Engines! Edited Transcript

Viv Trafalgar: The topic today is Engines!

Jasper Kiergarten: I'm on chair duty, for those who don't already have one

Serafina Puchkina: There's tea and cake on the table. Please help yourself. Fresh pot of tea! For the record, I was present this time to record Bob's presentation but he was not here this month

Viv Trafalgar: we'll get started in just a few minutes –

Beq Janus notes that everyone is sitting further back than usual; clearly the two speakers' engine building escapades have taught many a lesson already

Kat Montpark waddles forward with her chair stuck to her bum.

Alyx Sands hobbles along too

Serafina Puchkina clears her throat to begin

Viv Trafalgar: we really should race these things sometime

Serafina Puchkina: Welcome, fine ladies, elegant gents, and intelligent urchins. Miss Viv Trafalgar and I welcome you all to the eighth Aether Salon: Engines!

The number 8 in Chinese culture carries great significance. It is an auspicious number, because the Mandarin word for "8" is similar to the word for "wealth" or "prosper." "88" sounds similar to "double joy." We are positive that today’s salon will bring great wealth and prosperity to you all -- just see Bob afterwards. (::notes Bob making himself scarce::)

We are so humbled by the support we receive from everyone in the community, and we thank you all. Many fine people have contributed to today’s salon; we are grateful to Miss Ceejay Writer, Miss Breezy Carver, Miss Redgrrl Llewellyn, Miss Canolli Capalini of Capalini Fine Furnishings for the chairs, and Albus Weka and Jasper Kiergarten who helped Viv create today’s craft - make-your-own toolbelts!

Miss Viv, my co-host, is incredibly talented, compassionate, intelligent, and funny. I treasure her close friendship and support.
Hold your questions until the end, and as a courtesy to all, please turn off everything that encourages lag - (sorry sir, that internal combustion engine must go for a bit), all HUDs, scripts, AOs and so on. Please, no weapons, bombs, or running with sharp objects.

Mark your calendars for upcoming salons: Fae! in June, a brief hiatus, then Airships! in September, and Haberdashery! in October.

Check out aethersalon.blogspot.com for edited and unedited transcripts of this and previous salons, a list of speakers, photos, and assorted witticisms in the “Overheard at the Salon” section. If you would like to join the Aether Salon group and receive notifications of future salon events, click the lower right hand corner of the large brown sign by the entrance. As a reminder, all speakers' fund donations go directly to the speakers.

After the question and answer period, today’s incredibly useful craft will be distributed.

Before we ask you to start your engines... Miss Viv has a few words to say about today's speakers –

Viv Trafalgar: Welcome everyone - and thanks to my co-host the wonderful Miss Serafina Puchkina

Elfod Nemeth is an avid builder (assembling, scripting and texturing) who accepts custom bespoke builds and sells occasional items of well-scripted goodness at his shop Steam Monks. His portfolio can be found at http://knol.google.com/k/elfod-nemeth/elfod-nemeth-second-life-portfolio/

Elfod's most eye-catching builds in New Babbage are Tiny Tim and Dagon's Pier. Both are resources for the use of any visitors to or residents of Babbage; however, Tiny Tim is also Elfod's home.

The Pier is a Victorian-style pier modeled after the famous Iron Bridge. It features entertainments (with more planned) and leads, via a pleasant walk, to the giant robot Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim is a 160m tall, hollow robot. Explorers who traverse its exterior and venture inside may discover a mushroom brewery and dance floor, a couples lounge chair with sea view, a Mars Expeditionary rocket, an avatar cannon, a games room, a mushroom shredder (that should not be touched!), a second, wet dance floor, a couples tree and many places to high-dive from and swim. Tiny Tin and Dagon's Pier can be found at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vernian%20Sea/219/39/117

Greg Merryman is a renowned mechanologist who has forgotten more about engines than many of us will learn in a lifetime. Since arriving in Babbage, Mr. Merryman has created a number of builds that have caught the eye of the discerning traveller – from the Soap Factory of yore and the Fire Station (now the Ladies' Fire Brigade House), to the stunning steel mill in Iron Bay. Greg is however very humble, saying only, "I am a student of the art of mechanics I fix things and build things."

His most recent creations include a new submarine and the tri-tanium airship, as well as scripting for the Iron Bay fleet. As for engines, they are a passion in this life and in RL. [14:11] Viv Trafalgar: Iron Bay can be found in Babbage New Babbage, http://slurl.com/secondlife/new%20babbage/101/52/102/.

Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Elfod Nemeth and Greg Merryman.

Elfod Nemeth: Good Evening all I'm going to give you a brief talk about Sterling Engines, followed by a more thorough talk covering many types of engines from Mr. Merryman.

In order to put the Sterling engine into historical context, lets look at when engines where perfected during the 19th century. When I say perfected I mean developed into a usable state where they could be put to practical use. As we can see, sterling engines where made practical in the early 19th century. The engines we see here all had their own quirks:
Steam engines were high pressure with steam as the fluid motivator (what pushes the piston), were dangerous due to poor understanding of metal fatigue, high power density generation and high maintenance. They were typically used in large applications - factories, ships, and trains.

Sterling Engines have low power density, run on ambient heat or cold source, use ordinary air as fluid motivator, extremely safe (impossible to explode), near silent operation and are very low maintenance.

Internal Combustion engines have higher density of power than ever before, use volatile explosive fuel, high maintenance and can be used in mobile applications. As a result they quickly went into went into mass production and have seen over 100 years of refinement

Viv Trafalgar: No exploding engines?

Elfod Nemeth: not from sterling engines, no

Viv Trafalgar: well hmph

Elfod Nemeth: Here we can see the relative merits of these engines in terms of efficiency. It's surprising just how efficient the sterling engine is. So why aren't we surrounded by Sterling engines today? In the 19th century sterling engines were made from cast iron, as were steam engines, and even though they weren't subject to the same metal fatigue as steam engines they were prone to burn out on one end due to oxidisation of the iron where the heat source was applied, creating a hole and resulting in pressure loss.

Elfod Nemeth: Here we simplest form of Sterling engine, what is more correctly termed a heat engine. A cylinder is heated at one end, then cooled at the other. This forces the air to rise, then cool, creating rising and falling air pressure within the cylinder. A piston, seen at the top here, is sucked and pushed as a result creating motive force. This is horrifically inefficient as we can see.

This development, still a heat engine, adds a displacer, a moving piece that shuttles back and forth within the cylinder. The displacer, loosely fitting, shunts the gas, usually aided by the fly wheel so the cooling and heating are applied faster. Amazingly this doubles the performance from 1% to an astonishing 2%! Heady stuff.

Here is where Robert Sterling comes in adding the innovation that made sterling engines practical. Along the side we can see a heat sponge otherwise know as a regenerator. This simple addition retains heat as the air in the cylinder passes between hot and cold states, heating and cooling the air faster, retaining heat that would otherwise be lost to the surrounding environment.
The model you see here (both are identical) display a form of alpha engine that doesn't have a displacer but does have a heat sponge regenerator in the form of a metal mesh. Heat is collected from the rising geothermal water on the right, heats the air in the tube, which passes through the regenerative mesh. The hot expanding air pushes up the cylinder exposing the air to the cooler part of the cylinder, cooled by the protruding heat sink vanes. The cooled air contracts passing though the heat sink warming as it passes to be heated again from the geothermal water and the cycle starts again.

So what happened to sterling engines?

Viv Trafalgar: Seriously - they seem like they'd be completely useful and clean

Elfod Nemeth: Because of poor materials (basic cast iron) sterling engines had a high failure rate, the iron simply oxidised after prolonged exposure to a heat source and perforated. Despite this tens of thousands of Sterling engines were used to power water pumps, run small machines, and turn fans, from the time of their invention up until about 1915.

Elfod Nemeth: As electricity became more widely available in the early 1900s, and as gasoline became readily available as a fuel for automobiles, electric motors and gasoline engines began to replace Sterling engines which never got the chance to fulfill their full potential.

Today Sterling Engines are seeing something of a revival, being used where there are abundant free sources of energy, such as geothermal vents, concentrated focused sunlight and even the excess heat from other engines.

I leave you with a rather poor picture from Robert Sterling's 1816 patent application of the air engine design which later came to be known as the Sterling Engine. And words of the man himself:

"…These imperfections have been in a great measure removed by time and especially by the genius of the distinguished Bessemer. If Bessemer iron or steel had been known thirty five or forty years ago there is a scarce doubt that the air engine would have been a great success … It remains for some skilled and ambitious mechanist in a future age to repeat it under more favourable circumstances and with complete success…" (written in the year 1876 by Dr. Robert Sterling [1790-1878])

Viv Trafalgar: We can take a couple of questions for Elfod – while Mr. Merryman gets set up

Greg Merryman: no questions for Elfod?

Viv Trafalgar: we can keep going and run questions at the end. I'll save mine on my List I have here...

Greg Merryman: ok

Viv Trafalgar: Thank you Elfod!

Greg Merryman: Hi, first I’d like to thank Viv and Sera for inviting me to speak at the very prestigious Aether Salon and to thank all of you for attending and I’d like to thank Mr Elfod Nemeth for his enlightening presentation of the Sterling engine and hopefully adding his wit and charisma to what would otherwise be my very dry and boring presentation.

Steam engines and sterling engines are both examples of external combustion engines; that is: engines whose heat source is on the outside of the engine rather than on the inside like the German gasoline engine created by Mr. Otto that you may have seen about.

The first known steam engine (the aeolipile) was invented in the first century AD by Hero of Alexandria but it was simply a novelty. I created an aeolipile for your viewing pleasure (to my left near the beverage dispenser) and feel free to get one from the box next to it (buy for 0L).

Steam technology lay dormant for nearly 1,500 years after Hero created his toy. It seems hard to believe something as important as steam power could have been lost for so long but it appears to the case.

Steam engines weren’t mentioned again in history until the prolific Muslim inventor Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf al-Shami al-Asadi (and no, I won’t go voice and pronounce that for you “) describes a steam engine and steam turbine in a book he had written named “The Sublime Methods of Spiritual Machines.” I'm not really sure what happened

Alyx Sands is a linguist and COULD pronounce it...

Greg Merryman makes a note of that fact.

Other inventors and tinkerers mention steam turbines and engines in their writings but it wasn’t until an English military engineer named Thomas Savery in 1698 invented one he called the Miner’s Friend, and even that wasn’t really what we’d call an engine. It was a pump used to pump water out of mines and it did not even have a flywheel or many moving parts.
We should stop and talk about the theory behind the early steam engines which applies to the sterling too, I guess. For the most part, when matter is heated it expands and when cooled it contracts. (Yes, your pipes burst when they freeze but that’s an odd case.)

