to nieghbors stuctures for the same liabilty reasons. 100-135 foot tall trees that then means a wider graases/weeds strips to have to maintain.
Then . . . my wifeâs Gardens . . .sheâd beat me man off âwoodgas playing aroundâ not here helping.
Then . . . now dry, dry, dry and Hot (low to mid-80âsF - FIRST time in 5 years! Hurrah!) now like weâve been the last 2 weeks solid I can get a whole months jump on cutting, splitting and ricking up next winters firewoods to be able to dry/season good and long in the actual Hot six weeks spanning August. Too fire dangerous with low humidty then to be chainsawing and metal on metal wedging.
Thanks anyhow.
Quick update.
With the new configuration I have about 27% more oxidation volume and 23% more reduction.
I got her put together about 2 days before the meet. It flared ok. Took it for a drive and she seemed to plug up quicker than I liked. So, that night (before leaving for Argos) after work I pulled the char and put in a less restrictive grate. On the way to Argos I tried it out in the new configuration. I thought I had it, 5 more mph(72 easy) and reduction stayed clear. While at Argos it started to plug twice. Iâm messing with the grate now to get her to burn clear like it did with the old setup. I think I may have to go back to a âstockâ reduction.
Hi TerryG
Good to hear it got you there and back.
Yes. Now to work in that relatively small envelope in comparision to the much larger char tub WKâs.
Iâve been working all winter on a theory of Free Volatiles versus Char versus Ash in different fuel wood bases to explain some of the varing reported results everyone is getting. Waynes released Auburn reports been very helpful.
I do not know what different fuel wood stocks you have, or are using.
Best to always design and build around your own available wood fuels.
Anyhow for your current set up before you would change it my theory would say use a higher volatiles to char making wood fuel. So the relaesed voletiles will âuse upâ more of the char. Defiantly want to use a lower inherent ash fuel wood to avoid ash clogging and needing more grate shaking.
Big, big differences in these from most hardwoods with a low voltile to high char ratios and high 3-7% mineral ash bases as compared to most softwoods with high voletile to low char ratios with less than 1% ash remaining to have to handle.
The faster pyrolisis, higher voletile woods do tend to be much more sooty though. Ha! Ha! Why I think the Finns complain so much about this. Fast velosity hearths also much more sooty then slower velocity hearths also.
SteveU, Intriguing V/C/A theory. Are people reporting different grate shaking usage? I havenât noticed that ash (high mineral content) makes much difference. Granted, I donât run exclusively on bark.
I run a mix of what I have available. Cordwood(some about 1/3 rotten), pallets and branches down to about ½â. Of this, some of the cordwood can have quite a bit of bark.
All hearths, with equal power ratings, fast or slow, should have equal amounts of soot. The slow one will clog up and require shaking which will release the soot at once.
As always, thanks for your insight.
I forgot to mention, Wes Kuehl hooked up his scanner to my ob2 got a P1131. I found out it is because the brain doesnât see the rich/lean cycle of the injector impulses. Strangely enough, we couldnât get higher than 30deg. advance even with gasoline and no code.
Good Morning TerryG
I went back and carefully reread this whole thread before even thinking about commenting.
A P1131 code means the controller system was unble to see a change in the O2 senor output when it intentionally with fuel injector pulse width forced what should have been a too lean to a too rich of mixture to verify everything was working correctly and it was able to control the system. It could NOT so it was telling you it was out of control - it cannot tell you why. This will probably be a common OBD II code when running on woodgas fuel. What a system will do about this will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and even model to model within each manufactureres chosen control system strategys. I would expect to see a limited âsafeâ igntion timing limit responce with this code on a Ford.
Once you clear codes, you reset back to pre-programed in âsafeâ starting point values. Theses system have to relearn then from running feedback to advance to greater âlearnedâ values. GMâs do this fast. Fords and Dodges do this slowly. IF you stayed on gasoline, AND IF your O2 snesors were still active functional, after 50 or so miles it would learn itself step by step back up into an actual 40+ degree timing range. You are a very smart fellow and can now see some of the dilemma this will force you into some of the same OBD II woodgasing Fords problems that SeanF ran into.
Ha! Ha! My V/C/A remains yet just a theory to be used by any now as a try-me on their own systems. Again you are smart enough to grasp it. And have that knawing dogged like intelligence waking you at 4:00 AM with why? why? why? also.
Here PNW wetside we are âblessedâ with 95% Only Douglas Firâs hemlocks and spuces for fuel woods. DF is an Excellent structureal wood. Very mediocre woodstoveing heating wood. This was the prefered steamer used fuel wood up here for the logging donkey winches and river paddle boats.
