[TheForge] preheating forge blower air

[Michael Boettcher]

>Well, Grumpy Jenkins, of drag racing fame, is a family friend, and once, 
>while
>visiting him at the track, I saw him adding ice cubes to his funny car, and
>asked him why. His explanation was that he was cooling the air because it
>became more dense, and thus had a much higher O2 content, thus burning
>in his engine more efficiently. I figure he must know what he was doing,
>because since he's retired from the track, he's building and selling high
>performance engines.
>
>I suspect that this might be one of those things that people are going to
>have to try and compare results with. Just because it improves a high
>performance engine is no guarantee that it will improve a forge- but until we
>try, there's no guarantee it won't, either.
>
>Phlip
I believe the two ideas being talked about (racecar air cooling, and forge 
air preheating) are equally useful, but in different ways.

In the racecar, you want as much air packed into a set volume as 
possible.  To do so they use turbos and inter-coolers.  Since you only have 
a certain volume, the denser the air, the more oxygen.

In the forge, you can pump as much air through it as you want.  The heat 
that is going up your flue is wasted.  If you recover some of that heat to 
preheat the incoming air, you will be more efficient.  It doesn't matter if 
its less dense, since you can just pump more of it.  On the hobycast list 
they were talking about preheaters for cupola furnaces a while ago.  There 
was a savings in coal, since the air didn't have to be heated as much.

Hope this helps

Michael


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