Elfod Nemeth: unique too

Greg Merryman: This is also how an internal combustion engine works... gasoline explodes in the cylinder and the expanding gasses are what push the pistons. When we think of a steam engine we imagine very high pressure, hot, expanding steam pushing on engine cylinders to do work but many of the early steam engines did not work that way.

Most early steam engines only used the hot steam to return the cylinders back to where they started. It was the idea that things contract when they are cooled that did the actual heavy lifting. Engines that capitalize on the fact that when you cool off matter is contracts are known as "atmospheric engines," due to the fact that the atmosphere is doing the pushing into a much lower pressure vessel.

Basically what Mr Savery built was a large coffee percolator. All he did was shoot steam into a pipe that was down in some water at the bottom of a mine, then he shutoff the steam and waited for the lake too cool the pipe and condense the steam into the pipe back into water thereby creating a vacuum.

The atmosphere pushed the mine water into the very empty pipe, them he closed the valve at the bottom of the pipe.
Then he’d let steam back into the water filled pipe until it overflowed the water and then did it all over again, of course the fairly high pressure steam blasting into the relatively cold water in the pipe meant a lot of its energy was wasted needlessly heating up the water and the steam had to be fairly high pressure which is why they had so much trouble with the boilers exploding. It was terribly inefficient but it was somewhat better than horses or donkeys pulling a rope that had buckets tied to it.

Serafina Puchkina appreciates that both speakers are defining terms for non techies such as herself

Greg Merryman: It could only lift a column of water about 40 ft (12M) so deep mines had to have a series of these pumps one above the other. Oh and the boilers that generated the steam blew up fairly often, but he did do one thing incredibly right… he got a patent that covered the use of steam to make things move….and a law was passed that extended his patent for a total of 35 years.

Next we come to Thomas Newcomen. In 1712 or so, Thomas Newcomen, another Englishman improved upon Savery’s design considerably. Mr Newcomen separated the engine from the water that was being pumped and figured out that if injected a small amount of cold water into the cylinder it would rapidly condense the steam back into water and create a powerful vacuum. This was a huge step forward and was much much more efficient than Savery’s engine.

Viv Trafalgar: Greg did you make these illustrations?

Greg Merryman: naw... borrowed them

Gizmo Theas: Nice animation

Greg Merryman: He used steam (the pink in the animation) to lift the cylinder back up, then he shot a little bit of cold water into the cylinder to condense the steam and create a partial vacuum, which sucked the engine-side of the beam downwards and lifted the plunger in the pump deep in the mine. That shot of water was the magic sauce, but there was a problem... Savery had locked up the steam pumping water out of the mine business with a patent. He installed over 100 steam engines all over Europe before his death.

A number of attempts were made to use the Newcomen steam engine to drive various machines rather than pumps, but they all failed due to the intermittent pulsing motion of the engine. The Newcomen engine was used pretty much as is for 50 years. This pic is one of the few surviving Newcomen engines.

James Watt a Scotsman came up with the idea to condense the steam in a separate vessel from the main engine cylinder. Newcomen injected water into the thick walled cast iron cylinder to condense the steam but it also cooled the engine off quite a bit. So the next injection of steam into the engine to start the next cycle had to re-heat the somewhat cooled off engine which wasted a lot of the energy that the steam contained.

After many false starts, Watt teamed up with a guy named Matthew Boulton who owned a foundry. They installed their first engine in 1776 which was still basically a pump. Boulton urged Watt to turn the reciprocating pump into a rotational engine. A man by the name of James Pickard held the patent for the crank (it seems the patent office was just as screwed up back then as today), one of Watt’s employees invented the Sun and planet gear to get around the patent on the crank. They had to turn the reciprocating motion into rotational motion using this... cause some guy patented the freaking crank of all things

He was the first to add a centrifugal governor to automatically regulate the speed of the steam engine. Now that's finally my idea of a steam engine.

Watt went on to create a double acting engine that used steam on both sides of the piston to move it back and forth. Watt was adamant about using only low pressure steam to power his steam engines. He felt (and rightfully so at the time) that high pressure steam was just too dangerous. Iron was not a very good material to use for boilers, cylinders etc. due to its brittleness…. Boilers made of iron would fail spectacularly rather than just develop a leak when something went wrong.

That blur is an example of a double acting piston. Steam pushes it both ways. Double action was a huge improvement. I built a steam engine is SL awhile back.... this was what I based it on. I don't think it would operate here with all the lag so I won't get it out. By this time the patent for the crank had expired.

Methods of smelting the iron improved and with the addition of coke (a by product of crude oil refining) into the iron as combustible, iron makers in the middle 1800s were actually making a crude from of steel which greatly improved the boilers.
My steel mill in the Iron Bay uses coke mixed in with the ore in the furnace

They did not get a good mix of steel this way though; some of the material was iron and some was steel.
Someone along the way got the brilliant idea to make a plug out of lead and put into the boiler. If the boiler ran out of water or built up too much pressure the lead plug would melt and blow relieving pressure on the boiler and directing the steam to hopefully a safe area rather than into one’s face. This is not unlike the re-useable pop off valve on today’s water heaters.
Low pressure steam (1 or 2 PSI) where much safer than higher pressure engines but they had to be quite large and heavy in order to get any work out of the low temp low pressure steam. A true Watt engine was far too large and heavy to be used in vehicles except for a steam locomotive which he patented in 1784.

You can see in this diagram they're starting to get more complicated.

Watt retired in 1800 the same year his original separate condenser patent ran out and many, many companies and inventors all over the world began to make steam engines. These next slides are photos of some of the post-watt engines.

Watt’s steam engine ushered in the Industrial revolution in Europe. No longer did factories have to built alongside rivers or rely on the intermittent wind to operate. Factories would generally have one large Watt engine that drove a series of pulleys that powered many devices in the factory. Grinders, saws lathes, sewing machines were just some of the tools that would get their power from an overhead pulley/belt that was powered by that one big steam engine.

As the 19th century progressed many inventors continued to improve upon the steam engine. The created multiple cylinder engines that extracted work from the waste steam from the preceding cylinder to further increase efficiency. Europe was afraid of high pressure stream engines due to the problems they had seen with them in the past but the US had no experience with exploding boilers, etc., so Americans quickly surpassed the gun-shy Europeans in the creation of high pressure steam engines.

beth India: It was incredibly dangerous in the large factories though; many children and adult were killed by these machines

Greg Merryman: yes.... limbs were lost too. No belt guards or OSHA back in those days.

Canolli Capalini: because that's where children and women belong, on the factory floors.

Viv Trafalgar whispers to Canoli... 'don't make the urchins mad... they've been holding meetings....'

Greg Merryman: This is a very efficient engine... it uses waste steam from the first cylinder to power the second and so on. This type of engine would have been used on ships for instance. Very high pressure/hot hot steam. Building a steam engine in SL is easy.... scripting it is hard.

My most successful attempt used llSetAlpha to turn on and off a series of 8 axles, 8 pushrods and 8 pistons. The steam engine at Kandace's lighthouse moved the prims by doing some pretty heavy math that is beyond me.

That concludes my presentation

Serafina Puchkina: Are there questions for our speakers?

Elfod Nemeth: for those who live in the UK you can see a very early bem engine and other excellent steam engines at the science museum London: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/motive_power/1920-124.aspx

beth India: When do you think the decline of the steam engine started and what was the biggest factor in that?

Boh Benoir: Greg, where is that engine build of yours that you mentioned?

Viv Trafalgar: Beth first and then Boh

Greg Merryman: It was slow to start compared to the new gasoline engine. The Stanley steamer bested the gasoline engines in races, but it had to warm up for 20 minutes before you could use it.

Viv Trafalgar: ((after questions I'll put the craft box out - but they have to be GOOD questions! ::smiles sweetly::))

beth India: The SS Great Britain always amazed my, but I guess the size and weight also counted against steam engines?

Greg Merryman: I've got the steam engine for sale in my store in the canals but it's not out. There's one up in the rafters of the steel mill.

Jedburgh30 Dagger: What about horsepower to weight ratios Greg?

Greg Merryman: yeah... steam was heavier for sure.... had lots of torque though. There's a ton of power in a small amount of gasoline, and it should be pointed out that about 80% of our electricity comes from steam.

Canolli Capalini: Are Sterling engines being looked at more in modern times now?

Greg Merryman: Steam turbines.... which I did not cover cause I thought people might get bored or need coffee to stay awake :) are in use today. Nuclear power plants heat water to make steam to make a turbine go.

Elfod Nemeth: yes, they are being looked at particularly as an alternate to solar panels in countries with good sunshine.

Boh Benoir: Steam heats & cools most of my RP city's downtown

Elfod Nemeth: the sun is focused, via a parabolic mirror onto a sterling engine to generate electricity.

Greg Merryman: Sterling engines have me fascinated in RL

Elfod Nemeth: here's a video on the excellent TED website about using sterling engines to generate electiricity (and where I pinched some of my slides from): http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bill_gross_on_new_energy.html

Jasper Kiergarten: on the multiple piston engines, is there more stress on the later cylinders, since they take the waste steam off of the previous cylinders such that they wear unevenly?

Greg Merryman: I don’t know.... I did notice they got larger the further down the chain that they went. I imagine the larger size is due to the lower power steam to balance it all out

Elfod Nemeth: I presume they got longer because as the steam progresses it looses pressure, therefore more surface area is needed to provide sufficient motive force

Saffia Widdershins: One of the most interesting uses of steam power I saw was in Tuscany

Elfod Nemeth: Also, there is a giant aeoliophle ride on my pier in the Vernian sea, should have mentioned it earlier

Saffia Widdershins: where they use the thermal power of hot springs in an area of Southern Tuscany.

Viv Trafalgar: what do they use it for Ms Widdershins?

Saffia Widdershins: supplying power in the local villages. The hills and roads are all crossed by these huge tubes. Bright yellow.

Aeolus Cleanslate: lots of that going on in Hawaii too - geothermal driving steam turbines producing electricity

Aeolus Cleanslate raises his hand

Viv Trafalgar: Yes Mr. Cleanslate?

Elfod Nemeth: nuclear power stations use steam turbines too Greg?

