The Technology
The Open
Oscillatory Approach
Hydram Research's engineers have discovered and developed a new and more efficient way to boil water and generate industrial steam. The elegant open oscillatory approach is a departure from the method we're all accustomed to, crudely attacking the liquid with heat until it bubbles - how we've boiled water since we lived in caves.
In simple terms, our novel boiling method can be described as exciting and maintaining oscillations of a warm multi-ton liquid piston so that it travels several meters up and down a thick pipe.
The process consists of three stages:
01
Evaporation
Low pressure steam is generated in the wake of the falling liquid piston, which drops due to its weight and pressure conditions in the wider side tank.
02
Compression by Liquid Piston
After dropping several meters the liquid piston naturally rushes back up, rapidly squishing the steam. The trick is not to allow the steam to condense back to droplets, but to let the piston pressurize and heat it up - similar to air in a diesel engine.
03
Ejection
About half way up, the steam's pressure forces a valve to open and the steam is ejected into the steam header to do useful work - like district heating, cooking food, or creating paper.
Q: Wait, that seems complex - why not just heat the water?
A: One of the advantages of doing it this way is that most of the steam's energy is derived from a process called "evaporative cooling". The input energy is mainly just to keep the system and the liquid in it warm - not to maintain the oscillation.
