Re: Horse power in the old steam engines

Posted by Joe Evans on August 23, 2005 at 06:31:33 from (209.41.211.82):

In Reply to: Re: Horse power in the old steam engines posted by Fred Martin on August 22, 2005 at 19:19:11:

Fred: the machine you saw was probably a Prony brake, and I'm willing to bet $100 it belonged to Bruce Babcock, a licensed boiler engineer and instuctor. Bruce travels to many shows in the Ohio area with his brake and display of steam piping and boiler components. A fascinating fellow. I spent a half hour or so with him this past Sunday taking advantage of his tent to get out of a rain storm at the Dover, Ohio power show.

I have had my W-9 on Babcock's brake two times the most recent being this past Sunday. We were not able to get a good reading the first time two years ago as there was a problems with the flat belt so full power couldn't be transmitted. This Sunday there was no such problem, and the W-9 proved to be very, very muscular. In fact, I shut it down early--I felt the tractor was pulling too hard for too long and got uneasy about it. It could've pulled more as the RPM was still holding relatively steady, but I didn't want to risk it.

The brake simply measures torque in foot-lbs (applied to the scale) and RPM (monitored) with a hand-held tach. These figures are plugged into the equation TORQUE X RPM divided by 5252. Babcock has simplified the equation somewhat by only having to divide by 1000 because his torque arm that pushes on the scale is precisely 5.252 feet long from the end pin-point to the centerline of the belt pulley axle.

BTW: Bruce Babcock led the investigation into the tragic steam tractor explosion that occurred in Medina, Ohio several years ago.

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