Greg Merryman: yes

Viv Trafalgar: ahh Mr. Cleanslate and then Mr. Nemeth

Aeolus Cleanslate: forgive me if you covered this earlier, but early steam engines seem to have alternated between vertical and horizontal boilers. Is one better than another? Or does one work better in certain circumstances?

Greg Merryman: I don't know

Aeolus Cleanslate: it might just be a form factor thing for railroads. It’s easier to make bigger boilers longer than taller.

Elfod Nemeth: shouldn't make any difference really, it's just pressure that would apply equally regardless of shape, no?

Greg Merryman: most of the early ones were for pumping water out of mines, so a vertical orientation would certainly make sense there.

Jasper Kiergarten: well I'm reminded of the slant 6 engine and the theory behind that

Greg Merryman: good point

Jasper Kiergarten: perhaps there's something to orientation indeed

Greg Merryman: the early engines were beam engines.... so they had to be vertical

Viv Trafalgar: realizes that the boys are going to take over the salon courtyard long after dark.

Viv Trafalgar: Have the size issues for steam engines been overcome? Most seem so enormous - and combustion engines can be so small

Greg Merryman: pretty much yes

Aeolus Cleanslate: I've seen some pretty tiny steam engines - and the little ones still seem pretty powerful
Greg Merryman: now that we have better materials to work with we can use high pressure steam safely. Low pressure requires lots of surfaced area to push on
Elfod Nemeth: you can get sterling engines now that will run from a tea candle flame or if dipped in coffee

Aeolus Cleanslate: speaking of which - I re-read the old Steamboy novel the other day and wondered about *storing* steam

Breezy Carver: umm sort of the like the motion of the ocean so to speak smiles ...

Aeolus Cleanslate: if you could reduce the temperature loss, couldn't you theoretically build a steam *battery*?

Greg Merryman: one of the big Sterling projects stores heat in molten salt underground

Viv Trafalgar: I'm going to pause the questions for just a second, and then open the floor back up to whomever wishes

Greg Merryman: what's the name of the super light insulating material.... called frozen smoke

Beq Janus: there was a nanotech steam engine made; pistons at 5 microns I think. http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.auburn.edu%2F~rainerk%2Fnano.ppt&ei=ZI0QSqvDGZGUjAew8LnCBg&usg=AFQjCNFce6I8UhwknLTSbNmizTYfJCjaoQ&sig2=u46o8sVM4ZiFf-6zSQEKhQ

Viv Trafalgar: Sera and I would like to thank each and every one of you for fighting the grid to be here today! From the emails and IMs I've received a number of Salon fans were locked out or unable to TP. Please let them know that we will be publishing the entire transcript at http://aethersalon.blogspot.com

As is our custom, we offer a craft towards the end of each salon. This month the craft is DIY steampunk toolbelts, as suggested by Mr. Gatsby Szuster.

Serafina Puchkina: Edited and unedited versions will be posted

Beq Janus: easier URL www.auburn.edu/~rainerk/nano.ppt

Viv Trafalgar: I will put the boxes out - I beg you to please read the instructions (RTFM!) so that you do not end up with a screwdriver in an uncomfortable place. I return you all to the questions session - and keep talking!

Greg Merryman: the aeolipile to my left is a freebie too

Viv Trafalgar: I would like to thank our speakers profusely - the work you did today and the information you provided was extraordinary! Please join us again next month - and join the salon group as well!

Elfod Nemeth: and a comfy sofa too

Viv Trafalgar: lol I've always wanted someone to give a salon lying down

Canolli Capalini coughs at Elfod "traitor"

Serafina Puchkina: Thank you Elfod and Greg

Beq Janus: a special cheer for Elfod our most relaxed speaker ever

Elfod Nemeth grins at Olli

Serafina Puchkina: Goodnight to those leaving now and thanks for coming!

Viv Trafalgar: I am thrilled to announce that I am splitting the speakers fund of over 5K L with Greg and Elfod now. (That is, they're splitting it - I'm not gettin any.) 5630L to be exact, thank you Herr Baron!