What this has forced is a standardized wood fuel to run in all types of gasifer hearths. Then the hearth differnces can really shine through. Not tying to convince you but too many first hand experinces here say âfastâ velocity hearths do make more soots inherantly than medium velocity hearths, with LarryDâs slow, slow velolsty hearths making the least of all. Eg: an oil lamp turned up too high not allowing enough time for the carbons to completly oxidize converted.
Iâve puzzled much over the modern European âmust blow hard to clear the ashâ prefernce. I was able to duplicate this need on cotton wood, aspen and such types of woods. These are all high volatiles versus low char versus very HIGH ash fuel woods. I think they need to do this. Greg Manning seems to do this differently using the high ash from his aspen woodchips as a movement conveyor at medium? slow? velocity. IISc/Mukunda, slow velocity, grateless; intentionally augure out 11-13% of bottom char/ash versus raw fuel put in at each and every re-fueling.
High ash, high char but low volatile balanced wood fuels Iâve used here in diffent hearths repeatedly have proven to respond best to have much active grate management and the accepace (groan) of much slipped char to clear the char used up exposed ash. I speculate this fuel is the one that could benifit the most with its surplus of char from voletiles fuel supplementing like waste motor oil. The more char consumed then the more exposed mineral ash you have to learn to handle.
You can even see this in Mr Waynes most recent comparisions of RonLâs clean low ash pine fuel wood chunks to Waynes own mill produced bark included slab wood chunks he has now made up a more active grate shaker to get to flow the higher ash and fines better.
Point for you with your stated fuel woods used is I think you need to think in terms of a more active grate with the acceptance of more slipped char to keep your reduction bed loose and gasses exhange flowing.
âI think you need to think in terms of a more active grateâ
HA!HA! This grate is fixed!
The only activity it sees is at teardown!
As far as grate shaking goes, one should try to look at it as more than 2 dimensional. If one could also lift it maybe 1/2" during the cycle It should purge easier. I built the grate on my lawnmower with 2 ramps so as it spun it pushed up the char.
Here is the hopper lid picture I promised. You can see the lower right picture has tar droppings on the fuel wood. Also see how clean the inside surface of the outermost shell is. This was taken about one year after it was built. This was my first stab at separating the tar.
I canât find a picture of my hopper condensate. It ran pretty clean for a while, until the walls got coated.
Iâm a little slow today⌠can you describe how the tar is being separated from the moisture? Looks like itâs all going to drip back onto the wood.
The only way I see that this can work is that the tar is heavier than the liquid condensate water which uses surface tension on the steeper lid to follow its way down to the outside gutter.Does the mesh fit tight on the hopper lid or does it act like a heat shield to keep the lid cooler? It looks like it works good Thanks for sharing Terry. That should solve a lot of sticky problems and at the same time add fuel to the fire. Is this your idea?
Chris, Bill, group,
Yes Don, you have the basic idea. The heat shield on the bottom of the lid funnels the tar back into the hopper. Itâs a compact still. Separating a mixture into itâs components.
I wonât go into how I know about such things(wink, wink).
Chris,
To answer your question. The mesh does get clogged if I run low on fuel. The extra radiation bakes it.
If itâs not to bad I can just bang/shake it loose. If itâs bad then I burn then bang and shake.
Itâs better just not to run out of fuel.
Like fines in a hearth, I donât want to clog up Wayneâs tractor thread.
Don asked what was going on with my internals.
Iâm extremely happy with the performance of my truck. For a while now Iâve been wondering âwhat if?â What if I maxed out my hearth, to maybe get a more raw gas that could have more BTUâs. Iâd be flirting with tar, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
So I opened her up, and with a cutoff wheel, just started hacking!
I cut off my nozzle tips, cut off about 4 more inches off my cone. With these changes(I wonât call them improvements) I have about 170% more reaction char. and 212% greater nozzle area.
On first start up I pulled tar through my blowers for the first time. After a couple seasoning sessions It was iffy to drive on. I didnât notice much power difference so far. Iâm thinking Iâll have to break in the char bed like the Wayneâifiers.
So I thought I would try a creative way to burn out my manifold and fire it from my brake booster port. Upon removing the port I see the dreaded three letter âTâ word(tar)! OK, I guess Iâm tearing apart the intake to see the damage. Strangely enough most the goop went to #2 runner. The motor has been responding normally. It seems the tar didnât make it to the cyl. but Iâm glad I checked it when I did.
After seeing WKâs color of flare I knew it wouldnât be as crisp as what Iâve been used to. When I came back from my first ride with the new setup I saw that the flare had improved. I suppose I rushed the char bed.
Iâm thinking I will go a little more conservative on my hearth for more piece of mind.
