Reconstruct your trunk lid hinges so, that while driving, a 1" run can be established. It may need a dozen of down turnable “pin legs” while in that upper position. If no stabilizing legs, the trunk lid will wobble in the wind.
Hingable rubber blocks have an inherent ability to dampen vibrations…
As the gasification process needs more heat than produced from wood,
to become complete, it is obvious that a gasifier without preheating of the intake air is noncritical if completely insulated.
4 — 6" mineral wool, sheathed (layered) with aluminium foil wrapped around
the complete vessel cylinder and lid would make a lot cooler place… especially with a naturally ventilated trunk (boot).
Hi Kristijan, is your fuel tank under the floor of your trunk or under the floor of the back seat of the car? I was just wondering if you could cut some of the trunk floor out. That would be a great place for the hopper cooling tubes to be exposed to cooler air and also the condensation tank could be down there for dumping from the driver seat with a remote valve. Cool air coming in from the bottom and going out some trunks vents. Lots of air flow when moving down the road and use the fan at stops to keep the air flowing across the tubes. Have them installed vertically. Could you show us a picture of the trunk area and under it. Thanks.
Bob
Kristijan, not sure of how much straight exhaust pipe you have under your car , but if you could put a bigger pipe around your exhaust pipe and insulation around the pipe you could preheat some air. Also it’s amazing how warm the air gets coming off the exhaust manifold with a piece of colling around part of it. You could start there and move to the next stage of heating on the tail pipe keeping the air pipe insulated all the way to the gasifier intake. Just heating the air 100* would make a difference in the gasifier’s performance especially in the winter months of colder weather. Any extra heat could be moved up to the hopper area for drying.
You asked us for input and the DOW members can deliver it
Bob
Max, your idea might work good if there werent any rain in our climate l like the insulation lair idea. My father has a similar insulation on his house, its sayd 1cm of this multi-lair insulation is comparable with 10cm rockwool. This idea will be used, thanks!
Bob, l made a video for you and others, hopefully it clears some things up.
The gas tank is behind the back seat, so it isnt in the way of anything.
Hmm l have to think this ventilation some more. A well wentilated trunk wuld ofcorse be good but this erases a good safety point JO made a while back, makeing the whole trunk negative pressure enviroment. This is a good safety precusion as this is nevertheless a in the trunk build. Eaven thugh the trunk is sealed.
As for air preheating via exhaust pipe, yes, l was thinking about it but there isnt any stright part on the exhaust so l abandoned the idea. But now that you mentioned, perhaps put a flex alu hose around it? Might rethink it…
Thank you for the video, if you want negative pressure in the trunk, then you could still have a hole in the floor. Build a hopper cooling tube box, open only at the bottom. The tubes go into the box at top side of the box, and weld to seal off pipes, then down and out the bottom side of the box and welded. The pipes coming out the side can be connect with high temperature silicone hose and clamps. Seal the box off to the floor and channel air up into the box with a fan and or car flow movement. Now you can still have negative pressure for the trunk. I know this sounds like a lot of extra work, but unless you get a lot of cooling air to the hopper cooling tubes the hopper will not have good condensation and tar removal to the condensation tank.
On my truck the hopper tubes are on the out side of the hopper, they had no fins on the tube. I follow up with Wayne’s suggestion of welding fins to the tubes to increase the effectiveness of cooling on the tubes. Now i am always dumping water and tar out the condensation tank. The condensation tank after the cooling rails is mostly dry now with soot in it. Removing the moisture and tar out of the hopper area is what the WK Gasifier does best, and with preheated air it gives it a better turn down ratio for stop and go, slow driving. The flex pipe is a great Idea for under the car. They actually make a flex exhaust pipe.
Here is a quick drawing of what I’m talking about. Hopes it helps.
Your other unit was exposed to the outside with the open bottom to the atmosphere and plenty of air movement. This car with the gasifier unit in the trunk will be stealthily at it’s best, looking forward to the next video, pictures, ect…
Bob
This is about what I had in mind when I talked about the air bucket. Only I would like to add a warm air outlet from the top of the box I guess you just forgot about it, Bob.
Also I think this box doesn’t need to be 100% airtight. Sealing off the pipes in and out of the box could be done with silicone. There will be nothing but air inside.
Thank you for your time drawing the skiz, realy apreciate it!
One thing is certain. I will cut out the whole trunk bottom out. Well, not the whole actual bottom, just the muffer part. I hoped to get by by only cuting a hole in it, like seen in the video, but it aint gonna work.
Ok. Now, l feel more building/designing freedom.
Now, for the question mark on the skizz. How manny tubes? Any ideas? My math says 10 feet of 2" pipe is same surface area as the hopper mantle. Thats about wk 9 pipes. Enough?
Finned ofcorse!
Haha, correction to you too JO! Hot air exit to the bottom. Otherwise heating the trunk
A nother note. Will the whole thing work with cooling pipes on only ~ a third of the hopper? I mean the internal heat circulation…
Oh yes I did forget about that part JO, and yes you could do it with silicone sealant. It seems at times, I over design things. The box or bucket could be very light weight metal and pop riveted and sealed at the bottom to the floor, with the air vent at the top it would be very effective in cooling the tubes, Ha ha, we are full of ideas, but Kristijan will be the one putting it all together, Yes?