Engines! Unedited Transcript

[13:42] Viv Trafalgar: The topic today is Engines!
[13:42] Jasper Kiergarten: I'm on chair duty, for those who don't already have one
[13:42] Viv Trafalgar: Hiya Doc!
[13:43] Serafina Puchkina: Welcome Wiggy
[13:44] Viv Trafalgar: Hello Wiggy!
[13:44] Wiggy Undertone: Hello Sera
[13:44] Wiggy Undertone: Hello Viv!
[13:44] Viv Trafalgar: Hello Doc :)
[13:44] Serafina Puchkina: Welcome Doctor
[13:44] Doctor Obolensky: Good afternoon.
[13:44] Viv Trafalgar: come on in Wiggy, don't be shy
[13:44] Elfod Nemeth nods to the Doctor
[13:45] Canolli Capalini looks over.. nods her head.. Obolensky
[13:45] Wiggy Undertone: Hello everyone!
[13:45] Serafina Puchkina: There's tea and cake on the table. Please help yourself. Fresh pot of tea!
[13:45] Jasper Kiergarten: hi wiggy
[13:45] Bookworm Hienrichs: Is it just me, or are you missing your mustache, Doctor?
[13:45] Serafina Puchkina: Even milk and cookies
[13:45] Doctor Obolensky: It's just you.
[13:45] Viv Trafalgar: lol
[13:45] Bookworm Hienrichs sighs and glares at her graphics card.
13:46] Doctor Obolensky: Welcome to lagtown.
[13:46] Doctor Obolensky: Well, it's just you about the moustache.
[13:46] Doctor Obolensky: I swear, I have to stop every few steps as I walk, to allow for rezzing.
[13:47] Bookworm Hienrichs nods.
[13:48] Viv Trafalgar: HI Kat!
[13:48] Serafina Puchkina: Hello Kat!
[13:48] Viv Trafalgar: no pink pirate hat?
[13:48] Kat Montpark: 'Ello, all!
[13:48] Kat Montpark grins. "Well, if ye insist..."
[13:48] Jasper Kiergarten: hi Kat
[13:48] Viv Trafalgar: lol
[13:49] Serafina Puchkina: y'all can have a seat
[13:49] Viv Trafalgar: oh dear. that is really blingtastic
[13:49] Kat Montpark: It's FABULOUS! In every sense o' th' word.
[13:49] Wiggy Undertone removes his laggy bits...
[13:50] Canolli Capalini blushes and looks the other way
[13:50] Viv Trafalgar: lol
[13:50] Viv Trafalgar: ok ok, put it back where it came from
[13:50] Kat Montpark laughs.
[13:50] Viv Trafalgar: wb Greg
[13:50] Greg Merryman: Hello everyone who came in while my typist was away
[13:50] Viv Trafalgar: it firghtens me
[13:50] Greg Merryman: ty
[13:51] Serafina Puchkina: Love the hat, Kat
[13:51] Jedburgh30 Dagger: don't be firghtened Viv
[13:51] Viv Trafalgar: Kat won it yesterday at the build contest
[13:51] Serafina Puchkina: Welcome Mr. Holmes
[13:51] Viv Trafalgar: Hello Breezy!
[13:51] Serafina Puchkina: Hello Breezy dear!
[13:51] Breezy Carver: Hi YA Viv !!
[13:51] Viv Trafalgar: Hello Mr. Holmes, so good to see you!
[13:51] Kat Montpark: Sorry, Viv. I've heard th' people, and they say t'wear th' blingtastic pink sequined pirate hat with pride.
[13:51] Elilka Sieyes: Evening (decided I'm so lagged today that coming to the salon will probably push me into negative lag :) )
[13:52] Viv Trafalgar: lol.
[13:52] Viv Trafalgar: funnneeeee
[13:52] Elfod Nemeth: well, it is Sunday after all
[13:52] Doctor Obolensky: Isn't negative lag good?
[13:52] Serafina Puchkina: Rats. Sorry, Dr Watson. Welcome to you!
[13:52] Doctor Obolensky: Or do you mean seconds per frame instead of frames per second?
[13:52] Breezy Carver: hello dear Sea .. wavess to Jed and Canolli .. and dr Holmes Jasper .. umm Kat .. wavess to Elf .. and Mr Meryman (( one man ))
[13:52] Viv Trafalgar: Hello Watson (does whatever Sera says)
[13:52] Jedburgh30 Dagger: i thought that if you put lag and Anitlag in the same space they'd explode
[13:52] Breezy Carver: Sera * woopsy
[13:52] Viv Trafalgar: come on in and have a seat folks –
[13:52] Elfod Nemeth: hello Breezy :)
[13:53] Breezy Carver: ☆smiles ☆
[13:53] Elilka Sieyes: Yes, that's why (. It might cause my router to implode though.)
[13:53] Viv Trafalgar: if you need a seat, Mr. Kiergarten can pass you one
[13:53] Greg Merryman: Hi Breezy
[13:53] Kat Montpark: Have a seat where?
[13:53] Jasper Kiergarten: hi breezy
[13:53] Wiggy Undertone: Ah, I'm needed elsewhere... Sorry folks
[13:53] Wiggy Undertone: Guess I'll have to read the transcript later.
[13:53] Viv Trafalgar: oh bye Wiggy - come back soon I hope
[13:53] Viv Trafalgar: understand - be well
[13:53] Viv Trafalgar: Hello Gizmo!
[13:53] Kat Montpark: Oh, well, then, Mr. Kiergarten, could ye be so kind?
[13:53] Wiggy Undertone: Thanks Viv, Take care!
[13:53] Gizmo Theas waves
[13:53] Serafina Puchkina: Hello Gizmo!
[13:53] Jasper Kiergarten: to do what Kat?
[13:53] Jasper Kiergarten: a chair?
[13:54] Viv Trafalgar: lol
[13:54] Kat Montpark laughs. "I need a chair."
[13:54] Jasper Kiergarten: certainly
[13:54] Jasper Kiergarten: :)
[13:54] Jasper Kiergarten: I was afk there for a sec
[13:54] Viv Trafalgar: ::makes a note about Mr. Kiergarten::
[13:54] Viv Trafalgar: folks don't all sit at the back of the maze - I promise Greg won't bite
[13:54] Kat Montpark: Thank ye!
[13:54] Viv Trafalgar: I'm not so sure about Elf
[13:54] Jasper Kiergarten: a lot of note taking going around today..
[13:54] Jasper Kiergarten: you're welcome
[13:55] Canolli Capalini nods.. not much viv..
[13:55] Elfod Nemeth cocks an eyebrow at viv
[13:55] Viv Trafalgar: we are running out of prims however, so if you would be so kind as to use the wearable chairs, instead of a rezzable seat
[13:55] Viv Trafalgar: we would appreciate it
[13:55] Greg Merryman makes a note about note takers
[13:55] Viv Trafalgar: otherwise I have to return the tea
[13:55] Viv Trafalgar: ::makes a note about Mr Merryman Making Notes::
[13:55] Serafina Puchkina: I will be forced to eat all of the cake
[13:55] Elilka Sieyes: Heaven forbid ;)
[13:55] Kat Montpark makes a note about all these notes being made.
[13:56] Elilka Sieyes notes he's forgotten his notebook
[13:56] Jedburgh30 Dagger: eat the cake!
[13:56] Serafina Puchkina: Have some refreshments! Have a seat! ::says the nervous hostess::
[13:56] Viv Trafalgar: If anyone neads a fantastic wearable salon chair created by Canolli Capalini of Capalini Fine Furnishings, please IM me
[13:56] Serafina Puchkina: Don't mix the two please
[13:56] Breezy Carver: plays wiff toys ..
[13:57] Breezy Carver: uh oh better not ..
[13:57] Bookworm Hienrichs gives up and takes a picture of Dr. Obolensky sans mustache.
[13:57] Canolli Capalini looks around.. Breezy! Darling!
[13:57] Doctor Obolensky: It'll be a collectors item!
[13:57] Breezy Carver: smiles and wavesss
[13:57] Bookworm Hienrichs chuckles.
[13:57] Serafina Puchkina: For the record I was present this time to record Bob's presentation but he was not here this month
[13:57] Kat Montpark: Warning: drinking th' milk while in th' chair will make ye stand up with th' chair stuck to yer bum.
[13:58] Breezy Carver: looks at doctor O .. wavess waves to dear book !
[13:58] Bookworm Hienrichs: Hello, Breezy!
[13:58] Viv Trafalgar: Welcome Miss Sands! Please do come in!
[13:58] Serafina Puchkina: Hello Nell
[13:58] Viv Trafalgar: Welcome Nell!
[13:58] Doctor Obolensky: Good afternoon, Breezy.
[13:58] Bookworm Hienrichs: Hello, Penelope!
[13:58] Breezy Carver: ☆smiles ☆
[13:58] Penelope Strathearn: Hi!
[13:58] Breezy Carver: Hi Ya Nell !!
[13:58] Bookworm Hienrichs: Welcome back, Beq!
[13:58] Elilka Sieyes grins at Breezy's stars.
[13:58] Serafina Puchkina: Welcome back, Beq!
[13:59] Jasper Kiergarten: do you need a chair Miss Strathearn?
[13:59] Beq Janus smiles
[13:59] Bookworm Hienrichs: Miss Sands, I must express jealousy of your title. *grin*
[13:59] Breezy Carver: wacves to Miss Sands (9 love love your hair ))
[13:59] Penelope Strathearn: I have one, thanks. I'm sending an lm to a friend
[13:59] Viv Trafalgar: Welcome Mr. Worbridge
[13:59] Serafina Puchkina: Mr Worbridge, welcome
[13:59] Breezy Carver: Beq Beq ~~
[13:59] Alyx Sands: Why thank you!
[13:59] Jasper Kiergarten: you're welcome
[13:59] Breezy Carver: ☆smiles ☆ love it !!
[13:59] Osric Worbridge: Thank you
[13:59] Viv Trafalgar: we'll get started in just a few minutes –
[14:00] Viv Trafalgar: WB Beq!
[14:00] Beq Janus waves
[14:00] Serafina Puchkina: Speakers, if you want to have a seat on the stage. ..
[14:00] Breezy Carver: waves to beq jumping
[14:00] Serafina Puchkina: And Helio has the pole so far! Woot! (Indy 500)
[14:01] Elfod Nemeth: aargh! my feet!
[14:01] Bookworm Hienrichs chuckles.
[14:01] Viv Trafalgar: oh no Elf you're too tall for those!
[14:01] Elfod Nemeth: grins
[14:01] Jasper Kiergarten: anyone wanting a chair, please let me know
[14:01] Elfod Nemeth: I'm too tall for everything
[14:01] Greg Merryman: you can lay down
[14:02] Viv Trafalgar: Hello Saffia - Welcome!
[14:02] Breezy Carver: Greg you cant lay dow
[14:02] Greg Merryman: can*
[14:02] Byron Wexhome: May I have a chair?
[14:02] Breezy Carver: down why working
[14:02] Alyx Sands: I'm usually too SHORT for everything....
[14:02] Elfod Nemeth: lol
[14:03] Breezy Carver: wavess to Saffia with a big smile
[14:04] Beq Janus notes that everyone is sitting further back than usual, clearly the two speakers engine building escapades have taught many a lesson already
[14:04] Saffia Widdershins waves back as things and people slowly rezz
[14:04] Viv Trafalgar: chuckles
[14:04] Serafina Puchkina: Welcome, welcome
[14:04] Elilka Sieyes ponders protective goggles.
[14:04] Kat Montpark waddles forward with her chair stuck to her bum.
[14:04] Viv Trafalgar: as long as there's room for the stragglers
[14:04] Penelope Strathearn: I'm just sitting this far forward due to lag lurch. *g*
[14:04] Jedburgh30 Dagger: I'm Baptist
[14:04] Alyx Sands hobbles along too
[14:04] Serafina Puchkina clears her throat to begin
[14:04] Viv Trafalgar: we really should race these things sometime
[14:05] Kat Montpark: Hee!
[14:05] Saffia Widdershins wonders how one gets a chair ...
[14:05] Serafina Puchkina: Welcome, fine ladies, elegant gents, and intelligent urchins. Miss Viv Trafalgar and I welcome you all to the eighth Aether Salon: Engines!
[14:05] Viv Trafalgar: Coming Saffia
[14:05] Penelope Strathearn: *giggles at Jed, and decides to offer her some fried chicken after the Salon*
[14:05] Serafina Puchkina: The number 8 in Chinese culture carries great significance. It is an auspicious number, because the Mandarin word for "8" is similar to the word for "wealth" or "prosper." "88" sounds similar to "double joy."
[14:05] Saffia Widdershins beams
[14:05] Saffia Widdershins: Thank you!
[14:05] Serafina Puchkina: We are positive that today’s salon will bring great wealth and prosperity to you all -- just see Bob afterwards. (::notes Bob making himself scarce::)
[14:06] Jasper Kiergarten: you're welcome
[14:06] Elfod Nemeth: wonders about the crazy 88....
[14:06] Serafina Puchkina: We are so humbled by the support we receive from everyone in the community, and we thank you all. Many fine people have contributed to today’s salon; we are grateful to Miss Ceejay Writer, Miss Breezy Carver, Miss Redgrrl Llewellyn, Miss Canolli Capalini of Capalini Fine Furnishings for the chairs, and Albus Weka and Jasper Kiergarten who helped Viv create today’s craft - make-your-own toolbelts!
[14:06] Viv Trafalgar: lol
[14:06] Serafina Puchkina: Miss Viv, my co-host, is incredibly talented, compassionate, intelligent, and funny. I treasure her close friendship and support.
