Wood Gasifiers: during WWII, vehicles ran on them

[KilroyJC]

Does anyone have any experience with them? Has anyone here tried to build one successfully?

 

[Rustyiron]

There's lots of it on YouTube

 

[MossRoad]

There was a recent thread discussing this, maybe a month or two ago. Try the search and see if it pops up.

 

[KilroyJC]

There was a recent thread discussing this, maybe a month or two ago. Try the search and see if it pops up.

Will look for it now - thank you!

 

[KilroyJC]

There's lots of it on YouTube

Just looking for independent verification.

 

[ArlyA]

If you're looking for a way to spent lots of $$ and time, then it diffinetly works!

 

[Renze]

Wood gasification: allowing wood to get so hot that combustible gases release, without giving it the oxygen to burn so you can add oxygen with it in an engine and reburn it.

The art is to keep the fire hot enough for the wood to crack into vapour, yet cut enough oxygen to not burn it. Which means its a very inefficient process.

 

[KilroyJC]

Definitely inefficient.

but if supply chain issues “improve” (the chocolate ration will be increased from thirty grams to twenty grams), increases in inefficiency become more acceptable. . .

 

[MossRoad]

It's a good thing to know these skills and pass them on, so if times become so tough that we made need them. However, it's horribly inefficient and labor intensive. So you have to weigh the costs VS benefits. Could you get a job and make enough money to buy enough fuel to do the tasks VS the same amount of time spent gathering fuel, stoking fire, converting a machine, building the gasifier, and operating a machine that will be underpowered due to less energy available in smoke VS gas or diesel.

Anyhow, I do enjoy learning about these technologies, if anything, just to appreciate how well we currently have it even when it seems like hard times. Compared to my parents and grandparents living during the depression and a couple world wars, we got it darn easy still.

 

[CalG]

Gas generation is not a viable fuel for any of today's IC engines. High Compression ratios , Throttle by wire systems, engine management computers, etc. Would be insurmountable.