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Showing results for tags 'Turbine'.
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"Nucleus" retro futuristic Atomic streamlined train MOC (4-4-2 Atlantic style turbine loco)
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
Heavily inspired by @Electricsteam's long-awaited in-the-brick Atomic Streamliner project, (as seen here in this thread) I have designed my own Atomic-Age wonder called "Nucleus". It is, as the inspirational original builder once said "a fission powered turbine loco" with 4-4-2 Atlantic wheel arrangement. The Nexus Force logo piece goes on both sides of the locomotive's tender. Nucleus is owned by the Neo Nexus Force, and is a retro-futuristic stream-liner mix of old-style 2-rail technology, but with hyper-modern safety features designed specifically for use by Nexus Force personnel as a very high-speed, high-security ground transport between the northern-most city of St. Nicklaus and north-pole-hugging outpost of Ice Station Odyssey, around 590 miles away. (this all takes places on the ice-bound planet of Beta Polaris, which orbits what we here call the North Star, far away from Earth.) Thus this makes it a space train! Unlike the slower Earth trains, the Nucleus type of space-train is super-streamlined, and can go up to speeds of up to 160 MPH on it's special track, with super-elevated curves and long straight-away's over hundreds of miles, all while using Positive Train Control (PTC) on the the mostly double-track mainline, where all vehicle crossings are flyovers and switches virtually non-existent once out of St. Nicklaus city limits. This train runs along with seven identical versions of the train on the route with up to five in running order on the route and at least one in the maintenance shed / in emergency backup storage at any one time. They are named / numbered Nucleus 1 through 6. The baggage car, which usually holds anything from sled dogs in crates, to core samples of millennia-old meteorites bound for labs under armed guard. All the doors on this model open up, as shown. (The rest of the passenger cars doors on the the other cars open too, but it's only here you will see it being shown!) The passenger cars come in groups of two, jointed together by a Jacobs bogie in the middle. The observation car at the rear of the train. This train will go nicely with my Nexus Force moon base, plus my other, Classic Space themed train based on the Aerotrain, called the Astrotrain. The Nucleus train probably won't be built for a while, (orange isn't a cheap color!) but it's at least on my radar. Once again, a hearty thanks to @Electricsteam for his wonderful eight-wide model, as it inspired my six-wide one. As usual, comments, questions, and complaints are always welcome! -
This is the fourth version of the Joker's Lowrider-inspired car for Bob from the Neo Nexus Force. (a space faction I came up with after the LEGO Universe video game shut down, whose topic can be seen here) I was inspired to create a new front end grille for this car from two newer fender pieces, with one of them upside down to make a unique "O" effect. This very rare car is powered by a turbine, which means it can run on gasoline, diesel, alcohol, paint thinner, and even cheap perfume. It runs very efficiently at high speed, but gets very fuel-hungry at slow speeds, like sitting in bumper-to-bumper City traffic. Luckily for it's owner, Bob, the snowy tundra wastelands offer little time for sitting still, and plenty of space for getting up to very impressive speeds. And if he gets struck in a snowbank, the very high-heat exhaust (which can melt asphalt if stationary too long on City streets!), can easily break the car free with no problem. The rear of the car has a license plate and dual super-hot exhaust. As usual this printed part is missing from the hood. The roof of the car is easily removable to get at the mini-figures seats which allow for figures to sit side-by-side. The spacious opening trunk has plenty of room for luggage and the doors to the cabin area open as well. This LEGO model was partially inspired by the early 1960's Chrysler turbine car (one of the nine left is seen above, but it's not my picture). You can read more about the experimental car at this Wikipedia link on the car. Any thoughts, suggestions, complaints and ideas are always welcome. This car is on the "to be built" list after the current Western project is done. (and when funding allows!)