[14:06] Kat Montpark: Hooray!
[14:06] Jedburgh30 Dagger: yay
[14:06] Canolli Capalini applauds
[14:06] Viv Trafalgar: looks at tips of boots
[14:06] Serafina Puchkina: Hold your questions until the end, and as a courtesy to all, please turn off everything that encourages lag - (sorry sir, that internal combustion engine must go for a bit), all HUDs, scripts, AOs and so on. Please, no weapons, bombs, or running with sharp objects.
[14:06] Breezy Carver: YAY to you both !!
[14:06] Viv Trafalgar: they're cute boots
[14:06] Alyx Sands cheers
[14:06] Breezy Carver: very cute boots !
[14:07] Serafina Puchkina: Mark your calendars for upcoming salons: Fae! in June, a brief hiatus, then Airships! in September, and Haberdashery! in October.
[14:07] Serafina Puchkina: Check out aethersalon.blogspot.com for edited and unedited transcripts of this and previous salons, a list of speakers, photos, and assorted witticisms in the “Overheard at the Salon” section. If you would like to join the Aether Salon group and receive notifications of future salon events, click the lower right hand corner of the large brown sign by the entrance. As a reminder, all speakers' fund donations go directly to the speakers.
[14:07] Breezy Carver: coughs
[14:07] Viv Trafalgar: grins
[14:07] Breezy Carver: sigh
[14:07] Serafina Puchkina: After the question and answer period, today’s incredibly useful craft will be distributed.
[14:07] Serafina Puchkina: Before we ask you to start your engines... Miss Viv has a few words to say about today's speakers –
[14:08] Viv Trafalgar: Welcome everyone - and thanks to my co-host the wonderful Miss Serafina Puchkina
[14:08] Viv Trafalgar: if you can't hear me, you are sitting too far back :)
[14:08] Jedburgh30 Dagger: huh?
[14:08] Viv Trafalgar: Our two speakers today are (puts Jed on the list AGAIN)
[14:08] Viv Trafalgar: Elfod Nemeth and Greg Merryman
[14:08] Penelope Strathearn: If they can't hear you, how will they know you're talking to them? ;-)
[14:09] Viv Trafalgar: Elfod Nemeth is an avid builder (assembling, scripting and texturing) who accepts custom bespoke builds and sells occasional items of well-scripted goodness at his shop Steam Monks.
[14:09] Viv Trafalgar: ((that's the joke Nell :))
[14:09] Viv Trafalgar: His portfolio can be found at http://knol.google.com/k/elfod-nemeth/elfod-nemeth-second-life-portfolio/
[14:09] Viv Trafalgar: Elfod's most eye-catching builds in New Babbage are Tiny Tim and Dagon's Pier. Both are resources for the use of any visitors to or residents of Babbage; however, Tiny Tim is also Elfod's home.
[14:09] Viv Trafalgar: The Pier is a Victorian-style pier modelled after the famous Iron Bridge. It features entertainments (with more planned) and leads, via a pleasant walk, to the giant robot Tiny Tim.
[14:09] Viv Trafalgar: Tiny Tim is a 160m tall, hollow robot. Explorers who traverse its exterior and venture inside may discover a mushroom brewery and dance floor,
[14:09] Viv Trafalgar: a couples lounge chair with sea view, a Mars Expeditionary rocket, an avatar cannon,a games room, a mushroom shredder (that should not be touched!),
[14:10] Viv Trafalgar: a second, wet dance floor, a couples tree and many places to high-dive from and swim.
[14:10] Viv Trafalgar: Tiny Tin and Dagon's Pier can be found at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vernian%20Sea/219/39/117
[14:10] Viv Trafalgar: Greg Merryman is a renowned mechanologist who has forgotten more about engines than many of us will learn in a lifetime.
[14:10] Viv Trafalgar: Since arriving in Babbage, Mr. Merryman has created a number of builds that have caught the eye of the discerning traveller –
[14:10] Viv Trafalgar: from the Soap Factory of yore and the Fire Station (now the Ladies' Fire Brigade House), to the stunning steel mill in Iron Bay.
[14:10] Viv Trafalgar: Greg is however very humble, saying only, "I am a student of the art of mechanics I fix things and build things."
[14:10] Viv Trafalgar: His most recent creations include a new submarine and the tri-tanium airship, as well as scripting for the Iron Bay fleet.
[14:11] Viv Trafalgar: As for engines, they are a passion in this life and in RL.
[14:11] Viv Trafalgar: Iron Bay can be found in Babbage New Babbage, http://slurl.com/secondlife/new%20babbage/101/52/102/.
[14:11] Viv Trafalgar: Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Elfod Nemeth and Greg Merryman.
[14:11] Kat Montpark: `*.¸.*´ APPLAUSE `*.¸.*´APPLAUSE `*.¸.*
´ [14:11] Gizmo Theas: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
[14:11] Jedburgh30 Dagger: claps
[14:11] Canolli Capalini applauds
[14:11] Serafina Puchkina applauds
[14:11] Penelope Strathearn claps
[14:11] Saffia Widdershins applauds
[14:11] Breezy Carver: claps claps .. for both and for Viv .. yay
[14:11] Greg Merryman blushes
[14:11] Alyx Sands applauds
[14:12] Elfod Nemeth: Good Evening all I'm going to give you a brief talk about Sterling Engines, followed by a more thorough talk covering many types of engines from Mr Merryman.
[14:12] Elfod Nemeth: In order to put the Sterling engine into historical context, lets look at when engines where perfected during the 19th century. When I say perfected I mean developed into a usable state where they could be put to practical use.
[14:12] Elfod Nemeth: As we can see, Sterling engines where made practical in the early 19th century. The engines we see here all had their own quirks:
[14:12] Elfod Nemeth: Steam engines were high pressure with steam as the fluid motivator (what pushes the piston), were dangerous due to poor understanding of metal fatigue, high power density generation and high maintenance. They were typically used in large applications - factories, ships, trains.
[14:13] Elfod Nemeth: Sterling Engines have low power density, run on ambient heat or cold source, use ordinary air as fluid motivator, extremely safe (impossible to explode), near silent operation and are very low maintenance.
[14:13] Elfod Nemeth: Internal Combustion engines have higher density of power than ever before, use volatile explosive fuel, high maintenance and can be used in mobile applications. As a result they quickly went into went into mass production and have seen over 100 years of refinement
[14:13] Viv Trafalgar: No exploding engines?
[14:13] Elfod Nemeth: not from sterling engines, no
[14:13] Viv Trafalgar: well hmph
[14:14] Elfod Nemeth: Here we can see the relative merits of these engines in terms of efficiency. It's surprising just how efficient the sterling engine is. So why aren't we surrounded by Sterling engines today? In the 19th century sterling engines were made from cast iron, as were steam engines, and even though they weren't subject to the same metal fatigue as steam engines they were prone to burn out on one end due to oxidisation of the iron where the heat source was applied, creating a hole and resulting in pressure loss.
[14:14] Elfod Nemeth: Here we simplest form of Sterling engine, what is more correctly termed a heat engine. A cylinder is heated at one end, then cooled at the other. This forces the air to rise, then cool, creating rising and falling air pressure within the cylinder. A piston, seen at the top here, is sucked and pushed as a result creating motive force. This is horrifically inefficient as we can see.
[14:15] Elfod Nemeth: This development, still a heat engine, adds a displacer, a moving piece that shuttles back and forth within the cylinder. The displacer, loosely fitting, shunts the gas, usually aided by the fly wheel so the cooling and heating are applied faster. Amazingly this doubles the performance from 1% to an astonishing 2%! Heady stuff.
[14:15] Kat Montpark laughs.
[14:16] Elfod Nemeth: Here is where Robert Sterling comes in adding the innovation that made sterling engines practical. Along the side we can see a heat sponge otherwise know as a regenerator. This simple addition retains heat as the air in the cylinder passes between hot and cold states, heating and cooling the air faster, retaining heat that would otherwise be lost to the surrounding environment.
[14:17] Elfod Nemeth: The model you see here (both are identical) display a form of alpha engine that doesn't have a displacer but does have a heat sponge regenerator in the form of a metal mesh. Heat is collected from the rising geothermal water on the right, heats the air in the tube, which passes through the regenerative mesh. The hot expanding air pushes up the cylinder exposing the air to the cooler part of the cylinder, cooled by the protruding heat sink vanes. The cooled air contracts passing though the heat sink warming as it passes to be heated again from the geothermal water and the cycle starts again.
[14:18] Elfod Nemeth: So what happened to Sterling engines?
[14:18] Viv Trafalgar: Seriously - they seem like they'd be completely useful
[14:18] Viv Trafalgar: and clean
[14:18] Elfod Nemeth: Because of poor materials (basic cast iron) Sterling engines had a high failure rate, the iron simply oxidised after prolonged exposure to a heat source and perforated. Despite this tens of thousands of Stirling engines were used to power water pumps, run small machines, and turn fans, from the time of their invention up until about 1915.
[14:18] Elfod Nemeth: As electricity became more widely available in the early 1900s, and as gasoline became readily available as a fuel for automobiles, electric motors and gasoline engines began to replace Stirling engines which never got the chance to fulfil their full potential.
[14:19] Elfod Nemeth: Today Sterling Engines are seeing something of a revival, being used where there are abundant free sources of energy, such as geothermal vents, concentrated focused sunlight and even the excess heat from other engines. [14:19] Elfod Nemeth: I leave you with a rather poor picture from Robert Sterling's 1816 patent application of the air engine design which later came to be known as the Stirling Engine. And words of the man himself:
[14:20] Elfod Nemeth: "…These imperfections have been in a great measure removed by time and especially by the genius of the distinguished Bessemer. If Bessemer iron or steel had been known thirty five or forty years ago there is a scarce doubt that the air engine would have been a great success … It remains for some skilled and ambitious mechanist in a future age to repeat it under more favourable circumstances and with complete success…" (written in the year 1876 by Dr. Robert Sterling [1790-1878])
[14:21] Serafina Puchkina whispers: amazing
[14:21] Viv Trafalgar: I would love to see a few of those slides again Elfod –
[14:21] Canolli Capalini applauds.. quietly.
[14:21] Elfod Nemeth: now?
[14:22] Beq Janus: Can we get them put on the Ning?
[14:22] Viv Trafalgar: Perhaps, or if you'll put them online somewhere/
[14:22] Viv Trafalgar: yes, exactly!
[14:22] Elfod Nemeth: I can certainly do that
[14:22] Viv Trafalgar: We can take a couple of questions for Elfod –
[14:22] Viv Trafalgar: while Mr. Merryman gets set up
[14:23] Viv Trafalgar: ((the grid is a little wonky today - we are so glad so many of you were able to make it, despite the ... wonk))
