at what temps do you see your best performance?
at what altitude do you see power go away ?
at what humidity do you see power loss?
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Xoie; As long as I’m wasting time on the computer instead of working on my shop, I will ask a question that has been on my mind. How did you come by the dimensions for your gasifier— nozzle tip diameter, number of nozzles and orifice size, restriction diameter, and height of nozzles above the restriction. ?? Did you use the standard Imbert dimension?? I have thought that you would have to adjust for the “thin” air a 7,000 feet. Others on here are much better able to comment on this than I. I just bring it up to get you thinking about it. In the engine at 7,000 feet, with each intake, the piston will pull in less air, than if it was 14.7 lb atmospheric pressure behind it. Then the velocity going through the nozzle will be less so will not penetrate the char bed as deep. And then at the restriction, the restriction will not accelerate the gas as much. This creates less CO2 to CO reaction. Just food for thought.
PS Xoie; you don’t have to start a new subject with each question as long as it pertains to your gasifier. TomC
Will it be lesser velocity, or greater, or relatively equal? Remember that the internal pressure of the gasifier will also be reduced. Maybe @gasman will pitch in on that…
I am going to have to collect some data. I live at 650’ above sea level and the Mission Ridge Ski/Snowboarding Resort is at 4800’ above sea level at the parking lot. That is 4150’ difference in elevation. It’s not 7000’ but you would think that you should notice a change in performance. More on this later after I take a drive up there in the 92 Dakota on wood.
Bob
Hello Xoie.
There are so many variables when driving on wood gas that a good experiment is very hard to do .
Just a WAG I think the performance would be best with low humidity, low altitude and low ambient temperatures
.
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You might look at this post for a short discussion about the effect of high relative humidity:
Pete Stanaitis
keep in mind i built this car in 2013, and had been
trying unsuccessful since 2009, to build a “tar
free” gasifier. i had built plenty of tarifiers.
late 2012 i decided i had enof tar and spent so much
time and money on filters pumps welding wire etc. i
stepped back and analyzed the hole program. i decided
- there is no way period to filter out tar 2.i
didnt like all the modern designs, they all had
there problems one way or another. so i decided i
wanted a copy of something that was proven to work.
i chose the WWII Imbert gasifier. i set out to find
as many pictures and videos of them being made or
operated, and copied that design. as far as the
dimensions you probably would not believe me if i
told you i guessed completely. i actually dont even
know the dimensions of my reactor. i just started
building it to were it looked and felt right. i
figured i was going to fail and i would just ajust
things from there. but low and behold i hit the
bulls-eye the first time. i have never read or even
seen and of the imbert literature, or the fema docs.
im dyslexic and it very hard for me to read in the
first place.
.
BTW this was not ment to be about my gasifier i wanted to know how others gasifiers reacted in different conditions
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i have no idea why it formated it like that
i would think so too i going to have some wet weather come threw and im exsited to bring my car back to life =)
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let me know i would be very interested to knopw =)
Gary I’m not sure how the altitude will affect a gasifier. I mentioned it because I think it is important in Xoie’s case. TomC
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I agree, and really an interesting puzzle. All things being equal, as pressure drops velocity should increase, but the reactivity will decrease proportional to the air density. But penetration and velocity shouldn’t change much as pressure drops, according to my intuition
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Hi Garry, let me bounce some thoughts off you.
WK Gasifier are a lower velocity operating gasifier, than the Imbert style at the nozzle. We are running on a vaccum pressure in the negative velocity from the positive that is in our atmosphere. On my unit I am preheating the air to get it has hot as I can. In this condition alone the air is changed by heat expansion and vaccum in the negative. I also have more nozzles 12 instead of the 8 in the original design.
If the air going into the gasifier is less dence and velocity increases, the heat will still be the same, because it was already changed in the first place. Yes there may be less air molecules but there is also H2O. We have a abundance of it and the extra moisture normally goes on the through the char bed and through the gasifiers system.
I see something happing here in the fire tube with less air at the nozzles but a increase of velocity, this will cause more H2O to be stripped of the O molecule or cracked leaving more H2.
As long as the gasifier is keep up to temperature at the grate. O molecule is going to get used up by the glowing char bed.
So maybe under certain conditions we could have less carbon dioxide converted to carbon monoxide and more H20 converted to H2.
Just some of my abstract thinking going on.
Hi @Xoie, at what temps do I see the best performance?
In the spring and fall time of the year.
For my WK Gasifier it is when my grate temperature is up to 1350 * f to 1530 * f and the hopper is down on wood, around the last 6 miles before I need to reload the hopper with wood. Wood at around 15% or less on my moisture meter.
At what altitude do I see a power loss? Need to test this out.
At what humidity do I see power loss? I live in a very low humidity climate. Will need to test on high humidity or rainy days.
Bob
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Good morning Xoie.
Most of my driving is done in elevations 600-700 feet but I have driven over the Rockies and through Yosemite park ( no gasoline ) . I don’t remember the elevations but I think 6,000 - 8,000 feet . Just a short time before this I had driven below sea level through Death Valley . ( a very strange place to a southern hillbilly ) Hottest recorded temp in the world at 134F but not while I was there Thank God .
Also I didn’t realize it but the Bonneville salt flat is 4200 feet above sea level .
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lol i live on the mountains that border the so cal high desert the next time your here in CA let me know well meet up i have not meet many people that were born in the same country as me lol i was born in SC =) and yes it gets VERY hot here that drive video i did it was over 90deg F im sure it was over 100 in DV it regularly get over 100deg F at the base of the mountain on those days i dont dare leave the mountain…lol ill melt lol =) i would love to do “EL Mirage” land seed racing with you and thats literately like just off the mountain for me i want to go there my self B/C it is the only place in CA you can go fast and not get in trouble…remember if you record your self going over the speed limit the gov can take that video as evidence and charge you it has happened here =/
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