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Need Help Replicating Historic Engine System
GeorgeCrecy posted a topic in LEGO Technic, Mindstorms, Model Team and Scale Modeling
Dear fellow LEGO enthusiasts, I am in dire need of some help from you folks who are definitely more knowledgeable than I. In this case, I am needing help with the replication of the RMS Titanic's Reciprocating Engines and Turbine. I am in the midst at the moment of working on the project below, though I have not updated it in a great while due to university work. See this link here for the project thread. But this is a minifig scale project, with every door, every window accounted for. This means that in regards to the engines, I am also seeking to make them at least somewhat true to scale and able to work as intended. Obviously this is a big job of some top notch Edwardian-era engineering, but I am hoping that there might be some out there not as technically-challenged (pun totally intended) as I am, willing to help me get this part of the project off the ground. Some of the features I I am looking for include a fully air-powered system, where the air supply would come from tanks hidden in the mock-boilers, that are then funneled at somewhat high pressure to the Triple Recip. Engines, which means that the pressure would go down as it goes through each cylinder (HP, IP, then two LPs). The leftover air at a much lower pressure then goes to a junction that can either go to the Parson's Turbine at what was historically 4 psi, or can go directly to the condensers. With the latter I intend just to make the outside of it and hide inside some custom compressors like this. That would then return to the original air supply. With this I am hoping that I will have a self-supplying system with ideally no more than 5% leakage, or enough compressors that leaks are compensated for. WIth the Parson's Turbine, that can be an accurate shell with whatever is needed inside to include a working turbine, and probably with an gearbox and ascending set of gear ratios to give it the necessary torque. These engines and turbine are meant to actually turn the propellers, perhaps even in water! Some other features would include a replica of the Brown-type reversing engine on the side of each of the Recip engines, making it so that the Stevenson-type eccentrics can change the direction of rotation. Considering the scale, the reversing engine doesn't technically have to be much more than a slightly-hidden piston that does the required job, but any more realism doesn't hurt. If something like this is possible, please let me know. I am really wanting to continue with this project, and this is a central part of it. But without the pieces in front of me instead of on a computer screen, what little I know of engineering definitely doesn't help without that tactile interaction. Thanks for your time, and I look forward to your replies! If it is possible, then I can follow up with the intended dimensions. Here are some references for any that wants some: View of turbine and condensers through wall from main engines rotor shaft model of port-side recip. engine overall basic view path of the steam of original, pressurized air for mine -
As any competent player of city building games would tell you, it's important to get the utilities in place before you start inviting people to come live in your city. I've gone ahead and started the process by building my own modified (improved) version of the promotional Vestas wind turbine model, set #4999: The biggest change is that I've nearly doubled the height of the tower in order to bring the blades into scale with the tower; the Vestas turbine is quite short, at least compared to the wind farms I see here in Wyoming. From the look of it, the towers are a bit more than twice as tall as the blade radius; currently in these images I'm waiting on one more segment in order to bring the turbine up to full height. I also did some work in and around the nacelle, hub, and blades in order to remove gaps and increase the color uniformity in exposed areas, as well as make some small shape changes. The very last addition I made was that of a service door at the base of the tower to allow for workers to enter the turbine for maintenance and such. In the context of my layout, the turbine was built and installed by the 'Mikroelectric' utility company, which services the town and the surrounding areas. I'm hoping to make some custom window cling-style signage to complete the green stripe down the side of the turbine nacelle with the Mikroelectric logo. Most of the gap-filling happened at the little back door that allows access to the motor. Currently in order to power it, I have to hang a battery box out the back. I made the tip of the hub a bit pointier, and smoothed out some of the gaps at the root of the blades. There's even steps leading up to the access door. They're a little off-kilter from how it fits onto the baseplate, but once the tower is mounted onto a MILS-style module it won't matter - and the tower will be a lot less wobbly.