[14:23] Greg Merryman: no questions for Elfod?
[14:23] Alyx Sands: ((wonky is a nice way to put it))
[14:23] Viv Trafalgar: I have a couple –
[14:23] Viv Trafalgar: but others should go
[14:24] Elfod Nemeth: grins
[14:24] Jedburgh30 Dagger: ((Greg looks 8bit))
[14:24] Viv Trafalgar: lol
[14:24] Viv Trafalgar: we can keep going and run questions at the end. I'll save mine on my List I have here...
[14:24] Greg Merryman: ok
[14:24] Viv Trafalgar: Thank you Elfod!
[14:24] Greg Merryman: Hi, first I’d like to thank Viv and Sera for inviting me to speak at the very prestigious Aether Salon and to thank all of you for attending and I’d like to thank Mr Elfod Nemeth for his enlightening presentation of the Sterling engine and hopefully adding his wit and charisma to what would otherwise be my very dry and boring presentation.
[14:25] Viv Trafalgar: lol
[14:25] Greg Merryman: Steam engines and stirling engines are both examples of external combustion engines; that is: engines whose heat source is on the outside of the engine rather than on the inside like the German gasoline engine created by Mr Otto that you may have seen about.
[14:25] Greg Merryman: The first know steam engine (the aeolipile) was invented in the first century AD by Hero of Alexandria but it was simply a novelty. I created an aeolipile for your viewing pleasure (to my left near the beverage dispenser) and feel free to get one from the box next to it (buy for 0L).
[14:26] Viv Trafalgar: Yay! Toyz!
[14:26] Alyx Sands: Oooh, decorative pieces for my house!
[14:26] Viv Trafalgar: ((I knew I felt something hot over here))
[14:26] Greg Merryman: I was standing over there earlier :)
[14:26] Viv Trafalgar: ::puts Greg on the List::
[14:27] Greg Merryman: Steam technology lay dormant for nearly 1,500 years after Hero created his toy.
[14:27] Autopilotpatty Poppy takes notes
[14:27] Greg Merryman: It seems hard to believe something as important as steam power could have been lost for so long but it appears to the case.
[14:27] Greg Merryman: Steam engines weren’t mentioned again in history until the prolific Muslim inventor Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf al-Shami al-Asadi (and no, I won’t go voice and pronounce that for you “) describes a steam engine and steam turbine in a book he had written named “The Sublime Methods of Spiritual Machines”.
[14:27] Viv Trafalgar: people were too busy killing each other?
[14:28] Kat Montpark tsks.
[14:28] Greg Merryman: I'm not really sure what happened
[14:28] Alyx Sands is a linguist and COULD pronounce it...
[14:28] Jim sneaks in quietly.
[14:28] Greg Merryman makes a note of that fact
[14:28] Serafina Puchkina loves the name of that book
[14:28] Greg Merryman: “The Sublime Methods of Spiritual Machines” which is just the coolest name for a book, ever.
[14:28] Greg Merryman: thanks for that Sera :)
[14:29] Alyx Sands goes to get a copy for her library
[14:29] Kat Montpark: I would have thought it was a book about meditation, on that title.
[14:29] Greg Merryman: Other inventors and tinkerers mention steam turbines and engines in their writings but it wasn’t until an English military engineer named Thomas Savery in 1698 invented one he called the Miner’s Friend, and even that wasn’t really what we’d call an engine. It was a pump used to pump water out of mines and it did not even have a flywheel or many moving parts.
[14:30] Greg Merryman: We should stop and talk about the theory behind the early steam engines which applies to the stirling too I guess.
[14:30] Greg Merryman: For the most part, when matter is heated it expands and when cooled it contracts. (yes, your pipes burst when they freeze but that’s an odd case)
[14:31] Elfod Nemeth: unique too
[14:31] Greg Merryman: this is also how an internal combustion engine works... gasoline explodes in the cylinder and the expanding gasses are what push the pistons
[14:31] Greg Merryman: When we think of a steam engine we imagine very high pressure, hot, expanding steam pushing on engine cylinders to do work but many of the early steam engines did not work that way.
[14:31] Viv Trafalgar: Grins
[14:32] Greg Merryman: Most early steam engines only used the hot steam to return the cylinders back to where they started.
[14:32] Greg Merryman: It was the idea that things contract when they are cooled that did the actual heavy lifting.
[14:32] Greg Merryman: Engines that capitalize on the fact that when you cool off matter is contracts are known as "atmospheric engines", due to the fact that the atmosphere is doing the pushing into a much lower pressure vessel.
[14:32] Greg Merryman: it*
[14:33] Greg Merryman: Basically what Mr Savery built was a large coffee percolator. All he did was shoot steam into a pipe that was down in some water at the bottom of a mine….
[14:33] Greg Merryman: Then he shutoff the steam and waited for the lake to cool the pipe and condense the steam into the pipe back into water thereby creating a vacuum.
[14:33] Viv Trafalgar: I would have SO passed my materials that shape civilization course if I'd come to salon first.
[14:33] Alyx Sands: /gets a sudden craving for fresh coffee
[14:33] Greg Merryman: The atmosphere pushed the mine water into the very empty pipe, them he closed the valve at the bottom of the pipe.
[14:33] Viv Trafalgar: lol @ Alyx
[14:33] Autopilotpatty Poppy smells the freshly perked coffee
[14:33] Greg Merryman: Then he’d let steam back into the water filled pipe until it overflowed the water and then did it all over again, of course the fairly high pressure steam blasting into the relatively cold water in the pipe meant a lot of its energy was wasted needlessly heating up the water and the steam had to be fairly high pressure which is why they had so much trouble with the builders exploding..
[14:34] Greg Merryman: boilers* exploding
[14:34] Kat Montpark laughs.
[14:34] Greg Merryman: Word does not fix everything, it seems
[14:34] Elfod Nemeth: beans?
[14:34] Viv Trafalgar: hehe
[14:34] Greg Merryman: It was terribly inefficient but it was somewhat better than horses or donkeys pulling a rope that had buckets tied to it.
[14:34] Jedburgh30 Dagger: mmmm
[14:35] Serafina Puchkina appreciates that both speakers are defining terms for non techies such as herself
[14:35] Greg Merryman: It could only lift a column of water about 40 ft (12M) so deep mines had to have a series of these pumps one above the other.
[14:35] Alyx Sands is still dreaming of coffee...
[14:35] Greg Merryman: Oh and the boilers that generated the steam blew up fairly often
[14:35] Greg Merryman: But he did do one thing incredibly right… he got a patent that covered the use of steam to make things move….and a law was passed that extended his patent for a total of 35 years.
[14:35] Greg Merryman: Next we come to Thomas Newcomen
[14:35] Elfod Nemeth: as if mines in those days weren't already scary enough
[14:35] Kat Montpark: Oooo, lucky him!
[14:35] Viv Trafalgar: seriously.
[14:36] Greg Merryman: In 1712 or so, Thomas Newcomen, another Englishman improved upon Savery’s design considerably. Mr Newcomen separated the engine from the water that was being pumped and figured out that if injected a small amount of cold water into the cylinder it would rapidly condense the steam back into water and create a powerful vacuum. This was a huge step forward and was much much more efficient than Savery’s engine.
[14:36] Viv Trafalgar: Greg did you make these illustrations?
[14:36] Viv Trafalgar: ooo.ooooo
[14:36] Greg Merryman: naw... borrowed them
[14:36] Viv Trafalgar: they're gorgeous
[14:36] Gizmo Theas: Nice animation
[14:37] Greg Merryman: lol still rezzing for me
[14:37] Greg Merryman: He used steam (the pink in the animation) to lift the cylinder back up, then he shot a little bit of cold water into the cylinder to condense the steam and create a partial vacuum, which sucked the engine-side of the beam downwards and lifted the plunger in the pump deep in the mine.
[14:37] Alyx Sands polishes her glasses, but it still looks fuzzy
[14:37] Greg Merryman: that shot of water was the magic sauce
[14:37] Viv Trafalgar: lol
[14:38] Greg Merryman: but there was a problem... Savery had locked up the steam pumping water out of the mine business with a patent
[14:38] Greg Merryman: but even that he installed over 100 steam engines all over Europe before his death.
[14:38] Greg Merryman: A number of attempts were made to use the Newcomen steam engine to drive various machines rather than pumps, but they all failed due to the intermittent pulsing motion of the engine. The Newcomen engine was used pretty much as is for 50 years.
[14:39] Greg Merryman: this pic is one of the few surviving Newcomen engines
[14:39] gstone Turas: Viv you are a dear, but I've been sitting entirely too much - thank you though.
[14:39] Viv Trafalgar: :)
[14:40] Greg Merryman: James Watt, a Scotsman, came up with the idea to condense the steam in a separate vessel from the main engine cylinder. Newcomen injected water into the thick walled cast iron cylinder to condense the steam but it also cooled the engine off quite a bit. So the next injection of steam into the engine to start the next cycle had to re-heat the somewhat cooled off engine which wasted a lot of the energy that the steam contained.
[14:41] Greg Merryman: After many false starts, Watt teamed up with a guy named Matthew Boulton who owned a foundry.
[14:42] Greg Merryman: They installed their first engine in 1776 which was still basically a pump. Boulton urged Watt to turn the reciprocating pump into a rotational engine. A man by the name of James Pickard held the patent for the crank (it seems the patent office was just as screwed up back then as today), one of Watt’s employees invented the Sun and planet gear to get around the patent on the crank .
[14:43] Greg Merryman: they had to turn the recipircating motion into rroational motion using this... cause some guy patented the freakin crank of all things
[14:43] Viv Trafalgar: the patent office? Screwy?
[14:43] Viv Trafalgar: nah
[14:43] Alyx Sands: Cranky!
[14:43] Kat Montpark laughs again!
[14:43] Canolli Capalini: cracks up
[14:43] Greg Merryman: I didn't know it was screwed up for that long
[14:43] Viv Trafalgar: patent trolls of the 19th century!
[14:43] Greg Merryman: lol at Alyx
[14:44] Greg Merryman: Watt went on to create a double acting engine that used steam on both sides of the piston to move it back and forth. He was the first to add a centrifugal governor to automatically regulate the speed of the steam engine
[14:44] Greg Merryman: now that''s finally my idea of a steam engine
[14:45] Greg Merryman: Watt went on to create a double acting engine that used steam on both sides of the piston to move it back and forth. He Watt was adamant about using only low pressure steam to power his steam engines. He felt (and rightfully so at the time) that high pressure steam was just too dangerous. Iron was not a very good material to use for boilers, cylinders etc. due to its brittleness…. Boilers made of iron would fail spectacularly rather than just develop a leak when something went wrong.