Bob
No, no! Exist at the top, and went to the outside of the trunk with a hose (4" ventilation hose for example). Force feeding with a fan - pulling for safety. Cooling of the pipes does most good if the cool air hits the lower parts first (Heatex: Hot,hot - cool,cool). Also at standstill the hot pipes will drive the airflow some in that direction.
Do you mean without the airbox? You will get some cirkulation but not much condensation. I guess the trunk inviroment will be at a standstill and to warm to cool the pipes enough.
Bob, you’re right! Construction is so easy when we don’t need to do it ourselves
Keep them ideas comeing! I sleep on all of them, then grind them, add a handfull of my own, spice with realism and lots of mad science, cook untill soft and serve back the resalts
Aah l see what you ment.
No! The fan cooled airbox is a must for sure. What l wanted to say is this hopper will only have wk pipes on one side, so the heat will allso circulate only on one side inside the hopper. Is that a potential problem?
Okay good point Kristijan, if you included the hopper surface with the cooling tubes that would be possible with a bigger box. Then the tubing would be added surface area for cooling like a WK Gasifier, that would be much better use all the hopper surface area. Better efficiently over all. The vent tube JO mention at the top of box would go to atmosphere out side the trunk to get rid of the heat in the box, Oh Wait A Minute! that heat could be used for intake air for the gasifier going to the exhaust preheating pipe, then to the gasifier intake, using all the wast heat you can to preheat your incoming air and keeping the trunk area cooler… The box will need to be sealed at the top around your fill lid so no smoke or gases could get in the box. I can easly see this working in my mind, but it is hard for me to put to words to it sometimes. This would work on a stand alone gasifier for a genset that does not have alot of preheating abilities.
I Hope I making this clear with my words. Look at the WK design and put a box around it except the pop off lid and hopper fill lid, use all that wast heat, to heat the incoming air, it should also help at the bottom part of the reactor area to cool the hottest part.
Wow, I starting to ramble now, haha
Bob
Remember my post above with wk tubes with a inner tube trugh wich intake air is sucked?
Oh l know the feeling. Sometimes l wish l culd talk to you guys rather thain type
No, l think the hopper wuld be more efficiant if insulated well. Since a wk style hopper doesent have a monorator, the condensation happening on hopper wall is wasted heat that culd be used to dry wood. So, keep the heat in the hopper, superheat all the wood inside, then draw all the steam/tar to the wk tubes and condense. Or am l getting this wrong?
I agree with JO, it will get to the cooling tubes. Also don’t forget you will need a tar gutter system inside the hopper to catch it and get to the condensation tar/water tank. The gutter is at the top and bottom of the cooling tubes and has a slope to it for draining the tar out. Screen over the gutter to keep wood chips out and plugging things up. Just look into the Drive on wood manual to see what I’m talking about. You do have the manual don’t you? If not, then Merry Christmas, I will buy you one, and I’m not kidding.
Bob
Good point Bob, on the gutter.
However, since this will be an insulated hopper the upper gutter won’t be nessessary.
Also, Kristijan, you may want to consider having the lower gutter as a common rail outside the hopper. With the insulated hopper the condensation might steam off again if collected inside.
Haha, you are such a generous guy, thank you so much! God bless you
But no need! I have it.
I overlooked JOs previous post. You make a point. Thats good.
JO beet me to it. Exactly what l wanted to say. I had a hot hopper in my alubox, insulated. Never a trace of tar/water in. It got so hot it all vapourises. Actualy, startedto pirolise the wood to charcoal! And this is what l want to upgrade with cooling tubes. Pirolise the wood in the hopper, good. But catch the tars/water ptoduced, eaven better!
Each wk tube shuld have its drain to a common pipe, like JO sayd above. Outside the hopper.
You are so right on that JO, forgot again about the insulation on the hopper, so there will not be that much heat lost, unless you would want to insulate the box instead and not around the hopper, then my idea would work. Boy is my head spinning now, Wow.
Bob
When the gutter is on the inside it has to be far enough away form the high heat to make sure it does not boil, on your unit the out side gutter is a good idea just keep it close enough to keep the tar flowing.
In my life here on plant earth, 66 years now, I have found that I can not out give or help others more than God can. He aways gives back more than you can give, in Love and Blessings.
Bob
Oh! Good point. Insulate the condensate pipes to the condense tank. Check.
I did look under the car, l might be able to preheat the air via exhaust some! Good, a nother check.
Ok, now all thats left is the filter. But first, a good night sleep to proces todays fertile talk!
Ha, while on head dizzines, all the terible huricanes that hit you guys this year are like a gentle breeze compared to what is happening in my head since l heared about woodgas
l like the insulation lair idea. My father has a similar insulation on his house, its sayd 1cm of this multi-lair insulation is comparable with 10cm rockwool. This idea will be used, thanks!