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[MOC] Turbine-powered Rat rod
nerdsforprez posted a topic in LEGO Technic, Mindstorms, Model Team and Scale Modeling
Hey All, Back again with another creation. Perhaps even zanier than my last creation using air, http://www.moc-pages.../moc.php/428357 but part of an overall theme of builds I call FUN WITH AIR http://www.moc-pages...r.php/198856. This one is an air-turbine powered rat rod dragster. Try to say that five times fast! I am going to give the meat and potatoes first (pics and video), but a full explanation and details about the build is given below. I hope it is worth the read. Of special note although I spent a little more time on looks, the main purpose of this build was initial speed, so, again, like my last creation I really wanted to keep the weight down. Therefore no special functions/etc. were added and panels and other elements for aesthetics were kept at a minimum. This creation was built out of 100% LEGO, and no parts were modified. I am not going to post all the pics. If interested, visit the main page for this MOC. http://www.moc-pages.../moc.php/429100 The main feature of this build is that it is driven by an air turbine engine. Building air turbine engines out of Lego has a very short, limited history. Youtube documents some turbines built out of Lego but findings are sparse. Those that were done were more like in 2009-2011ish and not much else has been done since. In addition, they were bulky, color-vomity, and limited in functioning. The turbine created for this build was designed to at least appear like a real turbine engine. Gearing is internal and is geared to roughly 9:1. The turbine is also fairly modular, can easily be taken apart by separating the two halves of which comprise it, and gears easily changed. Gearing to 9:1 (internally within the turbine) produced the best results for the drag racer but I also changed the gears and experimented with 2.8:1. This ratio did not work well at all and involved too many breaks in the drivetrain. 9:1 produced no breaks, slips, etc. In the main video above you can see it working, internals, etc. Building was a little more tricky than it might appear at first glance. But I have to say, I am happy with the geometry of it all. In my opinion connectors are much underutilized for structure/chassis builds. They can be quite strong when combined with others. As can been seen in these pictures, the rotor was a Technic motorcycle wheel. This piece offered many advantages. It is very robust and therefore the rotors would not bend/move to the pressure of the air. It is also pretty beefy. Once it got moving the inertia of the rotation kept it cookin’ for quite some time. The geometry added up perfectly to the encircling #4 connectors. Although the wheel got very close to the edges, as can be seen below and the video they never actually touch the sides of the turbine. The cross section shot above shows the internal gearing. Although the axles did not fully penetrate to the other side on the final model they did on the initial model. I tried to make the turbine as compact as possible without creating too much friction so I tried it as such (usually you want axles to penetrate to the other side for greater strength. Widening the turbine and adding liftarms between the gears below would have allowed for that). So in the final model I shortened the turbine and the space for the gearing (disallowing room for the axles to penetrate to the other side) and it worked just fine. I did give the half-bush space on both sides of the gears so they would not be flush against the liftarms and connectors (too much friction). I made the car a little customizable. Initially I didn’t think I would really add any looks, but as I got playing with things, well…. it just became more and more fun. One version is your classic rough, edgy, rat-rod look, complete with rat-faced gear shifter knob. The other is a more hip, night-out-on-the-town, pimped-out look. The drivetrain is the same to my previous dragster. Interested parties can look there for reference/information. Overall, I must state that I am impressed with the LEGO clutch gear, drive ring, and changeover catch. In my previous project using this mechanism we saw that using the LEGO gears, drive ring and catch held when trying to engage gears moving at an estimated 900 RPMs versus 0 RPMS (1500 RPM x 0.6 = 900) and the elements did just fine. Here, we see them engaging an estimated 1100 RPMs versus 0 (10,000 RPM x .11) and the elements also did just fine. In fact, when I stated earlier that I used different gear combinations in the turbine, the other being 2.8:1, that would mean I am engaging a gear moving at an estimated (10,000 RPMs x .36) 3600 RPMs with one that is not moving at all, and guess what, the LEGO elements discussed above worked just fine! I did not keep the arraignment because, like I said, it failed but this was NOT because of discussed elements. This is because it ripped apart the internal gears in the turbine or other parts of the drivetrain. But the catch, drive ring, and clutch gear all remained intact. NOTE: The estimation of 10,000 RPMs is just that. An estimation. I don’t have a speed counter and did not buy one for the project. Maybe I should have. I did some research and other similar projects and saw a range of 8,000 to more than 30,000 RPMs. Given that I was using much heavier turbine blades mine is likely moving at the lower end of that range. But, given the sound of the turbine heard in the videos, and when holding the turbine while it is going and feeling the gyrations, I feel that 10,000 is likely an accurate estimation. And yes, I did use lubricant. I took the motor apart initially after the first set of videos and saw no damage. I need to take it apart again and inspect for damage a second time. I used 60 PSI of air pressure to drive the engine in the engine-only demonstration in the video; 90 PSI of pressure when actually driving the vehicle. The last two trials in the video did not even use the neutral setting. As can be seen, as 90 PSI the car runs just fine with the gears engaged from the get-go.