[14:45] Viv Trafalgar: that's gorgeous.
[14:45] Saffia Widdershins: Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit ... that's all about patents being screwed
[14:45] Kat Montpark: OOo, can't yet imagine one o' those in City Hall?
[14:45] Viv Trafalgar: haha!! Excellent connection Ms Widdershins!
[14:46] Alyx Sands silently curses at circumlocutions
[14:46] Greg Merryman: that's blur is an example of a double acting piston
[14:46] Greg Merryman: steam pushes it both ways
[14:47] Greg Merryman: double action was a huge improvement
[14:47] Greg Merryman: I built a steam engine is SL awhile back.... this was what I based it on
[14:48] Greg Merryman: I don't think it would operate here with all the lag so I won't get it out
[14:48] Kat Montpark: Say what ye will about crazy patents, it makes for a beautiful-looking machine.
[14:48] Viv Trafalgar: there's one at the Benoir's place in Wheatstone!
[14:48] Viv Trafalgar: it's awesome
[14:48] Serafina Puchkina: I agree Kat
[14:48] Greg Merryman: by this time the patent for the crank had expired
[14:49] Greg Merryman: Methods of smelting the iron improved and with the addition of coke (a by product of crude oil refining) into the iron as combustible, iron makers in the middle 1800s were actually making a crude from of steel which greatly improved the boilers.
[14:49] Alyx Sands resists the urge to yell "crank shafted"!
[14:50] Greg Merryman: my steel mill in the Iron Bay uses coke mixed in with the ore in the furnace
[14:50] Viv Trafalgar: lol
[14:50] Greg Merryman: they did not get a good mix of steel this way tho... some of the material was iron and some was steel
[14:50] Greg Merryman: Someone along the way got the brilliant idea to make a plug out of lead and put into the boiler. If the boiler ran out of water or built up too much pressure the lead plug would melt and blow relieving pressure on the boiler and directing the steam to hopefully a safe area rather than into one’s face. This is not unlike the re-useable pop off valve on today’s water heaters.
[14:51] Serafina Puchkina is impressed: “Pretty clever.”
[14:51] Greg Merryman: Low pressure steam (1 or 2 PSI) where much safer than higher pressure engines but they had to be quite large and heavy in order to get any work out of the low temp low pressure steam. A true Watt engine was far too large and heavy to be used in vehicles except for a steam locomotive which he patented in 1784.
[14:51] Viv Trafalgar notes some friends of the mayor in the audience and wonders if this would look good in city hall
[14:51] Greg Merryman: you can see in this diagram they're starting to get more complicated
[14:52] Viv Trafalgar: ooo schematic pr0n
[14:52] Greg Merryman: Watt retired in 1800 the same year his original separate condenser patent ran out and many, many companies and inventors all over the world began to make steam engines. These next slides are photos of some of the post-watt engines.
[14:52] Viv Trafalgar: ::blushes::
[14:52] Alyx Sands giggles inappropriately and blushes too
[14:52] Greg Merryman: Watt’s steam engine ushered in the Industrial revolution in Europe. No longer did factories have to built alongside rivers or rely on the intermittent wind to operate. Factories would generally have one large Watt engine that drove a series of pulleys that powered many devices in the factory. Grinders, saws lathes, sewing machines were just some of the tools that would get their power from an overhead pulley/belt that was powered by that one big steam engine.
[14:53] Autopilotpatty Poppy looks around innocently
[14:53] Viv Trafalgar: grins
[14:53] Jedburgh30 Dagger: gearhead pr0n
[14:53] Greg Merryman: As the 19th century progressed many inventors continued to improve upon the steam engine. The created multiple cylinder engines that extracted work from the waste steam from the preceding cylinder to further increase efficiency. Europe was afraid of high pressure stream engines due to the problems they had seen with them in the past but the US had no experience with exploding boilers etc so Americans quickly surpassed the gun-shy Europeans in the creation of high pressure steam engines.
[14:53] beth India: it was incredibly dangerous in the large factories though, many children and adult were killed by these machines
[14:54] Greg Merryman: yes.... limbs were lost too
[14:54] Viv Trafalgar: aye Beth, completely right
[14:54] Autopilotpatty Poppy shudders
[14:54] Greg Merryman: no belt guards or OSHA back in those days
[14:54] Canolli Capalini: because that's where children and women belong, on the factory floors.
[14:54] Jimmy Branagh: Ay!
[14:54] Jimmy Branagh: Wotch it!
[14:54] Alyx Sands: OI!
[14:55] Viv Trafalgar whispers to Canoli... 'don't make the urchins mad... they've been holding meetings....'
[14:55] Greg Merryman: this is a very efficient engine... it uses waste steam from the first cylinder to power the second and so on
[14:55] Greg Merryman: this type of engine would have been used on ships for instance
[14:56] Greg Merryman: very high pressure/hot hot steam
[14:56] Beq Janus: erotica again
[14:56] Galactic Baroque: supersaturated
[14:56] Canolli Capalini: all that pumping.. and pushing and pulling.
[14:56] Beq Janus moans
[14:56] Canolli Capalini fans herself.
[14:56] Greg Merryman: lol
[14:56] Kat Montpark snickers.
[14:57] Alyx Sands: /moans too
[14:57] Viv Trafalgar: there's the babbage I know and love.
[14:57] Greg Merryman blushes yet again
[14:57] Elfod Nemeth: chuckles
[14:57] Boh Benoir: blushes.
[14:57] beth India winks at Beq
[14:57] Galactic Baroque looks at the ball governor and gasps
[14:58] Boh Benoir: Another steamy Salon...
[14:58] Canolli Capalini: chuckles
[14:58] Greg Merryman: building a steam engine in SL is easy.... scripting it is hard
[14:58] Kat Montpark: In every sense o' th' word. *winks*
[14:58] Viv Trafalgar: aye –
[14:58] Jasper Kiergarten: that's the truth
[14:58] Viv Trafalgar: what's the hardest part?
[14:58] Boh Benoir: grins as Jasper.
[14:59] Greg Merryman: my most successful attempt used llSetAlpha to turn on and off a series of 8 axles, 8 pushrods and 8 pistons
[14:59] Viv Trafalgar: um. and by that I mean, what is the most DIFFICULT part of the task?
[14:59] Jedburgh30 Dagger: heh
[14:59] Beq Janus giggles
[14:59] Alyx Sands takes linguistic notes of inappropriate gearhead pr0n
[14:59] Greg Merryman: the steam engine at Kandace's lighthouse moved the prims by doing some pretty heavy math that is beyond me
[14:59] Viv Trafalgar: that's some loops you had to write, Greg.
[14:59] Serafina Puchkina chuckles
[15:00] Greg Merryman: yeah very loopy
[15:00] beth India: recursive even
[15:00] Alyx Sands scribbles frantically
[15:00] Greg Merryman: and that's concludes my presentation
[15:00] Gizmo Theas: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
[15:00] Autopilotpatty Poppy APPLAUDS!!!
[15:00] Jimmy Branagh applauds.
[15:00] Kat Montpark: `*.¸.*´ APPLAUSE `*.¸.*´APPLAUSE `*.¸.*´
[15:00] Alyx Sands applauds and cheers
[15:00] Fixit Steampunk shouts: Bravo
[15:00] Penelope Strathearn claps
[15:00] Serafina Puchkina applauds
[15:00] Beq Janus applauds loudly
[15:00] Byron Wexhome: /applauds
[15:00] Boh Benoir: Bravo, Greg!
[15:01] gstone Turas: Miss Turas shouts Bravo
[15:01] Jimmy Branagh: Thet was most informative.
[15:01] beth India: Bravo
[15:01] Viv Trafalgar: Simply awesome Greg!
[15:01] Saffia Widdershins applauds
[15:01] Jimmy Branagh applauds.
[15:01] Greg Merryman: thank you
[15:01] Viv Trafalgar: Bravo Elfod!
[15:01] Canolli Capalini applauds
[15:01] Serafina Puchkina: Are there questions for our speakers?
[15:01] Elfod Nemeth: for those who live in the UK you can see a very early bem engine and other excellent steam engines at the science museum London: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/motive_power/1920-124.aspx
[15:02] beth India: When do you think the decline of the steam engine started and what was the biggest factor in that?
[15:02] Viv Trafalgar: Please don't hesitate ladies and gentlemen
[15:02] Boh Benoir: Greg, where is that engine build of yours that you mentioned?
[15:02] Viv Trafalgar: Excellent question Beth!
[15:02] Viv Trafalgar: Beth first and then Boh
[15:02] Greg Merryman: it was slow to start compared to the new gasoline engine
[15:03] Greg Merryman: the Stanley steamer bested the gasoline engines in races
[15:03] Greg Merryman: but it had to warm up for 20 minutes before you could use it
[15:03] Viv Trafalgar: ((after questions I'll put the craft box out - but they have to be GOOD questions! ::smiles sweetly::))
[15:03] beth India: The SS Great Britain always amazed my, but I guess the size and weight also counted against steam engines?
[15:03] Greg Merryman: I've got the steam engine for sale in my store in the canals but it's not out
[15:03] Jedburgh30 Dagger: what about horsepower to weight ratios Greg?
[15:04] Greg Merryman: there's one up in the rafters of the steel mill
[15:04] Greg Merryman: yeah... steam was heavier for sure.... had lots of torque tho
[15:04] Greg Merryman: there's a ton of power in a small amount of gasoline
[15:04] Greg Merryman: and it'
[15:05] Greg Merryman: should be pointed out (Thanks Fixit) that about 80% of our electricty comes from steam
[15:05] Canolli Capalini: Are Sterling engines being looked at more in modern times now?
[15:05] Greg Merryman: steam turbines.... which I did not cover cause I thought people might get bored or need coffee to stay awake :) are in use today
[15:06] Greg Merryman: nuclear power plants heat water to amke steam to make a turbine go
[15:06] Alyx Sands dreams of fresh coffee again...
[15:06] Elfod Nemeth: yes, they are being looked at particularly as an alternate to solar panels in countries with good sunshine
[15:06] Boh Benoir: Steam heats & cools most of my RP city's downtown
[15:07] Elfod Nemeth: the sun is focused, via a parabolic mirror onto a sterling engine to generate electicity
[15:07] Canolli Capalini: ohh cool.
[15:07] Greg Merryman: stirling engines have me facinated in RL
[15:07] Gizmo Theas: Or using Fresnel lenses
[15:07] Viv Trafalgar: Did I miss the Fresnel lenses part?
[15:08] Viv Trafalgar: I did, because I was looking at schematics, didn't I?
[15:08] Elfod Nemeth: here's a video on the excellent TED website about using sterling engines to generate electiricity (and where I pinched some of my slides from): http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bill_gross_on_new_energy.html
[15:08] Viv Trafalgar: ((loves TED talks))
[15:08] Greg Merryman too
[15:08] Boh Benoir: nods, hearts TED.
[15:09] Jasper Kiergarten: on the multiple piston engines, is there more stresson the later cylinders, since they take the waste steam off of the previous cylinders?
[15:09] beth India gets out her fresnel lantern that she uses to lure ships to the cliffs, umm uses to light her parlour
[15:09] Viv Trafalgar: snorts
[15:09] Jasper Kiergarten: such that they wear unevenly
[15:09] Viv Trafalgar: @ beth, not at Jasper
[15:09] Greg Merryman: I don;t know.... I did notice they got larger the further down the chain that they went
[15:09] Viv Trafalgar: that's a good question
[15:10] beth India: .me quickly puts it away again
[15:10] Jasper Kiergarten: I see
[15:10] Greg Merryman: I imagine the larger size is due to the lower power steam to blanace it all out
[15:10] Jasper Kiergarten: ah
[15:10] Jasper Kiergarten: makes sense
[15:10] Elfod Nemeth: I presume they got longer because as the steam progresses it looses pressure, therefore more surface area is needed to provide sufficient motive force
[15:11] Greg Merryman: is total BS :)
[15:11] Viv Trafalgar: hah!
[15:11] Greg Merryman: oh now that' s good Elfod
[15:11] Saffia Widdershins: One of the most interesting uses of steam power I saw was in Tuscany
[15:11] Jasper Kiergarten: ah
[15:11] Viv Trafalgar: Oh?
[15:11] Elfod Nemeth: also, there is a giant aeoliophle ride on my pier in the Vernian sea, should have mentioned it earlier
[15:12] Saffia Widdershins: where they use the thermal power of hot springs in an area of Southern Tuscany
[15:12] Viv Trafalgar: what do they use it for Ms Widdershins?
[15:12] Saffia Widdershins: supplying power in the local villages
[15:13] Saffia Widdershins: the hills and roads are all crossed by these huge tubes
[15:13] Saffia Widdershins: bright yellow
[15:13] Serafina Puchkina: wow
[15:13] Aeolus Cleanslate: lots of that going on in Hawaii too - geothermal driving steam turbines producing electricity
[15:13] Aeolus Cleanslate raises his hand
[15:14] Viv Trafalgar: Yes Mr. Cleanslate?
[15:14] Elfod Nemeth: nuclear power stations use steam turbines too Greg?
[15:14] Greg Merryman: yes
[15:14] Viv Trafalgar: ahh Mr. Cleanslate and then Mr. Nemeth
[15:14] Elfod Nemeth: nods
[15:14] Viv Trafalgar: or not
[15:14] Aeolus Cleanslate: forgive me if you covered this earlier, but early steam engines seem to have alternated between vertical and horizontal boilers. Is one better than another? Or does one work better in certain circumstances?
[15:14] Elfod Nemeth: grins
[15:14] Breezy Carver: looks and smiles
[15:14] Elfod Nemeth: god question
[15:14] Greg Merryman: hmmm
[15:14] Elfod Nemeth: *good
[15:14] Greg Merryman: I don't know
[15:14] Viv Trafalgar: very good question
[15:15] Breezy Carver: god works too !
[15:15] Elfod Nemeth: ponders
[15:15] Aeolus Cleanslate: it might just be a form factor thing for railroads
[15:15] Aeolus Cleanslate: easier to make bigger boilers longer than taller
[15:15] Elfod Nemeth: shouldn't make any difference really, it's just pressure that would apply equally regardless of shape, no?
[15:15] Greg Merryman: most of the early ones were for pumping water out of mines
[15:15] Greg Merryman: so a vertical orientation would certainly make sense there
[15:16] Jasper Kiergarten: well I'm reminded of the slant 6 engine and the theory behind that
[15:16] Greg Merryman: good point
[15:16] Aeolus Cleanslate missed that part
[15:16] Jasper Kiergarten: perhaps there's something to orientation indeed
[15:16] Greg Merryman: the early engines were beam engines....so they had to be verticle
[15:16] Viv Trafalgar: realizes that the boys are going to take over the salon courtyard long after dark.
[15:17] Greg Merryman: vertical
[15:17] Jasper Kiergarten: lol
[15:17] Viv Trafalgar: Have the size issues for steam engines been overcome? Most seem so enormous - and combustion engines can be so small
[15:18] Greg Merryman: pretty much yes
[15:18] Aeolus Cleanslate: I've seen some pretty tiny steam engines - and the little ones still seem pretty powerful
[15:18] Greg Merryman: now that we have better materials to work with we can use high pressure steam safely
[15:18] Jasper Kiergarten: yes
[15:18] Greg Merryman: low pressure requires lots of surfaced area to push on
[15:18] Elfod Nemeth: you can get sterling engines now that will run from a tea candle flame or if dipped in coffee
[15:18] Aeolus Cleanslate: speaking of which - I re-read the old Steamboy novel the other day and wondered about *storing* steam
[15:19] Breezy Carver: umm sort of the like the motion of the ocean so to speak smiles ...
[15:19] Aeolus Cleanslate: if you could reduce the temperature loss, couldn't you theoretically build a steam *battery*?
[15:19] Greg Merryman: one of the big stirling projects stores heat in molten salt underground
[15:19] Viv Trafalgar: I knew we were going there! I just didn't know who would be driving the bus, Breezy Carver
[15:19] Greg Merryman: sure
[15:20] Viv Trafalgar: I'm going to pause the questions for just a second
[15:20] Viv Trafalgar: and then open the floor back up to whomever wishes
[15:20] Greg Merryman: what's the name of the super light insulating material.... called frozen smoke
[15:20] Beq Janus: there was a nanotech steam engine made
[15:20] Beq Janus: pistons at 5 microns I think
[15:20] Viv Trafalgar: really beq? I want to see that
[15:20] Aeolus Cleanslate: me too
[15:20] Viv Trafalgar shushes herself
[15:20] Beq Janus: googles
[15:20] Fixit Steampunk: aerogel
[15:20] Beq Janus: http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.auburn.edu%2F~rainerk%2Fnano.ppt&ei=ZI0QSqvDGZGUjAew8LnCBg&usg=AFQjCNFce6I8UhwknLTSbNmizTYfJCjaoQ&sig2=u46o8sVM4ZiFf-6zSQEKhQ
[15:20] Greg Merryman: thanks Fixit yes
[15:21] Viv Trafalgar: Sera and I would like to thank each and every one of you for fighting the grid to be here today!
[15:21] Viv Trafalgar: From the emails and IMs I've received a number of Salon fans were locked out or unable to TP
[15:21] Viv Trafalgar: please let them know that we will be publishing the entire transcript at http://aethersalon.blogspot.com
[15:21] Greg Merryman: OMG that's cool Beq
[15:22] Viv Trafalgar: as is our custom, we offer a craft towards the end of each salon. This month the craft is DIY steampunk toolbelts, as suggested by Mr. Gatsby Szuster.
[15:22] Serafina Puchkina: Edited and unedited versions will be posted
[15:22] Beq Janus: easier URL www.auburn.edu/~rainerk/nano.ppt
[15:22] Elfod Nemeth: look at the tiny gears!
[15:22] Viv Trafalgar: I will put the boxes out - I beg you to please read the instructions (RTFM!) so that you do not end up with a screwdriver in an uncomfortable place
[15:23] Jimmy chuckles.
[15:23] Kat Montpark snerks. "Good t'know."
[15:23] Beq Janus nods knowingly
[15:23] Viv Trafalgar: I return you all to the questions session - and keep talking!
[15:23] Penelope Strathearn: *laugh*
[15:23] Alyx Sands takes notes so no gear get stuck in her behind
[15:23] Saffia Widdershins smiles
[15:23] Serafina Puchkina wiggles with excitement: I had a sneak peak and the toolbelts are sooooooo cool
[15:23] Beq Janus: Sera is that an excited wiggle or a misplaced screwdriver?
[15:24] Greg Merryman: the aeolipile to my left is a freebie too
[15:24] Aeolus Cleanslate: rimshot
[15:24] Alyx Sands groans
[15:24] Viv Trafalgar: I would like to thank our speakers profusely - the work you did today and the information you provided was extraordinary!
[15:24] Aeolus Cleanslate claps - hear hear
[15:24] Elfod Nemeth: it was a pleasure
[15:24] Jedburgh30 Dagger: yay
[15:24] Serafina Puchkina grins and sets the screwdriver aside for later (I am so editing that out)
[15:24] Jasper Kiergarten: yes, excellent presentations, both of you!
[15:24] Greg Merryman: it was fun
[15:24] Viv Trafalgar: lol@ beq (you are so not)
[15:25] Canolli Capalini applauds
[15:25] Kat Montpark laughs and claps.
[15:25] Jasper Kiergarten: very informative
[15:25] Alyx Sands applauds again
[15:25] Serafina Puchkina applauds
[15:25] Raynor Hammerer: /applauds
[15:25] Gizmo Theas: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
[15:25] Jimmy Branagh applauds.
[15:25] Fixit Steampunk: excellent information
[15:25] Viv Trafalgar: Please join us again next month - and join the salon group as well!
[15:25] Saffia Widdershins applauds
[15:25] Elfod Nemeth: and a comfy sofa too
[15:25] Saffia Widdershins: fascinating
[15:25] Penelope Strathearn applauds
[15:25] KlausWulfenbach Outlander applauds
[15:25] Viv Trafalgar: lol I've always wanted someone to give a salon lying down
[15:25] Canolli Capalini coughs at Elfod "traitor"
[15:26] Serafina Puchkina: Thank you Elfod and Greg
[15:26] Beq Janus: a special cheer for Elfod our most relaxed speaker ever
[15:26] Alyx Sands: I have to apologise, but I need to leave rather urgently-it's after midnight here!
[15:26] Elfod Nemeth grins at Olli
[15:26] Serafina Puchkina: Good night Miss Sands
[15:26] Alyx Sands: Good night everyone, and thank you for the great presentations (and the gifts!)
[15:26] Jimmy Branagh: G'noight!
[15:27] Jasper Kiergarten: night
[15:27] Gizmo Theas: Wonderful presentation. Thank you
[15:27] Raynor Hammerer: I am afraid I will have to do so, too, for that very same reason.
[15:27] Fixit Steampunk: night
[15:27] Gizmo Theas waves goodnight
[15:27] Kat Montpark: G'night!
[15:27] Serafina Puchkina: Goodnight to those leaving now and thanks for coming!
[15:27] Viv Trafalgar: I am thrilled to announce that I am splitting the speakers fund of
[15:27] Viv Trafalgar: over 5K L with Greg and Elfod now
[15:28] Serafina Puchkina: YAY
[15:28] Viv Trafalgar: (that is, they're splitting it - I'm not gettin any)
[15:28] Beq Janus claps
[15:28] Jasper Kiergarten: nice
[15:28] Viv Trafalgar: 5630L to be exact, thank you Herr Baron!
[15:29] Mara Razor: *hugs jimmy*
[15:29] Mara Razor: how are you dear?
[15:29] Jimmy Branagh: Oy'm foine Miss Mara. How are you?
[15:29] Jim smiles
[15:29] Jasper Kiergarten: do excellent presentations gentlemen
[15:30] Greg Merryman: sorry Nelle
[15:30] Greg Merryman: thanks Jasper
[15:30] Elfod Nemeth: ty Jasper
[15:30] KlausWulfenbach Outlander: Bitte, Fraulein Trafalgar and the Herren.
[15:30] Mara Razor: i'm fine darling. how is miss myrtil? have you guys been taking care of the soup kitchen in my absence?
[15:30] Greg Merryman: nice to see you in the flesh Fixit
[15:30] Penelope Strathearn: *smiles at Greg*
[15:30] Fixit Steampunk: Great Job Greg
[15:30] Fixit Steampunk: and thanks
[15:30] Greg Merryman: thanks
[15:29] Jasper Kiergarten: two excellent presentations gentlemen
[15:30] Greg Merryman: sorry Nelle
[15:30] Greg Merryman: thanks Japser
[15:30] Elfod Nemeth: ty Jasper
[15:30] KlausWulfenbach Outlander: Bitte, Fraulein Trafalgar and the Herren.
[15:30] Penelope Strathearn: Excellent presentation, Elfod and Greg!
[15:30] Greg Merryman: thanks
[15:31] Elfod Nemeth: ty :)
[15:31] Boh Benoir: Thanks, Greg & Elfod!

May Aether Salon

We are thrilled to welcome master builders Greg Merryman and Elfod Nemeth, who will join us to speak about Engines - from steam to Sterling, and beyond.

Sunday, May 17 at 2 pm slt
Babbage Palisade
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Babbage%20Palisade/97/59/105/?title=Aet...

Spinning cogs
and grinding gears
pistons loud
assault the ears, as
Industry grows
and cities rise
on the power
our engines
synthesize.

Please gear up to learn about the workhorse of industry, the engine, the inventors who made them faster and better, and their secret inner workings. Should you desire, there will also be tea. Join your fellow gearheads on May 17 at 2pm slt at Aether Salon.
See you there!

Viv & Sera,
Aether Salon of Babbage
(http://aethersalon.blogspot.com)